FOR more than 15 years, Israel launched a ruthless land, air and sea blockade of Gaza.
It followed the US failure to anticipate a Hamas win in the 2006 Palestine legislative election and brought forth America's covert Middle East mission to buck up "putschist," Mohammed Dahlan, to destroy Hamas militarily.
The Palestinian coastal enclave continues to be the major casualty of Israeli repression after they voted out Fatah against the will of Tel Aviv and Washington since then.
According to the United Nations, half of the two million Palestinians live in poverty with 80 per cent of the youth unemployed.
Fifteen years of life under blockade has left four out of five children in the Gaza Strip reporting that they live with depression, grief and fear, according to disturbing findings released by Save the Children on June 15, 2022.
While 800,000 children never knew life without blockade, economic deprivation and lack of access to essential services such as healthcare as well as an incessant threat to their lives are adding to the misery of the incarcerated Palestinian children and youngsters.
A symptom of trauma and abuse, temporary reactive mutism, in children is prevalent. Poor hygiene due to inadequate access to clean water and sanitation increases the risk of infection and antibiotic resistance in Gazans.
The beleaguered Palestinians are scarily waiting for the apartheid state's next power display on them to let the international community pay more lip service to the Israeli tyranny before redeploying focus on Ukraine.
It was May 2021 when the Israeli forces launched its last major offensive on Gaza that killed some 253 Palestinians in addition to completely erasing 1,800 houses.
Unlike the Ukrainians whose video of Molotov cocktails was telecasted on the mainstream media to project their right of self-defence, Israel has the privilege to exercise the punitive expedition against Palestinians without stint.
Israel's allies delegitimise Palestine's Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and bill it as anti-Semitic.
They, at the same time, support and bully nations to back the isolation campaign against Russia and exclusion of the Kremlin from international bodies and the world economy.
This is a perfect illustration of blatant Western hypocrisy.
A new wave of normalisation in the greater Middle East adds insult to Palestine injuries. Several Arab states have already established diplomatic relations under the Abraham Accords with Israel and others are lining up to follow.
The European Union (EU)'s gas deal with Egypt and Israel during a regional summit in Cairo, aimed at punishing Russia's economy, tells how the West manipulates between respect of human rights and international law and self-interests.
In the 1990s, after signing of the Oslo Accords – through which the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) handed over 78 per cent of the Palestinian land to Israel and gave legitimacy to the Jewish state — several Gulf states including Qatar, Bahrain and Oman established diplomatic connections with Israel even as the reconciliation disintegrated in 2000 as tension flared following the second intifada.
The Saudi Arabia's proposed Arab Peace Initiative in 2002 paid normalisation with the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state, but the plan de facto lent legitimacy to Israeli state.
After Egypt and Jordan stepped back from the Khartoum Resolution to recognise Israel – the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco have forged diplomatic relations with Israel.
Meanwhile, Iran's intervention in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen to expand region-wide influence as well as to use Palestine as leverage for negotiations with the US has deepened the prospect of any regional consensus on Palestine.
Teheran has been selling its "resistance" narrative via its proxy Hisbollah while avoiding a direct conflict with Israel and playing the Palestine card to "garner popular support" in the wider Gulf.
Given there haven't been any serious peace talks between Palestine and Israel for more than a decade and all countries compete with one another as to how best to exploit the leverage over Palestine to its advantage, the Middle East's promise to Palestine is almost dead.
The PLO retraction from historical position gave a walkover to Israel and the ongoing covert and overt connections between Arab states and Israel, spurred by Iran's pursuit of the regional dominance, alas, will be the last nail in the coffin of the Palestinian independence.
The writer is a private professional and writes on geopolitical issues and regional conflicts
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the New Straits Times