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<a class="gmail-domain gmail-reader-domain" href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/10/13/the-savagery-of-the-war-against-the-palestinian-people/">counterpunch.org</a>
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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">The Savagery of the War Against the Palestinian People</h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">Vijay Prashad - October 13, 2023<br></div>
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<div id="gmail-attachment_298470" class="gmail-wp-caption"><p><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-298470" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Schoolbag_search._7555043158-680x469.jpg" alt="" width="392" height="270" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 0px;"></p><p id="gmail-caption-attachment-298470" class="gmail-wp-caption-text">Photograph Source: Trocaire from Ireland – <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/">CC BY 2.0</a></p></div>
<p>
Who knows how many Palestinian civilians will be killed by the time this
report is published? Among the bodies that cannot be taken to a
hospital or a morgue, because there will be no petrol or electricity,
will be large numbers of children. They will have hidden in their homes,
listening to the sound of the Israeli F-16 bombers coming closer and
closer, the explosions advancing toward them like a swarm of red ants on
the chase. They will have covered their ears with their hands, crouched
with their parents in their darkened living rooms, waiting, waiting for
the inevitable bomb to strike their home. By the time the rescue
workers get to them under the mountains of rubble, their bodies would
have become unrecognizable, their families weeping as familiar clothing
or household goods are excavated. Such is the torment of the
Palestinians who live in Gaza.</p>
<p>A friend of mine in Gaza who has a 17-year-old child told me on the
first night of this recent spell of Israeli bombing that his child has
lived through at least ten major Israeli assaults on the Palestinians in
Gaza. As we spoke, we made a list of some of the wars we could remember
(because these are Israel’s wars, we are using the Israeli army names
for their attacks on Gaza):</p>
<blockquote><p>+ Operation Summer Rains (June 2006)</p>
<p>+ Operation Autumn Clouds (October-November 2006)</p>
<p>+ Operation Hot Winter (February-March 2008)</p>
<p>+ Operation Cast Lead (December 2008-January 2009)</p>
<p>+ Operation Running Echo (March 2012)</p>
<p>+ Operation Pillar of Cloud (November 2012)</p>
<p>+ Operation Protective Edge (July-August 2014)</p>
<p>+ Operation Black Belt (November 2019)</p>
<p>+ Operation Breaking Dawn (August 2022)</p>
<p>+ Operation Shield and Arrow (May 2023)</p></blockquote>
<p>Each of these attacks pulverizes the minimal infrastructure that
remains intact in Gaza and hits the Palestinian civilians very hard.
Civilian deaths and casualties are recorded by the Health Ministry in
Gaza but disregarded by the Israelis and their Western enablers. As the
current bombing intensified, journalist Muhammad Smiry <a href="https://twitter.com/MuhammadSmiry/status/1711482194319851964">said</a>,
“We might not survive this time.” Smiry’s worry is not isolated. Each
time Israel sends in its fighter jets and missiles, the death and
destruction are of an unimaginable proportion. This time, with a
full-scale invasion, the destruction will be at a scale not previously
witnessed.</p>
<p><strong>The Ruin of Gaza</strong></p>
<p>Gaza is a ruin populated by nearly two million people. After Israel’s horrific 2014 bombardment of Gaza, the United Nations <a href="https://www.unrwa.org/newsroom/emergency-reports/gaza-situation-report-77#:~:text=People%20are%20literally%20sleeping%20amongst,This%20is%20distressing%20and%20unacceptable.%E2%80%9D">reported</a>
that “people are literally sleeping amongst the rubble; children have
died of hypothermia.” A variation of this sentence has been written
after each of these bombings and will be written when this one finally
comes to an end.</p>
<p>In 2004, Israel’s National Security Director Giora Eiland <a href="https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/04TELAVIV1952_a.html">said</a>
that Gaza is a “huge concentration camp.” This “huge concentration
camp” was erected in 1948 when the newly created Israeli state’s ethnic
cleansing policy removed Palestinians into refugee camps, including in
Gaza. Two years later, Israeli intelligence <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/gaza-9780190201890?cc=us&lang=en&">reported</a>
that the refugees in Gaza had been “condemned to utter extinction.”
That judgment has not altered in the intervening 73 years. Despite the
formal withdrawal of Israeli settlers and troops in 2005, Israel remains
the occupying power over the region by sealing off the land and sea
borders of the Gaza Strip. Israel decides what enters Gaza and uses that
power to throttle the people periodically.</p>
<p><strong>Politicide</strong></p>
<p>When the Palestinians in Gaza tried to elect their own leadership in
January 2006, Hamas—formed in the first Intifada (Uprising) of 1987 in
Gaza—won the election. The victory of Hamas (the Islamic Resistance
Movement) was condemned by the Israelis and the West, who decided to use
armed force to overthrow the election results. Operation Summer Rains
and Operation Autumn Clouds introduced the Palestinians to a new
dynamic: punctual bombardment as collective punishment for electing
Hamas in the legislative elections. Gaza was never allowed a political
process, in fact, never allowed to shape any kind of political authority
to speak for the people. Israel has tried with force to eradicate
Gaza’s political life and to force the people into a situation where the
armed conflict becomes permanent. When the Palestinians conducted a
non-violent Great March of Return in 2019, the Israeli army responded
with brute force that <a href="https://www.unrwa.org/newsroom/press-releases/great-march-return-scores-people-killed-and-injured-over-one-year">killed</a>
two hundred people. When a non-violent protest is met with force, it
becomes difficult to convince people to remain on that path and not take
up arms.</p>
<p>As this conflict takes on the air of permanency, the frustration of
Palestinian politics moves away from the impossibility of negotiations
to the necessity of armed violence. No other avenue is left open.
Palestine’s political leadership has been either tethered by the
European Union and the United States and so been removed from popular
aspirations or—if it continues to mirror those aspirations—it has been
sent to one of Israel’s many, harsh prisons (<a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/8/why-are-so-many-palestinian-prisoners-in-israeli-jails#:~:text=Four%20in%2010%20Palestinian%20men,exchange%20captured%20Israelis%20for%20them.&text=In%20golf%20carts%2C%20vans%20and,attack%20on%20Israel%20on%20Saturday.">four of 10</a>
Palestinian men are in or have been in prison, while the leaders of
most of the left parties spend long periods there under “administrative
detention” orders). Israeli sociologist Baruch Kimmerling has <a href="https://www.versobooks.com/products/1850-politicide">argued</a>
that the Israeli policy toward the Palestinians has resulted in
“politicide,” the deliberate destruction of Palestinian political
processes. The only road left open is armed struggle.</p>
<p>Indeed, by international law, armed struggle against an occupying
power is not illegal. There are many international conventions and
United Nations resolutions that affirm the right of self-determination:
these include, <a href="https://treaties.un.org/doc/publication/unts/volume%201125/volume-1125-i-17512-english.pdf">Additional Protocol 1</a> of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, UN General Assembly <a href="https://legal.un.org/avl/pdf/ha/da/da_ph_e.pdf">Resolution 3314</a> (1974), and UN General Assembly <a href="https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/40572?ln=en">Resolution 37/43</a>
(1982). The 1982 resolution “reaffirms the legitimacy of the struggle
of peoples for independence, territorial integrity, national unity and
liberation from colonial and foreign domination and foreign occupation
by all available means, including armed struggle.” You could not have a
stronger statement that provides legal sanction for armed struggle
against an illegal occupation.</p>
<p>Why does Hamas attack Israel? Because a political grammar has been
imposed on the relationship between the Palestinians and the Israelis by
the nature of the Israeli occupation. Indeed, any time there is a
modest development for talks—often brokered by Qatar—between Hamas and
the Israeli government, those talks are silenced by the sound of Israeli
fighter jets.</p>
<p><strong>War Crimes</strong></p>
<p>Each time these Israeli fighter jets hammer Gaza, leaders of Western
countries line up metronomically to announce that they “stand with
Israel” and that “Israel has a right to defend itself.” This last
statement—about Israel having the right to defend itself—is legally
erroneous. In 1967, Israeli forces crossed the 1948 Israeli “green
lines” and seized East Jerusalem, Gaza, and the West Bank. United
Nations Security Council Resolution 242 <a href="https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/90717?ln=en">sought</a>
the “withdrawal of [Israeli] armed forces from territories occupied in
the recent conflict.” The use of the term “occupied” is not innocent.
Article 42 of the Hague Regulations (1907) <a href="https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/hague-conv-iv-1907/regulations-art-42?activeTab=undefined">states</a>
that a “territory is considered occupied when it is actually placed
under the authority of the hostile army.” The Fourth Geneva Convention <a href="https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/atrocity-crimes/Doc.33_GC-IV-EN.pdf">obliges</a>
the occupying power to be responsible for the welfare of those who have
been occupied, most of the obligations violated by the Israeli
government.</p>
<p>In fact, as far as Gaza has been concerned since 2005, Israeli high
officials have not used the language of self-defense. They have spoken
in the language of collective punishment. In the lead-up to the ongoing
bombing, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu <a href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20231008-netanyahu-we-have-decided-to-halt-electricity-fuel-and-goods-transfer-to-gaza/">said</a>, “We have decided to halt electricity, fuel, and goods transfer to Gaza.” His Defense Minister Yoav Gallant followed up, <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/defense-minister-announces-complete-siege-of-gaza-no-power-food-or-fuel/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CI%20have%20ordered%20a%20complete,war%20coverage%20important%20to%20you%3F">saying</a>,
“I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no
electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed.” Then, Israel’s
Energy Minister Israel Katz <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/energy-minister-instructs-authorities-to-cut-off-water-to-gaza/#:~:text=Energy%20Minister%20Israel%20Katz%20announces,was%20ceased%20two%20days%20ago.">said</a>,
“I instructed that the water supply from Israel to Gaza be cut off
immediately.” Having followed up on these threats, they have sealed
Gaza—including by <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-said-to-bomb-rafah-crossing-to-egypt-after-telling-gazans-to-flee-through-it/">bombing</a>
the Rafah crossing to Egypt—and closed down the lives of two million
people. In the language of the Geneva Conventions, this is “collective
punishment,” which constitutes a war crime. The International Criminal
Court <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/statement-icc-prosecutor-fatou-bensouda-respecting-investigation-situation-palestine">opened</a> an investigation into Israeli war crimes in 2021 but was not able to move forward even to collect information.</p>
<p>The children huddle in their rooms waiting for the bombs sit in the
dark because there is no electricity and wait—with parched throats and
hungry bellies—for the end. After the 2014 Israeli bombardment, Umm
Amjad Shalah spoke of her 10-year-old son Salman. The boy would not let
his mother go, being in terror of the noise of the explosions and the
death around him. “Sometimes he screams so loudly,” she says. “It almost
sounds like he’s laughing loudly.”</p>
<p><em>This article was produced by </em><a href="https://globetrotter.media/"><em>Globetrotter</em></a><em>.</em></p>
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<em>Vijay Prashad’s most recent book (with Noam Chomsky) is
The Withdrawal: Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan and the Fragility of US
Power (New Press, August 2022).</em>
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