Last week, the United Nations Human Rights Director, Craig Monikher resigned
from his post in protest at Israel’s counter-attacks in the Gaza Strip, calling it ‘a
text-book case of genocide’. He went on to say: ‘The European nationalist
settler colonial project in Palestine has entered a final phase towards the
destruction of the last remnants of indigenous Palestinian life. What is more,
the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom and much of
Europe are wholly complicit in this horrific assault’.
We do not condone the attack by Hamas on Israelis, including the kidnapping
of civilians, which rightly deserves condemnation . But what prompted this
incident did not begin on October 7 th . A large percentage of the 2.3 million
Palestinians living in an area about the size of the Isle of Wight are
descendants of those families who became refugees in 1948, when 750,000
Palestinians were driven from their homes as the state of Israel came into
being. Fifty percent of the present population of the Gaza Strip are children.
For fifteen years they have lived in what amounts to an open prison in which
all entrances and exits to and from the Strip have been controlled by Israel.
Since 2009 there have been three so-called ‘wars’ in which many have been
killed or maimed for life.
The present attack on the Gaza Strip which began three weeks ago with
bombing by the Israeli air force has been relentless. It is estimated that the
sum total of bombs dropped during this time is equivalent to the bomb
dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. White phosphorous has also been used, which
is illegal under international law. Over 10,000 Palestinians have been killed,
which is a conservative estimate as it is certain that those listed as ‘missing’ lie
dead under the rubble of destroyed homes. Almost 30,000 have been injured.
Over a third of those killed have been women and children.It is estimated that
since the bombing began a child has been killed every 10 minutes. I know a
young Gazan (his story was told on BBCTV) whose home was bombed one
night wiping out in an instant over twenty members of his family, including his
father, sisters, nephews and nieces. Many others have experienced similar
terrible losses.
Since Israel closed all entrances to the Strip, no food, water, fuel or medicines
have been allowed to pass, although small, but totally inadequate supplies are
now coming through. Hospitals are overwhelmed. Not only lack of essential medicines but the absence of fuel to feed generators and provide electricity
means that routine procedures have been impossible. Doctors speak of
amputations without anaesthetics, babies dying in incubators and treatment
being carried out by light from mobile phones. Hospitals are so overcrowded
that patients (many of them children) are being treated in blankets on the
floor. Inevitably, disease is spreading. In the overcrowded refugee camp of
Jabalia two bombings on successive nights have killed several hundred people.
Looking at photographs of the second one, you might be forgiven for thinking
that you were seeing the aftermath of an earthquake as desperate families
claw at the rubble with bare hands to seek their loved ones - or what remains
of them.
A Norwegian doctor, Mads Gilbert who worked in Gaza during the ‘wars’ of
2009, and 2014 says, ‘This is mass murder on a huge scale.It is a medieval
siege’ Yoav Gaunt, Israel’s defence minister, when ordering a complete siege
of the Gaza Strip said, ‘’We are fighting human animals and must act
accordingly’. That is not the language of deterrence–it is the vile language of
genocide. It is a major crime under international law.
To quote Craig Monikher, we are complicit. And as Martin Luther King said
(many times), all it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing’.
The long-term consequences for Palestinians living in Gaza, East Jerusalem and
the illegally Occupied West Bank are serious indeed. Israel must be called to
account. What is required NOW, as a matter of extreme urgency, is to join the
thousands calling on our government for an instant ceasefire enabling the
provision of sufficient food, water, fuel and medicines to reach a desperate,
dying population.
Warren R. Bardsley
On behalf of Lichfield Concern for Palestine group.
(Written November 2023 for a leaflet which the group used at a vigil)