Palestinians are continuing to die daily in Gaza just because Netanyahu doesn’t want to lose power; even Hamas has been overshadowed by Israel in cruelty
Unbelievable as it may seem, Gaza, now reduced to a living hell by Israel’s heartless rulers, is running out of places to bury its unending numbers of dead. This comes on top of the widely condemned Israeli move to literally starve the Palestinians.
With the Israeli military claiming to control a third of the Gaza Strip and simultaneously razing the already ruined homes, Palestinians say that there is a growing shortage of areas to give corpses a final resting place.
Such a sorry state of affairs was first brought to light this month by Hamas, which pointed out that repeatedly forcing Gazans out of urban spaces has left them without access to traditional burial grounds.
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The problem of space crunch erupted soon after the war started in the wake of the incendiary Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023 and the barbarities its fighters committed. The situation has gotten worse over the months, with Israel launching a massive retaliation. The death toll has only soared since then, resulting in overflowing graveyards.
‘No space to bury the dead’
“Here in Gaza, there is no safe place to live and no space to bury the dead,” The Times of Israel newspaper quoted a Gaza resident, who did not want to be named, as saying.
There is widespread anger in Israel against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who refuses to halt the sickening conflict simply because his more hawkish right-wing allies would topple his government. One of them has even called for the annexation of Gaza.
This is the latest humanitarian crisis to envelop the impoverished Gaza, where more than 58,000 people, mainly civilians, have perished in the horrific war unleashed by the Jewish state since late 2023.
Thousands of others have been injured, many very badly, while hundreds of thousands are without their homes and reduced to being refugees in what was their own territory, with no available routes to escape the misery.
As for Israel, after some 655 days of one of the most dehumanising wars, it has failed to achieve the two key aims which triggered its military aggression: destroying Hamas and freeing the Israeli hostages from the outfit.
Hamas has been weakened by the conflict much but it has not given up. But despite all the beating it has taken from Israel, the group and the Islamic Jihad still hold some 50 Israeli hostages abducted in 2023. Only around 20 of them are believed to be alive.
Doesn’t want to lose power
There is widespread anger in Israel against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who refuses to halt the sickening conflict simply because his more hawkish right-wing allies would topple his government. One of them has even called for the annexation of Gaza.
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In other words, the Palestinians are continuing to die daily in Gaza because Netanyahu doesn’t want to lose power. The leader has also insisted that he is not to be blamed for Israel’s worst-ever military-intelligence failure: Hamas.
In the process, Netanyahu is brazenly turning a blind eye to the growing shrill calls from the mass of Israelis to end the fighting without further delay and to speed up efforts to bring the hostages back.
Food & medical aid weaponised
It is this political arrogance that is making Israel use food and medical supplies as weapons to further squeeze the Palestinian population, leading to unprecedented indignation among even its traditional allies.
The health ministry of Gaza, which Israel accuses of being in alliance with Hamas, reported in July that 20 Gazans have died of starvation, taking the toll in the food-as-weapon disaster to 88 since the war began.
While Israel insists there is no shortage of food, its officials acknowledge that the aid was not being collected and distributed in Gaza properly, causing challenges to accessibility in some areas.
No one outside Israel is buying the argument, however.
Aid supplies halted
Both the United Nations and Norwegian aid agencies complain that their own workers are now without adequate food and that a few of them even fainted while doing their duty due to sheer hunger.
The Israel Medical Association (IMA), for the first time, has protested, after its British counterpart denounced the serious shortage of medical equipment in Gaza.
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In letters to Israeli authorities, its chairman Zion Hagay said: “We would like to emphasize the need to ensure medical equipment and basic humanitarian conditions for the civilian population in Gaza.”
Israel even halted aid supplies to Gaza for around 11 weeks between March and May this year to pressure Hamas to release the hostages. The ploy didn’t work.
Since Israel doesn’t trust anyone, it has backed the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation to distribute the food.
Firing the hungry
But even as thousands of Palestinians gather to collect the food packets, Israeli troops have repeatedly fired at the crowds, killing scores of hungry civilians, after blaming infiltrators from Hamas for the mess. The death toll in these firings, for which Israel doesn’t take responsibility, has exceeded 1,000.
The only country that openly backs Israel without reservation is the US, with President Donald Trump’s immoral proposal to relocate all Gazans to unknown foreign destinations has been welcomed only by the Netanyahu administration.
Hamas is not innocent either. Having ignited a war over which it has lost control, the outfit is under attack from Egyptian and Qatari meditators over its adamant refusal to shed its intransigence vis-à-vis possible peace initiatives.
But even Hamas has been overshadowed by Israel in cynicism and cruelty.
India remains mere spectator
It is unfortunate that India, which aims to be a leader of the Global South, has failed to condemn the mounting humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza. Blinded by its ideological love for Israel, the Indian government has chosen to largely remain quiet despite the slaughter of innocent Palestinians who never asked Hamas to attack Israel.
This has happened despite the fact that West Asia, where anti-Israel sentiments are high, is home to a mammoth Indian expatriate population. The region is also crucial to India for energy supplies.
For a country which once stood by the Palestinian cause, India’s silence over the Gaza tragedy – barring occasional platitudes — is sickeningly deafening.
(The Federal seeks to present views and opinions from all sides of the spectrum. The information, ideas or opinions in the article are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Federal.)
