UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has said that the Hamas attacks of October 7 “did not happen in a vacuum.” This caused an uproar in Israel and they accused him of justifying terrorism. According to Guterres, “The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation.”
Amnesty International in its report published on February 1, 2022 states that, “Israel enforces a system of oppression and domination against the Palestinian people whenever it has control over their rights.” Furthermore, it goes on to add that “massive seizures of Palestinian land and property, unlawful killings, forcible transfer, drastic movement restrictions and the denial of nationality and citizenship to Palestinians are all components of a system which amounts to apartheid and international law.”
Agnes Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General states that their report puts the spotlight on the true extent of Israel’s apartheid regime. ”Whether they live in Gaza, East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank, or Israel itself, Palestinians are treated as an inferior racial group and systematically deprived of their rights. We found that Israel’s cruel policies of segregation, dispossession and exclusion across all territories under its control clearly amount to apartheid. The international community has an obligation to act.” In another report published on October 20, 2023, Amnesty International had this to say, “For 16 years, Israel’s illegal blockade has made Gaza the world’s biggest open-air prison – the international community must act now to prevent it becoming a giant graveyard.”
Since the attack on Israel by Hamas on October 7, 2023, the death toll has amounted to 1,200 people. However, the death toll in Palestine since Israel started its bombing raids of the Gaza strip has caused the death of almost 20,000 Palestinians, this according to BBC. Israel has “dropped more than 29,000 bombs on Gaza and 40-45% of these were unguided.” Furthermore, women and children make up about 70% of those who have been killed during the conflict. On the 3rd of November, it was stated that out of the 24,173 injured, 8,067 were children, 5,960 women and 10,146 men. According to Unicef, “Gaza is now the most dangerous place in the world to be a child.”
Israel says its goal is to destroy Hamas but when asked how many Hamas members have been killed, IDF says, “it does not have an exact number on the number of Hamas terrorists killed.” Indiscriminate bombing of an area where tensions have been running high for a very long time and calling it collateral damage is no justification for the massive amount of force used. By the way, collateral damage is defined as, “injury inflication on something other than an intended target; specifically: civilian casualties of a military operation.
UN states that Hamas may have committed a war crime through its indiscriminate killing of hundreds of “noncombatants, including children and the abduction of about 200 others as hostages and human shields in Gaza” but on the same token, UN is saying Israel maybe committing the war crime of collective punishment.
Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu has said, “If you want peace, destroy Hamas. If you want security, destroy Hamas. If you want a future for Israel, the Palestinians, the Middle East, destroy Hamas.” Israel has come up with a three prong strategy to destroy Hamas. First try and kill or capture Hamas’s leadership. Second, shatter Hamas’s power and lastly counter Hamas’s idealogy. Will that eradicate Hamas? Cutting off the snake’s head might work for a little while but it has a tendency to sprout wings and come back in another shape and form.
All that aside the metaphor, “an eye for an eye” which is defined as, “the punishment for a criminal or wrongdoer should be the same as the crime or misdeed.” In this case where Israel is concerned, they’ve got the “eye” and much much more. Perhaps it all boils down to what is an Israeli’s life worth when compared to that of a Palestinian. Therein lies your answer. Using “war” as a guise to defeat Hamas but indiscriminately bombing Gaza to the ground and killing thousands of Gazans in the process won’t bring about peace either. Here is the other question, does Israel’s use of oppression make it right? Apartheid doesn’t work, has never worked and will never work. Two wrongs do not make a right!
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