BY FR. SHAY CULLEN
THE MASSIVE ongoing invasion by Israel of the Gaza Strip and its blockade of humanitarian aid to 2.2 million Palestinian civilians deprive them of the means of survival and force them to live in drastic subhuman conditions.
The bombing has destroyed their homes and livelihoods in Northern Gaza in the past two months and they were ordered to evacuate to the South of Gaza where the bombing continues unabated.
An estimated 1.5 million are confined there to a small section of land in Southern Gaza without shelters, water, sanitation, food, or medical help. Sickness is spreading. Perhaps a million more are in other parts of Gaza refusing to flee South.
There is no safe place for them to shelter North or South of Gaza and the head of the United Nations (UN) humanitarian relief said it is not possible to even give them aid because of the non-stop bombing nearby. This continues without mercy or concern.
As many as 15,000 are estimated to have been killed already, almost 5,000 of them children. It is for sure a great crime against humanity as half of the hospitals have been attacked and destroyed or made non-functional.
All this retaliatory and disproportionate violence is because of a surprise vicious and evil military attack on Israeli soldiers and civilians on Oct. 7 by the Palestinian Hamas militant group that killed and massacred as many as 1,300 Israelis and took 240 hostages. Some have been released.
Everyone acknowledges that Israel has a right to defend itself but killing 7,000 women and children is not self-defense. It is a worse crime against humanity than what Hamas did. Cutting off humanitarian aid is to force Hamas to release more hostages.
The Palestinians were driven out of their homeland in 1948 by armed Israeli settlers from Europe that came after World War 2 and millions of Palestinians were driven from their homelands into refugee camps. They have been confined in the West Bank and Gaza and in refugee camps in Lebanon.
Described by commentators as âopen air prisons,â these areas have been occupied by Israeli troops ever since and the Palestinians have never been allowed to form an independent nation-state of their own.
A two-nation solution has been backed internationally for many years. That is something right-wing Israelis do not want. What they want is to be rid of the Palestinians and take all the land of Palestine for themselves as seen in continuing violent attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank, it seems.
Huge, kilometer- long walls seal the Palestinians off from their ancestral homelands that now make up the State of Israel presently ruled by the extremist right-wing government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who has vowed to destroy Hamas and declared war on the group.
The years of occupation, oppression, confinement and long-time inhuman restrictions of the Palestinians by Israel turned Hamas resistance fighters into vicious killers and their heinous attack against Israelis on Oct. 7, 2023 incited the ire and revenge-seeking by the extremist right-wing Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
He is no saint or savior of Israel. He will be facing an upcoming trial accused of past crimes of bribery, breach of trust, and fraud.
His hope is to stay in power by waging war and stay out of jail. He is detested by more than half of moderate Israelis that demonstrated for months against Netanyahuâs plan to pass laws to reduce the power and authority of the Israeli Supreme Court. A way to save his own skin.
However, Netanyahuâs his political and personal future is facing a grim challenge since the tragedy of the Hamas attack happened on his watch, a serious failure of intelligence in defending Israel. (To be continued)/PN
