60,000 dead & counting: Gaza’s humanitarian collapse exposes global inaction
Israel’s capacity for brutality has reached an unforgivable low – 21 months of onslaughts on the civilian population of Gaza have triggered catastrophic humanitarian conditions for the Strip’s more than two million people.
The vengeful retaliation to Hamas’s October 7, 2023 horrific acts by the Netanyahu regime on the civilians of Gaza, which has resulted in the death of almost 60,000 people, mostly women and children, and total displacement of Gaza’s 2.3 million population and the razing of the area into rubble, has been utterly disproportionate and even more savage, not expected of Israelis who had ostensibly been at the receiving end of the infamous Nazi holocaust! With 27 nations, including Britain, France, Australia, Canada and Italy, reiterating their call for an end to the Gaza offensive, the international community has once again voiced its dismay at the horror that is being perpetrated in Gaza.
Apart from asserting that civilians’ suffering has “reached new depths” in the Strip, their joint statement also denounced Israel’s plan to create a “humanitarian city” in Gaza’s south, as well as settler activity in the West Bank. The statement has come at a time of daily reports of mass casualty events close to aid distribution sites, and of rising malnutrition that the UN has said affected one-tenth of Gaza’s children.
It has also come as the hostage-truce negotiations with Hamas have dragged on, without any breakthrough.
Given the reality that, of late, Israel has been behaving as though it were a law unto itself, ignoring peace efforts by the US, Qatar and others, adverse rulings by the International Court of Justice, and repeated resolutions in the United Nations General Assembly asking Tel Aviv to end the hostilities, there can be little doubt about the futility of this latest call. The far-right regime of Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected it, saying it “sends the wrong message to Hamas,” and that the death toll, which mostly comes from Hamas-run authorities, is exaggerated.
It has sought to play down the mass-casualty events reported in the vicinity of the US and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s aid distribution sites, as Israeli troops use live fire in attempts to control the crowds.
It must be noted that Israel had earlier criticised the UN’s aid mechanisms as vulnerable to exploitation by Hamas, saying the terror group seizes aid and uses it to sustain itself and consolidate its control over Gaza. By now, it has become clear that Israel is unlikely to respond positively to mere calls for cessation of hostility, which entails that the signatory countries take meaningful action to coerce Israel to respect international opinion. Unfortunately, Tel Aviv has proven to be heedless even of the importunities of its close ally, the US, asking it to strike a deal with Hamas, and it is doubtful if it will heed calls from others.