More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed in the current war between Israel and Hamas, the third in six years. As the Canadian branch of Amnesty International notes, Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip have borne the brunt of the fighting.
While innocent Palestinians die needlessly, their homes and businesses pulverized, Hamas leaders and their families cower in protected bunkers. Meanwhile, well-armed Hamas fighters hide in tunnels and residential buildings and launch rockets indiscriminately at cities and towns in Israel.
As Palestinian casualties mount, international indignation rises and calls for a ceasefire grow louder. Yesterday and today, U.S. President Barack Obama and the United Nations Security Council respectively called for an immediate and unconditional truce.
Hamas, which ignited this war and self-righteously portrays itself as the protector of Palestinian interests, was fully aware that its wanton aggression would invite a harsh response. Since Hamas intentionally embedded itself in dense residential neighborhoods, using mosques, schools and even hospitals as weapon depots and firing platforms, Israel was left with no alternative but to hit these facilities in retaliatory strikes. Otherwise, Israel has gone to extraordinary lengths to avoid killing civilians.
As a result of Hamas’ callousness, hundreds of Palestinian “martyrs” have died in vain. They are Hamas’ sacrificial lambs. Although Hamas has been in control of Gaza since 2007, it has not built a single bomb shelter for its long-suffering people.
While the irresponsible Hamas leadership invested scarce resources to manufacture rockets and construct tunnels, all designed to kill, maim and terrorize Israelis, it never bothered to invest in projects to improve the lives of Gazans, many of whom languish in poverty, misery and despair.
Still more seriously, and much to its eternal infamy, Hamas has cynically used Gaza’s 1.7 million inhabitants as human shields. As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu observed the other day, “We’re using our missile defence to protect our civilians, and they’re using civilians to protect their missiles.”
This flagrant disregard for the lives of their people is part and parcel of Hamas’ grand and perverted strategy.
Hamas, which revels in and promotes a grotesque culture of death, believes that a sufficient number of Palestinian deaths will induce the major powers to pressure Israel to lift the naval blockade of Gaza, one of Hamas’ top demands. This is not an unreasonable assumption. But bear this in mind. Absent an Israeli siege, Hamas would have imported even more weapons and munitions for the next round of warfare with Israel.
It’s crystal clear that the blockade cannot be lifted unless Hamas renounces terrorism, recognizes Israel and accepts a two-state solution. Israel would be working against its own national interests were it unilaterally scrap the blockade without meaningful concessions from Hamas.
If peace is to prevail, Hamas must be disarmed. Further, Gaza must be demilitarized, as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry says. A ceasefire now would serve no positive or useful purpose and would play into Hamas’ hands. Israel should be given the leeway to inflict a crushing blow on Hamas, which tarnishes the Palestinian national movement with its dead-end rejectionism and sets back the laudable dream of Palestinian statehood in the West Bank and Gaza.
Previous ceasefires in 2009 and 2012 were exploited by Hamas and Islamic Jihad to regroup and replenish their armouries. This vicious, counter-productive pattern must be broken once and for all.
There are no military solutions in Gaza, of course, but Israel should have the right to deal with Hamas and Islamic Jihad effectively. So Israel must continue with Protective Edge in Gaza. It will be a lengthy operation, as Netanyahu prudently warned on July 28. And more Israeli soldiers, regrettably, will fall in defence of their country.
Israel is waging a just and absolutely necessary war of survival, while Hamas and its allies are committing war crimes against Israel and subjecting the Palestinians in Gaza to a cruel and heartless regimen of blood and tears in the name of national liberation.
This much is clear after three weeks of hostilities.
