Whatever else may be concluded about the shooting of Palestinian civilians at, or near, aid centres in Gaza, they do not suggest that sufficient humanitarian aid is being delivered in a timely and efficient manner. As has been widely proposed, a fully independent inquiry is needed before the claims and counterclaims about responsibility can be settled.
But, for the time being, the efforts of the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) to replace the United Nations have proved to be utterly inadequate. That, of course, may turn out to be a wildly generous understatement if it is indeed proved that the Israel Defense Forces committed war crimes in these most pitiful and unforgivable of circumstances.
From what can be discerned from the reportage, the verdict of the International Red Cross on the situation appears accurate – “worse than hell on earth”.
It bears repeating that Israel, too, suffered its own atrocities on 7 October 2023 – but its conduct of the war waged since has become increasingly indefensible, intolerable and counterproductive to its interests. It is a total catastrophe for all involved, most of all the vulnerable non-combatants.
The death toll across three major incidents at GHF sites amounts to about 60 people, and each and every case must be properly investigated. The Red Cross – not Hamas – says that, for example, its medical teams in Rafah treated 184 patients, including 19 people dead on arrival and eight others who died of their wounds shortly afterwards. This represents the highest figure for casualties from a single incident at the field hospital since it was established last year.
And, of course, there are countless Palestinians far from even a GHF base, with no hospital facilities to speak of, and still under constant bombardment. They cannot all be terrorists – and they cannot be dismissed as mere inevitable collateral damage.
These are human lives, and, as the universal phrase goes, they matter. In due course, a more comprehensive accounting for the actions of the Israeli authorities will also have to be made, taking full account of the terrorist threat they face, but not thereby absolving Israel’s government and its agencies for everything they have done.
Israel’s friends and partners across the world, as well as its own people, cannot adopt a “Netanyahu, right or wrong” approach, in which every single action and incident is justified by the 7 October massacres and kidnappings.
Perhaps the most emphatic admission of failure by the GHF is that such operations as it has been undertaking – and they are grossly inadequate to the task – have been suspended. So, at least no Gazans will be shot trying to get their hands on food, but they and their families will stay hungry. Indeed, so hungry that malnutrition, especially of children among many thousands of people, and famine stalk the land.
The Palestinians of Gaza, their homeland, face what the UN calls a “hunger crisis” and “critical famine risk”. The Israeli government knows this. The Arab states in the region know this. The whole world knows this. We see the television images of emaciated infants. Not even the White House can deny these realities. And yet nothing happens.
We should be clear at least about how things will develop in this medieval-style siege if the world fails to pressure Israel into relenting and permitting the UN agencies and charities to resume their work immediately. For some, it is too late – but for the living, it is never too late. The aid is waiting to pour into the territory, all parts of it, not just the cynically misnomered “safe zones”.
To make the aid effort fully effective would mean a ceasefire, and the restoration of medical facilities and the means for a civilised existence – principally, shelter. It is not, in that sense, the kind of hopeless, overbearing situation that follows some environmental disaster – a flood, a terrible hurricane or a drought. This is a manmade catastrophe and could be stopped in short order with the political will to do so.
Such political will does not exist within the Israeli government. One reason why the war has gone on for as long as it has, and with such pain and destruction, is that it suits Benjamin Netanyahu’s domestic political interests. The secondary reason is that the United States has acquiesced in much of what he does, which was true of the Biden administration and is even more the case under Donald Trump.
However, recent weeks have shown the limits to American forbearance and the failure of Mr Netanyahu to stabilise the situation. Some of the hostages have still not been released, and Hamas still operates, as it will even if every one of its leaders is eliminated. Israel has lost the chance to build peace with its neighbours, and is less secure than it was before 7 October, even if Iran is temporarily disarmed.
At that time, it would have been inconceivable that Israel would stand accused at the International Criminal Court of such grievous atrocities, that more of its European allies would recognise the Palestinian state, or that they’d be openly discussing arms embargoes and sanctions.
Since 7 October, Mr Netanyahu has played into the hands of Hamas, who wished for nothing more than for Israel to lash out, provoke Arab and Muslim opinion, outrage the West and become the perpetrator, not the victim, of terror. All the goodwill that was shown, rightly, on 7 October has been squandered. In other words, it is in the interests of Israel itself to cease the fighting and allow the aid to come through to what the UN calls “the hungriest place on Earth”. But who can and who will make Mr Netanyahu see sense?
