Israel’s “War Of Extermination” Keeps Burning — Why Has International Outrage Gone Quiet?

-OpEd-

GAZA — July 16 was a sad day: My dear friend and neighbor Samih Daoud died in Gaza City.

After being displaced from Gaza City in the first week of the war, Daoud sheltered in the central city of Deir al-Balah for two weeks and then returned to Gaza City with his wife and daughter. An Israeli airstrike had flattened their home in the Tel al-Hawa neighborhood, so Daoud and his family were forced to move shelter to shelter, neighborhood to neighborhood. His last shelter was in the northern part of the Rimal neighborhood where he died.

For several months, Daoud, who had Hepatitis C, suffered from lack of medication and treatment due to the war and the destruction of hospitals in Gaza. His health conditions deteriorated and the disease developed into liver cirrhosis in January.

My friend was one of more than 20,000 people who need urgent treatment outside Gaza but have not been evacuated due to the closure of the Rafah crossing to Egypt, which has been closed since Israel captured it in early May. The border closure has exacerbated the strip’s humanitarian crisis. Famine is on the door. Children have already started to die from starvation.

​Deteriorating conditions

“We were sitting at the door of the shelter. Three United Nations vehicles arrived suddenly, followed by trucks carrying fruits and vegetables. People started running and throwing vegetables to one another from the truck so that everyone could take his share. The whole scene was sad; I cried,” a Palestinian woman said.

Gaza’s people have become unrecognizable after nine months of war. There are major changes to their shape and form. They lost their weight and their appearance has changed because of a lack of food.

This war is not one of attrition but of extermination.

A few days ago, I met one of my friends, a journalist. At first, I didn’t recognize him. His brown skin has become darker, a symbol of the dire situation of displaced people. He lives with his family in the Muwasi area west of Khan Younis in a nylon tent — which was formerly used as a greenhouse for agriculture.

“It’s not a place for human beings. It strips an individual of humanity,” he said of the greenhouse-turned-tent.

A war of attrition?

It appears that Israel has decided to continue to physically eliminate all Palestinians in Gaza, applying different genocidal means in its war of extermination. Some Palestinians believe there is a lack of international and Arab interest in the war — there has been reaction to Israel’s latest incursions — and that it has turned into a long war of attrition.

That is not a feeling; it is a reality. This war is not one of attrition but of extermination. Palestinians have been abandoned, amid a decline in the international solidarity in the first months of the war, and the continuation of the military operations, something the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu affirmed despite concerted efforts to achieve a ceasefire deal.

“Unlike previous operations, this time we have the legitimacy to continue fighting until the end,” Netanyahu said earlier this month. He has repeatedly said that increasing military pressure on Hamas will help return Israeli hostages.

And Netanyahu has acted on that belief with relentless massive airstrikes, including the one in June that freed four hostages but killed more than 200 Palestinians in the Nuseirat refugee camp. The Israeli army proudly said it dropped 73 bombs, and fired 2,702 artillery shells, and 87 drone missiles as well 13 missiles from Apache helicopters.

It did the same in early July in the so-called Muwasi humanitarian zone west of Khan Younis, where it bombed tents housing displaced people and killed more than 90 Palestinians in an effort to assassinate Hamas’ military leader Mohammed Deif.

Growing frustration

Palestinian factions were not deterred by the daily massacres in Gaza and the West Bank to end their yearlong rift and unite to face the Israeli relentless war. Mahmoud Abbas, head of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and the leader of Fatah movement, has deepened the rift with Hamas when he released a statement that partly blamed Hamas for the Muwasi massacre earlier this month.

Many Palestinians viewed Abbas’ statement as an attempt by the West-backed Palestinian Authority to deepen the division between Fatah and Hamas, rather than looking into means to support Palestinian civilians either in Gaza or the West Bank. His statement has increased the frustration that the Gazans feel toward the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah.

People in Gaza no longer hide their criticism and frustration with the international community.

Palestinians in Gaza cite the lack of Arab and International solidarity with this plight. There have been no major protests recently against the relentless massacres. The Arab world, particularly, hasn’t exerted any pressure to stop the Israeli war. The governments that have established ties with Israel, especially Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan, didn’t use their leverage to end this war.

People in Gaza no longer hide their criticism and frustration with the international community who for nine months has failed to stop the war.

In recent weeks, the frustration has increased following Israel’s large-scale massacres in Nuseirat, Muwasi and Gaza City. People in Gaza feel that international attention is focused on Deif’s fate following the Muwasi attack, not the civilians’ continued plight.