Our world has seen many instances of violence on a massive scale throughout history. We have seen incomprehensible numbers of deaths. We have seen the effect hatred and prejudice can have on society. As we learn about these deaths, we wonder how the rest of the world simply watched as millions of families fell apart and as millions of children were torn apart from their mothers. Well we know now, or at least the children of Palestine do, as the west watches them helplessly defend themselves against the brutal attacks from Israel.
When forming a judgment on situations such as this, it is important to do your full research and have a complete understanding of the background.The history of this conflict has been covered in a prior Holly Spirit, and the HS also did some coverage on RV’s reactions to the conflict last month.
On October 7, Hamas, an organization that many see as a Palestinian resistance group, and others know as a terrorist organization located on the Gaza strip, launched cross border raids from Gaza into Israel territory. Thousands of rockets were fired, leaving 1,400 dead and hundreds being taken hostage. The day of the attack happened to also be on the day of an important Jewish holiday, and many Israelis view this attack to be “the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust,” as said on an CNN article.
Western allies of Israel immediately responded to this attack, and the United States, Canada and Britain publicly declared their full support for Israel. The U.S. has shown its support through millions of dollars of military aid as well as medical aid, not to mention lighting up the empire state building in white and blue. However, Palestinians and supporters of a two-state solution are quick to point out that this callously ignores the 72 years of oppression and brutality through which innocent Palestinians have gone under Israeli control prior to this attack.
With support from western countries and enormous amounts of donations, Israel now has one of the strongest militaries in the world, and through this military, the Israeli government has responded in full force, claiming to seek out Hamas strongholds and attacking Palestinian civilians in the process. In its attacks, Israel has launched non-stop airstrikes in Gaza, killing more than 15,000 people and injuring over 15,000, according to Aljeezera. Keep in mind these numbers include men, women and children who are not affiliated with Hamas.
On November 3, Israel air raids hit a populated refugee camp called Jabalia in a densely-populated area in northern Gaza, damaging schools that were being used as shelters. The attack was one of multiple attacks on refugee camps, which house newly-homeless families. Since then, multiple schools have been destroyed and refugee camps continue to be targeted.
Israeli soldiers stormed Al Shifa hospital during the week of November 13, one of the biggest hospitals in Gaza. Reports and videos show soldiers moving in and out of rooms, even destroying medical equipment in smoke-filled hallways. This attack, which was widely condemned by United Nations humanitarian and health agencies, delayed surgeries and other emergency medical procedures as the staff at Al Shifa could not get access to new equipment. As a result of the attack, many of the intensive care patients have died and in a viral video, 31 babies had to be removed from incubators and transferred to Emirati hospital. Israel also managed to cut off the hospital’s power, leaving 24 patients to die in the span of 48 hours, as noted by AlJazeera.
The Israeli government, led by Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has been justifying these attacks as self defense and as an attempt to rescue the hostages in Gaza. Yet the Israeli government keeps bombing well-known civilian areas of Gaza, which would not only kill the civilians there but the Israeli hostages as well — so really, the Israeli government is targeting all Palestinians in the name of Hamas.
Many people have tried to argue that the attack on Israel on behalf of Hamas was much more personal given that it was on Shemini Atzeret, an important Jewish holiday. However, these same people seem to forget the attack on Al-Aqsa mosque imposed by Israel during Ramadan in 2023. According to CNN, Israeli police officers attacked muslims praying in Al-Aqsa during Islam’s holiest month, during a time millions were fasting. While Israel claimed the attack was in response to rising tensions in Jerusalem, there is no one event that can be pointed to as motivation or provocation by Palestinians. The attack also received no attention from the U..S government; President Biden did not so eagerly condemn Israel’s action as he did to Hamas’s actions.
Western media is a popular source of information. However, we have arguably come to a day in which innocent civilians who have been oppressed for decades are portrayed as the villains on western media rather than victims of large-scale violence, not unlike the ethnic cleansing that has taken place in other parts of the world.
Additionally, the rising violence makes it nearly impossible for journalists in Gaza to report accurate, factual information. The Committee to Protect Journalists reports that 57 journalists and media workers have been reported dead as of time of publication — 50 of them Palestinian. The CPJ also reports that “Journalists in Gaza face particularly high risks as they try to cover the conflict during the Israeli ground assault, including devastating Israeli airstrikes, disrupted communications, supply shortages and extensive power outages.” The lack of accurate reporting continues to not only make it impossible for western media outlets to get all the facts, but it also risks losing names, identities and stories about thousands of civilians being killed in their own homes.
Amid the growing crisis of misinformation, the Israeli blockade on water and food has left millions in Gaza starving. Not only are the bombing killing them, starvation is as well. On November 25, the New York Times reported that “People are being killed in Gaza more quickly, [experts] say, than in even the deadliest moments of U.S.-led attacks in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan, which were themselves widely criticized by human rights groups.” The death toll in Palestine has reached to a point to which it has become alarmingly similar to other instances of ethnic cleansing and wide-scale, systematic violence in history, including as Bosnia in 1992, in which over 8,000 predominantly Muslims civilians were killed along with tens and thousands of other people. There are reports of children collecting rainwater in buckets, of civilians being trapped in rubble for hours and of women being unable to nurse their infant children. Only recently did President Biden concede that the civilian casualties might be higher than previously estimated, but the damage has already been done, and thousands have already been killed.
In light of this, it cannot be argued that Israel is just targeting Hamas; arguably all Palestinians are targeted. The recent violence calls into question the notion that Israel is merely responding to aggression on the part of Hamas. The continued violence against civilians points to a larger humanitarian issue between Israel and Palestine as a whole.
A November 15 PBS poll shows rising numbers of Americans who believe that the violence against civilians in Gaza is becoming “too much,” and despite President Biden’s refusal to push for a ceasefire (according to Vanity Fair), even his administration understands the danger of Israel’s continued aggression, particularly if Israel continues the same campaign in the south of Gaza, where over two million Palestinian civilians have been pushed as a result of bombing in the north. The Washington Post reports that the Biden administration has cautioned that ‘a different kind of campaign has to be conducted in the south.’” This cautioning is simply not strong enough; the Israeli raids have not rooted out Hamas fighters, but killed infants and toddlers and decimated neighborhoods. Netanyahu told troops on a recent visit in the north that “nothing will stop us.” If this is not the blatant cries of a war mongering leader who wishes to wipe out an entire group of people, then I don’t know what is.
I have no Palestinian or Arab roots, and I don’t have any family or friends in Palestine. The point is that one does not have to in order to mourn the children, fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters in Palestine. One only has to be human, and the simple fact is this: this is no longer a fight between Israel and Hamas, this is a larger humanitarian crisis that has captured the lives of thousands and has crippled a region of decades to come. This is not about politics, this is about humanity. And as a human, we have a responsibility and a duty to respond to the cries of women, children and loved ones trapped in the rubble of their own towns. If you’re angry, if you’re exhausted of the violence and media coverage, and above all, if you’re human, do the human thing, and send help. Non-partisan, independent organizations like Doctors Without Borders, UNICEF, Islamic Releif US and Save The Children are on the ground in Gaza and always looking for help.
If you aren’t neutral about mass violence on this scale, you can’t be neutral about the suffering in Gaza.
