Israel Attempts To Punish Palestine With Bombs

Throughout the night Monday night and early Tuesday morning, the tone of major news alerts rang with increasingly bad news. 44 dead. 68 dead. 136 dead. 200 dead. 326 dead. The number continues to grow. More than 48,000 Palestinians have died in the 17-month war. The recent ceasefire had been going well until Hamas balked at returning prisoners. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, being the war hawk that he is, notified the US White House yesterday that bombings would return overnight. There is no record of anyone at the White House or elsewhere in the administration attempting to stop the attack.

Hamas still holds roughly two dozen Israeli hostages who, prior to this event, were thought to be alive. Hamas accused Netanyahu of upending the ceasefire agreement and exposing Israeli hostages “to an unknown fate.” The families of hostages held by Hamas are calling on supporters to protest with them outside Israel’s parliament, saying the resumption of fighting in Gaza puts their loved ones at risk.

“With each passing day, the danger to the hostages grows. Military pressure could further endanger their lives,” the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, the main group representing the families, said in a statement announcing the protest.

Except for the US, who announced Monday that they are starting a task force to investigate Hamas for the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, as well as civil rights violations and antisemitism by anyone who supported the group, support for Israel’s actions has been slim. UN human rights chief Volker Türk says the last 18 months of fighting between Palestinian armed groups, including Hamas, and Israeli forces have shown that “the only way forward is a political settlement” and a “military path” offers no way out of the crisis. “This nightmare must end immediately,” he added in a statement.

An Israeli official said among the targets that were targeted were mid-level Hamas commanders, senior officials in Hamas’ political wing, and Hamas’ military infrastructure. Hamas’s government media office in Gaza said four senior officials were killed in Israel’s wave of attacks overnight. They included top members of the Hamas-run government’s internal security apparatus, as well as Issam Daalis, a member of Hamas’s Gaza leadership.

Egypt, a key mediator in Gaza ceasefire talks, lashed out at Israel, calling its new offensive on Gaza a “flagrant violation of the ceasefire deal.” It called for the international community “to immediately intervene to stop the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip.”

Rosalia Bollen, a spokeswoman for the United Nations Children’s Fund, described 15 minutes of intense airstrikes during the overnight bombardment followed by sporadic bombing throughout the night in a phone interview from Al-Mawasi, in southern Gaza. She added that the territory’s hospitals were already under tremendous strain and collapsing under the new wave of victims.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called for the ceasefire to be maintained following Israel’s attack on Gaza. “There’s already been enormous suffering there, which is why we’re calling upon all parties to respect the ceasefire and hostage deal that was put in place,” Albanese told reporters.

If you’re waiting for any of this to make sense, stop; it won’t, it hasn’t, and it never will. Hamas was wrong to attack Israel on October 7, 2023. Israel was wrong to respond by committing an endless number of war crimes. The US is wrong in pursuing a plan to relocate Palestinians to Africa. The ceasefire was the closest thing we’ve seen to a positive move in the past 17 months and even that took far too long to achieve.

The problem does not lie with the Israeli people. The problem does not lie with the Palestinian people. Both populations are simply looking to hold on to their homes and their families without any disturbance. Take away the politics of the situation and the conflict goes completely away. Sort of.

Battles over this same stretch of land have occurred for over 4,000 years. Israel, Palestine, Persia, Syria, Egypt, Assyria, and other empires that are no longer on the map have tried to exert control and influence over the region. They have all failed. Tempers here are short and egos are tall. To expect there to be any lasting peaceful solution may be unreasonable.

At the same time, however, there have been peaceful options on the table for over 50 years and, most notably, Netanyahu has been at the center of refusing each of those offers. Allegations still exist that Netanyahu was instrumental in the assassination of Menachem Begin, the Israeli Prime Minister who signed the Camp David Accords in 1979. The once-dominant Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) gave way to Hamas, whose acts are more violent and backed by Iran. Standing on the outside looking in, one might get the idea that the ‘leadership’ doesn’t want peace, regardless of what anyone says.

Meanwhile, the Times of Israel reports that “Dozens of leaders of protest groups on Monday began organizing a major demonstration in Jerusalem this week to protest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s declared intention to fire Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar.”

The move isn’t surprising. Netanyahu isn’t exactly popular at home and there are many who dislike the way he’s running the war, especially now. Eran Schwartz, CEO of the Hofshi B’Artzenu (Free in Our Land) organization, vowed that the groups would not let the government “completely destroy” the country, noting that the Shin Bet is currently investigating several senior staffers in the Prime Minister’s Office for alleged ties with Qatar, thus creating a potential conflict of interest.

“We cannot allow the coalition to fulfill its vision and completely destroy Israel. The protest is the people’s way of expressing their opposition to the regime,” he said, adding that “the majority of the people understand that what is at stake is [either] the future of the coalition or the future of the state.”

Additionally, the Israel Business Forum, which represents most private-sector workers from 200 of the country’s largest companies, called on Netanyahu to backtrack from his intention to dismiss Bar, labeling it a “destructive” move.

“Israel is in the midst of one of the most difficult periods in its history — from a security, economic, and social perspective,” the business forum said in a statement. “The last thing Israel needs is an internal battle in which the prime minister, in a severe conflict of interest, fires gatekeepers, in violation of the law — especially at this difficult time. Israel’s enemies are watching with pleasure as Israel returns to the same path that led the country to the October 7 attack.”

Given such internal pressure, one might think that Netanyahu would take a more careful approach.

That thought would be incorrect.