“We are at war”, stated Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a recorded statement early on Saturday morning, and “we will win it”. While the unprecedented events of 7 October – constituting ‘the worst breach of Israel’s defences in 50 years’ – precipitated a declaration of war from the Israeli prime minister, it is paramount to remember the context in which this has taken place: the constant state of war, displacement and oppression that has shaped the Palestinian reality for over seven decades.
At the time of writing, over 2,800 have been killed in the recent escalation of physical violence across Palestine and Israel. This includes over 1,500 Palestinians killed in Israel’s relentless ariel bombardment of the densely populated Gaza strip – dropping 6000 bombs in just six days. “This is only the beginning” stated Benjamin Netanyahu, after 1,300 Israelis were killed by armed Palestinian factions who breached Israel’s blockade of the Gaza strip, also taking a large number of hostages. Amid a vast and enduring asymmetry of power, Jewish Voice for Peace observed: “The loss of Israeli lives is being used by our government to justify the rush to genocide, to provide moral cover for the immoral push for more weapons and more death”.
Just before midnight on Thursday, the UN received a warning from the Israeli military calling on it to evacuate – in 24 hours – 1.1 million residents of Northern Gaza to the South. “This is Gaza being pushed into an abyss,” UNRWA notes, “there is tragedy unfolding as the world is watching. This is Gaza.” Firmly underscoring this point, WHO adds, “evacuation orders by Israel to hospitals in northern Gaza are a death sentence for the sick and injured.”
Israel already began this war with a complete siege of Gaza since 9 October. The blockade is total: fuel, food, water and electricity – long controlled by the occupation forces, are now cut.
Human Rights Watch has also confirmed that Israel has used white phosphorous in Gaza and Lebanon in this weeks’ attacks, a prohibited weapon in civilian areas that causes “excruciating burns and lifelong suffering”. At the same time, Israel appears to be preparing for a ground invasion of Gaza, which would have disastrous consequences for the entire region.
While events continue to develop, colonisation endures, shaping events and narratives as they unfold. Since the Nakba of 1948, Israel has acted with impunity, repeatedly accused of perpetrating war crimes inclusive of ethnic cleansing and apartheid, alongside policies of containment, and military occupation. These practices, writes Palestinian journalist Muha Hussaini, are all part of “a war waged against [Palestinian’s] very existence”.
Slow death: Dehumanisation and the blockade of Gaza
Home to 2.3 million people, an area 25 miles long, and 3 to 7 miles wide, the Gaza Strip is an occupied territory. Access to water, energy, and food is dictated by Israeli authorities. Exit and entry into the territory are likewise dictated. Material critical to building infrastructure is tightly controlled. And even who is allowed to seek life-saving treatment outside Gaza is dictated by an Israeli governor.
This security blockade is deliberately disabling. In 2012, leaked diplomatic cables revealed that Israeli officials wanted to keep the Gazan economy on the brink of collapse.
At the same time, Israel’s military occupation of Palestine is a key facet of the global military-industrial complex, proving highly profitable for the Israeli state and Western allies. Indeed, the market value of Israeli weapon’s manufacturer Elbit Systems has surged by 37 percent since the start of this year, and the shares of US military contractor Lockheed Martin meanwhile soared by 8.6 percent in the last five days.
Over the past 19 years, Israel has conducted multiple air offensives into Gaza – described as the world’s largest ‘open air prison’. Meanwhile, Israel’s blockade has imposed a state of ‘slow death’: Israel’s ongoing policies of deliberate infrastructural damage, practices such as ‘shoot to cripple’, and the restriction of goods necessary for a full and flourishing life are indicative of Jasbir Puar’s observation of maiming as a deliberate strategy of Israel’s colonial regime – debilitating the indigenous Palestinian population while avoiding the optics of ‘collateral damage’.
Despite being subject to 140 UN resolutions critiquing its treatment of the Palestinians, Israel has evaded accountability. This recurrent and flagrant abuse of international law and conduct weakens people’s faith in these systems. Colonial violence and occupation often appear above the machinations of the international legal system.
As author Moustafa Bayoumi writes, ‘To be considered a political being you must at the very least be considered a human being’. And yet time and time again, lawyer Raja Shehadeh’s observation that “we, the Palestinians, who are now dubbed terrorists, can be killed, disposed of like flies by the army’s big machines without a second thought” is fatally evidenced. Successive operations such as Operation Caste lead or Operation Protective Edge have cost the lives of 6,407 Palestinians and injured over 150,000 since 2008.
Carte blanche for collective punishment
These events set the scene for the escalating physical violence unfolding right now: we fear that Palestinians, including many children, are facing an impending genocide, with no means of escape, and dwindling essential supplies and a long-term need for psychosocial support.
Hamas’ ability to breach Israel’s siege of Gaza and evade what is frequently presented as a highly sophisticated intelligence system has been described as a ‘complete surprise’. Without a doubt, the scale of the attack on Israel by Hamas is surprising, especially in view of the vast imbalance of military power, international clout and Israel’s ongoing surveillance and monitoring of the Palestinian population.
What has not been a surprise, however, has been the response of Israeli forces, and the ‘unwavering’ support of their Western allies. As Israel rolls out its military response, the leader of the British Labour Party, Keir Starmer, backed Israel’s right to cut power and water supply from Gaza. This has been interpreted as a green light to breach International Law.
Vowing to reduce Hamas hideouts to “rubble”, Benjamin Netanyahu has warned Gazan residents to “leave now”. It is unclear as to where Palestinians will go in the blockaded territory. The Israeli state then proceeded to bomb the Rafah crossing – Gaza’s bridge to Egyptian territory.
Already the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports that so far 338,000 people in Gaza have fled their homes, with the majority sheltering in UNRWA schools that have now been damaged in the bombardment.
The United States alongside various commentators have issued calls for evacuations from Gaza and into Egypt. Yet the Palestinian population is one born out of a history of displacement. More than two-thirds of Gaza’s population are historically refugees from the rest of Palestine. To ask them, under the duress and demands of Israeli warplanes, to abandon their homes, with no guarantees of safe return, is to ignore that history.
Meanwhile, the United Nations has condemned the imposition of a complete siege. Now underway, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant declared there will be “no electricity, no food, no water, no gas – it’s all closed” for the “human animals” he describes within the Gaza Strip – in which 50 percent of the population is aged under 15.
Decolonisation is not a metaphor
It is nearly one year on since EU chief Ursula Von der Leyen tweeted “Russia’s attacks against civilian infrastructure, especially electricity, are war crimes. Cutting off men, women, children of water, electricity and heating with winter coming – these are acts of pure terror”. Does the same sentiment not apply to Palestinians?
For Western leaders it seems not. The response instead is that ‘Israel has the right to defend herself’. Meanwhile, Denmark, Sweden, Germany and Austria suspended bilateral development aid programs to the West Bank and Gaza in response. The West has sent an unequivocal message to the Palestinians: your lives do not matter.
In the short term, more world leaders must demand that Israel end its assault on Gaza and allow for the immediate provision of aid. A ground invasion, should it come to pass, risks throwing the entire region into conflict, which will make more severe the region’s ongoing multiple humanitarian emergencies – all at a time when funding is being cut across the globe.
In the long term, it is crucial to underscore that decolonisation is not a metaphor, and the time is now to recognise Western imperialism, Israel’s settler colonial project – and the cycle of violence that these precipitate – is the crucial backdrop to the horrifying events reaching international headlines this week.
