Rows of ruined buildings. No electricity; Water shortage. no food; The cries of hungry people. The dead are buried together in the same grave. The body of the child is rising on the father’s shoulders; The mother is dying in front of the child’s eyes. Bombs are falling like rain. The sky trembles with loud noise. Schools, shelters, hospitals, mosques and churches are collapsing. The child, who was supposed to go to school, is suffering from bomb injuries in the hospital.
These images are from the besieged Gaza Strip in Palestine. Today marks one year since the Israeli invasion of Gaza. In this reality, the question arises, in the midst of humanitarian disaster, oppression and deprivation, has the US-backed Israel won in Gaza? Has the Palestinian resistance fighter Hamas lost?
Fighters from the Palestinian armed group Hamas are still fighting. Israel has killed Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran’s capital, Tehran. But the organization is still led by leaders like Yahya Sinwar. Sinwar is believed to be in Gaza. Israel has not even rescued the remaining hostages held by Hamas during the year-long conflict. Hamas freed hundreds of hostages last November under the terms of a cease-fire. The rest of the hostages are in Gaza, but Israel is unable to rescue them.
The township has been reduced to rubble, leaving people without electricity and internet. But Hamas fighters did not give up. Building resistance. Anger is also growing against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who failed to rescue the hostages. In the meantime, millions of residents took to the streets in various Israeli cities to protest.
On October 7 last year, 1,200 people were killed in an attack by Hamas in Israel. They also took two and a half Israelis hostage. Because of this, Israel launched an unprecedented attack on Gaza. 41 thousand 870 people have been killed so far. 97 thousand 166 people were injured. Another 45 people were killed in one day yesterday.
According to The New Humanitarian, more than 16,000 of the dead were children. More than 10 thousand people are missing. They are feared to have lost their lives in the rubble of the building. 306 humanitarian aid workers and more than 900 medical workers were killed in the valley.
The number of displaced people in Gaza is more than 1.9 million, which is 90 percent of the total population of the Gaza Strip. More than half of the total population is in catastrophic food insecurity. Farming stopped and food production systems came to a standstill. Many aid workers from various international organizations including the United Nations have also been killed in Israel’s continued attacks on Gaza. Global charity Oxfam says at least 289 of its workers have been killed, making Gaza the world’s deadliest place for aid workers.
Online media Axios reports that 60 percent of Gaza’s infrastructure has been destroyed in one year. An estimated 227,591 residential units were destroyed. 68 percent of the valley’s roads have been destroyed. 19 out of 36 hospitals closed; 17 are being dug. In this context, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said last September that he had never seen death and destruction at such a rate. In addition, Israel has increased its grip on the occupied West Bank. More than 11,000 Palestinians have been detained there in a year.
According to Reporters Without Borders, Israel has targeted and killed many journalists in Gaza. Electricity or internet systems have been destroyed. 130 journalists were killed in one year. According to RSF data, 32 of those killed were targeted.
MSF (Medicines Sans Frontieres), a global organization of doctors, said that they treated 27,500 people in Gaza in one year. 80 percent of them suffered bullet injuries. Dr. MSF medical program manager. Amber Alayan said, Israeli bombs in densely populated areas are causing massive casualties. They are doing surgery without any kind of anesthesia. He saw children die in front of his eyes due to lack of sufficient medicine.
Allies have supplied weapons to Israel throughout the year, said Chris Lockyear, the organization’s secretary-general. It killed children en masse; Tanks have also shelled non-conflict areas and warplanes have attacked so-called humanitarian zones. According to Reuters, trauma in Gaza includes children. 1.2 million children need health and emotional support. They suffer from severe depression and insomnia.
Israel has suffered a major economic blow due to its involvement in the war in Gaza. Recently their credit rating has been downgraded again. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich told CNN that Israel’s economy was under pressure but resilient. Now Tel Aviv is involved in the war in Lebanon. Karnit Flug, a former governor of Israel’s central bank, said a longer and more intense war would have a major impact on Israel’s economic activity and growth.
In addition to economic losses, Israel has also seen massive military losses. According to the Times of Israel, 726 officers and members of the Israeli military were killed in the fighting in Gaza. Five of them are colonels. 66 police officers also lost their lives.
Israel did not stop after this. In the past year, they have carried out successive attacks in Lebanon, Iran and Syria. At last they have started killing in Lebanon as brutally as in Gaza.
There have been protests around the world against Israeli aggression and killings. There are still sporadic protests. The United States has seen the largest wave of protests. Hundreds of students from top universities, including Columbia University, protested there. Israel has never faced mass protests like this before. Protesters called on the Biden administration not to arm Israel. However, the US did not stop supplying weapons to Israel.
In this situation, an application has been made against Prime Minister Netanyahu for war crimes in the International Criminal Court or ICC. Israel has also filed a counter-appeal to suspend that application and not to issue an arrest warrant against Netanyahu. Earlier, the ICC had issued an arrest warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The Guardian Online reports that the US’s full support for Israel’s barbaric campaign has played a role in organizing the genocide. In this, Latin American, African and Asian countries think that international law only applies to them. It does not apply to the United States and its allies. Supporting such an operation would undermine US global influence. Besides, it will strengthen China and Russia.
In fact, Biden’s Israel-policy is being blamed in various ways for this crisis in the Middle East. Middle East Eye reports that Netanyahu has always wanted to bring the United States to war against Iran. He is forcing Iran to counterattack by killing Hamas leader Ismail Haniya and Iran’s top generals on Iranian soil. The US continues to supply weapons to Israel, with which it is carrying out genocide in Gaza. The bomb used to kill Hezbollah’s top leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut was also made by the United States. The United States vetoed all the UN Security Council proposals for a cease-fire in Gaza.
In Gaza, brutality has virtually won. Humanity lost. Israel did not win there by standing on a pile of corpses. In this situation, Israel started attacking Lebanon. It is also seen as an attempt to divert attention from the failure of Gaza. But above all, there is a growing demand for a quick ceasefire, which could prevent the destruction of the entire Middle East. Hezbollah will also stop attacking Israel if the aggression in Gaza stops; Iran will not attack. Many people’s lives will be saved.
The United States says they are continuing to try for a ceasefire. But after a year, nothing fruitful came. The scope of the war is gradually expanding. “One year on, we are no closer to a ceasefire than we were during the height of the hostilities,” said Jen Eisland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC).