Dear Reader,
Do you remember Faris Odeh?
Even if you haven’t heard of him, you’ve likely seen him more than once, regardless of whether you are a Gen Z, millennial, or boomer. Faris Odeh was a Palestinian boy born in Gaza in December 1985. He was immortalised by an iconic news photograph (shown above) captured by Associated Press photojournalist Laurent Rebours on October 29, 2000. Just 10 days after this picture was taken of Faris standing alone in front of a huge Israeli tank, holding only a stone to throw at it, the boy was fatally shot in the neck by the Israel Defense Forces near the Karni crossing in the Gaza Strip.
The image was taken during the Al-Aqsa Intifada. The image soon became an icon in the Palestinian territories, symbolising opposition to the Israeli occupation. Historians and sociologists interpret the image as a graphic representation of the deep power and resource imbalance between the Israeli military and the Palestinian resistance.
Many Faris Odehs continue to be killed in Palestine. Since the formation of Israel in 1948, the steady Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation has claimed thousands of lives, including those of children like Faris and women. Estimates vary, but since 2007, after the Sunni-Islamic militia Hamas seized power in Gaza, the number of fatalities has increased.
Between 2008 and 2020, more than 5,500 Palestinians lost their lives. The corresponding number of Israeli fatalities is 251. After 2020, the conflict has entered its bloodiest phase to date. The current savage and relentless attack on the Gaza Strip was triggered by a violent Hamas attack launched on October 7 in Israeli territory that killed 1,400 people. The Hamas called their attack “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood”, a retaliation for the deliberate and provocative Israeli desecration of the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem as well as its daily siege of Gaza.
At the moment of writing this piece, the death toll is more than 10,000 Palestinian lives, most of them children. UN numbers indicate that Israel has killed more Palestinians in just these four weeks than the total civilian deaths on both sides of the nearly two-year Russia-Ukraine war. The governments of the so-called “free world” who raced to condemn Russia are today cheering Israel on.
As they say, the first casualty in war is truth, and you can see this play out vividly in the Gaza attack. While one can accuse both sides of providing exaggerated casualty numbers and glibly justifying brutality, one thing is clear: even the most ‘neutral’ discussion of the question of Palestine must begin by admitting Israel as the occupier. Anything else will be a farce.
In the Gaza Strip, more than two million people are crammed into a narrow, 25-mile sliver of land sandwiched between the Mediterranean Sea on the one side, and Israel and Egypt on the other. Israel governs their lives with apartheid laws, forbidding fences, and a daily regime of oppression and humiliation.
As author, scholar, and activist Tariq Ali writes in Frontline, we have no moral choice but to agree that Palestinians have the right to resist the Israeli occupation. Throughout history, subjugated people, from Spartacus to the several anti-colonial resistance movements and fighters, have claimed this fundamental right for themselves.
Interestingly, Ali’s article went live on our website on October 29, which marks the 23rd anniversary of the iconic photograph of Faris Odeh. Our cover package, which includes interviews with representatives of Hamas, the PLO, former Israeli security officers and strategists, as well as pieces by independent writers, has sparked world-wide debate.
This debate is vital. An exchange of ideas is what the world needs. Not bombs.
Tell us what you think of what is turning out to be one of the most deadly assaults of our times. Let’s keep the debate going.
Wishing you a meaningful week ahead,
Team Frontline
We hope you’ve been enjoying our newsletters featuring a selection of articles that we believe will be of interest to a cross-section of our readers. Tell us if you like what you read. And also, what you don’t like! Mail us at frontline@thehindu.co.in
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