Targeting Gaza

In one of the bloodiest events in West Asia since 2005, Israel launches a massive assault on Gaza and threatens to deploy its army in full strength.

THE last week of February witnessed one of the worst bouts of bloodletting in Gaza. The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) launched a full-scale assault on the hapless citizens of the enclave. After seeing that the politics of starvation did not bend the will of the people of Gaza, the Israeli government is once again trying to impose a military solution.

The latest IDF offensive has already claimed the lives of more than 100 Palestinians, most of them civilians. Among them are children who were playing football and a family of six, whose house was targeted by helicopter gunships. Most of those who died were victims of targeted killings and aerial bombardments.

Israeli officials have not shied away from describing the latest escalation as all-out war. Among the targets chosen by the Israeli Air Force for demolition was the office of Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh. The Hamas leadership in Gaza has gone underground after prominent Israelis vowed imprisonment or assassination of leaders who did not recognise Israel. When Yasser Arafat refused to kowtow to unjust Israeli demands, his office too was demolished in 2002. He died as a virtual prisoner, not allowed to move out of Ramallah. In the case of Gaza, 1.5 million people have been kept in an open jail. The recent attacks have been described as the deadliest since the Israeli disengagement from Gaza in 2005. The death roll among Palestinians has been the highest since the current round of fighting erupted in 2000.

The excuse Israel used to launch the latest offensive was a suicide bombing outside a supermarket on February 4. It was the first suicide bombing inside Israel since the beginning of this year. It was also the first time that the Hamas had claimed responsibility for a bombing since August 2004.

In late February, a Qassam rocket found a human target after a long time, when an Israeli civilian was killed in the town of Sederot during an attack. Alarmingly, from the Israeli point of view, the range of the Qassam rockets being fired from Gaza has dramatically increased. For the first time, these rockets are landing in Askelon, 20 km from Gaza.

It was a wake-up call to Israel and the international community. The inhuman blockade of 1.5 million people and the continued targeted killing of civilians did not go unanswered. More than 260 Gazans have been killed by Israeli security forces since the Annapolis peace talks were kick-started in November last year.

After Egypt resealed its border with Gaza, Israel was quick to restart the targeted killing of resistance leaders. Israel made a further cut in the supply of fuel and electricity to the energy-starved enclave. Among the items banned is chlorine, essential for making water potable. Dysentery and cholera have been claiming a lot of lives since the blockade started.

The Israeli leadership had been planning a large-scale assault on Gaza for quite some time in order to try and dislodge the Hamas. Ever since Ehud Barak took over the defence portfolio, there has been talk of crushing Hamas militarily. Initially the plan, according to reports in Israeli media, was to launch a full-scale military invasion of Gaza. The international focus on the suffering of ordinary Gazans and the boost that it gave to the Hamas leadership in the Arab world was not to the liking of Israel.

Barak had threatened in mid-February that the Israeli armys actions would get stronger and stronger and that when the time comes the army would be deployed in full strength in Gaza. But the lessons learnt from the invasion of Lebanon in 2006 are evidently not lost on the Israeli leadership. Hizbollah had dealt a military blow to the much-vaunted prowess of the Israeli army.

The spontaneous breakout in Gaza in January was also viewed with alarm by the Israeli military establishment. The Hamas leadership had warned that the next breakout would be along the border with Israel. The very thought of thousands of Palestinian civilians breaking the border walls and rushing into Israel made many top Israeli officials panicky.

During the military assault in late February, there was palpable fear on the Israeli side when senior officials started talking about an imminent mass Palestinian breakout into Israel. A former Israeli army general, Matan Vilnai, and current Deputy Defence Minister, warned the Palestinians that they would face a bigger holocaust than that experienced by the Jews because we will use all our strength to defend ourselves.

The hawkish views expressed by the Israeli establishment are not shared by the general public. A recent opinion poll revealed that 64 per cent of Israelis wanted an end to the conflict and direct negotiations with Hamas in order to secure the release of an Israeli soldier captured by the outfit in 2006.

Israeli actions have once again attracted formal criticism from the United Nations, the European Union and Arab states. Slovenia, which currently holds the E.U. presidency, condemned the disproportionate use of force by the Israeli Defence Forces against the Palestinian population of Gaza and said that such acts of collective punishment were against international law.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a key Muslim ally of Israel, strongly criticised the use of disproportionate force, which killed children and civilians. Israel, he said, was rejecting a diplomatic solution to the conflict. In the first week of March, Barak, according to The Jerusalem Post, asked Justice Minister Daniel Freidman to examine the legality of attacking residential neighbourhoods in the Gaza Strip.

Israel knows that it has nothing to worry about as long as it has the open backing of the United States and tacit support in other capitals. Washington has threatened to veto any U.N. resolution against Israel on its latest killing spree in Gaza. Even the request for a ceasefire in Gaza was threatened with a U.S. veto.

The U.S. Presidents spokesperson, supporting Israel, said that there was a clear distinction between terrorist rocket attacks that target civilians and action in self-defence. Both the Democratic contenders for the U.S. presidency, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, virtually vied with each other in supporting the latest Israeli actions.

The George W. Bush administration, coincidentally has despatched a warship, the USS Cole, to the region. This is apparently a signal to Hizbollah and Syria to hold their fire in Lebanon. But the influential Speaker of the Lebanese Parliament, Nabil Berri, is of the view that the target of the warships is Gaza. He said that the warship was stationed to prevent help from reaching beleaguered Palestinians in Gaza. According to him, Washingtons ploy of bringing Lebanon into the picture was to divert international attention from the massacres that are being committed in Gaza.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas whose credibility among Palestinians has further plummeted in recent months, described Israels massive use of force as a holocaust and a genocide. He has finally put a stop to the charade of peace talks with Israel, which started after the Annapolis summit.

There were huge protests in Ramallah and other towns in the West Bank against Israels military operations in Gaza. In Hebron, Israeli troops opened fire on protesters, killing a teenager. Many Palestinian demonstrators in the West Bank accused Abbas of being an Israeli agent. Khaled Mashaal, the Damascus-based leader of Hamas, said that Abbas had indirectly played a part in facilitating the latest Israeli military action.

Mashaal said that Abbas had committed a grave error in accusing his organisation of supporting Al Qaeda. Is it logical that a Palestinian leader accuses his people in Gaza and accuses them of supporting Al Qaeda? Isnt it a chance for the Zionists and the Americans to launch the attack? Mashaal asked. He once again reiterated the offer of Hamas to stop firing Qassam rockets if Israel stopped its offensive against Gazans.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, speaking to the media while on an official trip to Japan, claimed that the attack on Gaza would strengthen the chances for peace. The more Hamas is hit, the greater the chances of a peace agreement. It is clear to me that the Palestinian leadership with whom we are trying to make peace understands this, he said.

On the day Olmert made this statement, the chief Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, said that the peace talks had been buried in the dust of the Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip.