No ceasefire in Palestine

Despite last year's much-hyped Israel pullout from Gaza, its occupation actually never ended. The New York Times quoted Prime Minister Ehud Olmert," We will operate, enter and pullout as needed." What is now happening in Gaza begins with the election of Hamas back in January this year, when the United States and Israel decided to punish the Palestinian people to exercise their democratic right to choose freely as they wish. 

Even more extreme, as Noam Chomsky observes, is the situation in the West Bank, where Olmert plans to annex "the valuable lands, most of the resources, including water" and "cantonizing the rest and imprisoning it, since he also announced that Israel would take over the Jordan Valley." This steady takeover, "if it continues, is just the murder of a nation, the end of Palestine."

The prevailing assumption for Israelis and most Americans, Gideon Levy writes in Ha'aretz, is that "the Palestinians started it." " 'They started' will be the routine response to anyone who tries to argue, for example, that a few hours before the first Qassam fell on the school in Ashkelon, causing no damage, Israel sowed destruction at the Islamic University in Gaza. Israel is causing electricity blackouts, laying sieges, bombing and shelling, assassinating and imprisoning, killing and wounding civilians, including children and babies, in horrifying numbers, but 'they started it'."

Now alongside the calamitous situation in Lebanon, a humanitarian crisis is developing in Palestine. It is caused by the U.S. and Israeli-orchestrated international sanctions, in the misguided hope that it would lead to public anger against Hamas causing its overthrow. 

The UN organizations working in Gaza have expressed grave alarm. They are "alarmed by developments on the ground, which have seen innocent civilians, including children killed, brought increased misery to hundreds of thousands of people, and which will wreck far-reaching harm on Palestinian society. An already alarming situation in Gaza, with poverty rates at nearly eighty percent and unemployment at forty percent, is likely to deteriorate rapidly, unless immediate and urgent action is taken."

UNWRA, which cares for 980,000 Palestinian refugees, believes "Gaza is on the brink of a public health disaster." The WHO states, "The public health system is facing an unprecedented crisis." It estimates that 23% of the essential drug list will be out of stock within one month. The World Food Program estimates that "in June 70% of the Gaza population were already unable to cover their daily food needs without assistance." And UNICEF states, " Children in Gaza are living in an environment of extraordinary violence, insecurity, and fear... The ongoing fighting is hurting children psychologically. Caregivers say children are showing signs of distress and exhaustion ... due to shelling and sonic booms." 

OCHA, the overall humanitarian coordinating agency, states that with the bombing of electric plant, the lives of 1.4 million people, almost half of them children, worsened overnight. 

The current Israeli attacks violate the Fourth Geneva Convention. The convention sets out the obligations of an occupying power, and specifically prohibits collective punishments, "targeted" assassinations, and destruction of the infrastructure of occupied territory. 

It is time that the U.S. realizes its tarnished image in the Muslim world due to its one-sided support of Israel, and works out a just and equitable solution for Palestinians instead of hoping that Israel will impose its decision through brute force.

Siraj Islam Mufti, Ph.D. is a researcher and freelance journalist and an activist in interfaith affairs.