Ten months on, what is behind the ongoing Israeli violence?

In December 2023, I wrote an article about the Israel-Palestine conflict which reflected many people’s abhorrence of the murder and abductions of innocent Israeli civilians when the Hamas militia launched attacks on them on October 7, 2023, and the ensuing Israeli killings of Palestinian men women and children in Gaza and the West Bank. At that time, the world was outraged, and actively looking for ways to stop the killings. The death toll then, for Gaza was 20,000. 

In my next column on the subject in March 2024, the toll had risen to 32,000, and it became clear that the “dehumanisation” of people, as articulated by Jonathan Glazer through his movie “The Zone of Interest” was setting in, with the world tragically becoming immune to daily atrocities in Gaza.

Now, with 40,000 Gaza deaths, the dehumanisation of the victims is virtually complete, and the world is looking the other way. This is wrong, and I plead guilty on my count.

Ten months on, what is behind the ongoing Israeli violence in Gaza? Can we really still believe that it is about destroying the Hamas militia to make Israel a safer place? Many countries have enemies to varying degrees. They do not go on an all out to attack. They improve their defences and deterrents. And we know that on October 7, 2023, Israel’s defences were shockingly poor.

Unfortunately, the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ voice has now been drowned out by all the warmongering nations. What he has been warning us right from the start about the potential for regional wars may just be unfolding now. With the prospect of battle lines being drawn between Israel, Iran, Lebanon, Gaza, Yemen, US, UK and other possible future nations, neither Israel nor other countries in the region will sleep safe for decades, whether each country eventually achieves its military objectives or not. And to top it all, an almighty economic downturn would no doubt follow, affecting the people of the whole world. This is the obvious outcome that these countries’ leaders are actively ignoring.

Sadly, Israelis who argued the humane “Purity of Arms” principles for Israel’s security forces which attempt to protect non-combatants in war lost out. Within the context of fighting in Gaza, Benjamin Netanyahu, openly expressed his biblical approach to the destruction of the Amalekites where King Saul is instructed by God to “attack and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys”. This invocation was used in South Africa’s International Court of Justice case against Israel under “Expressions of Genocidal Intent against the Palestinian People by Israeli State Officials and Others”. So, in line with this plainly malevolent philosophy, Palestinians’ destruction intensifies day-by-day.

We, outsiders looking in, are understandably more worried about this conflict spilling over on to us. But this does not change the nature of the monumental carnage that’s taking place in Gaza, and what this means to us as fellow human beings. Does it mean anything at all? Is our enlightened generation really as callous as those who remained silent when the German fascists tried to apply the “final solution” to the Jews?

Western news media gives us only intermittent glimpses of what’s happening in the Middle East. The facts on the ground tell their own story:

An apocalyptic 70,000 thousand tons of bombs have been dropped on Gaza, only 300 miles south of Cyprus, and covering a tiny area which is one twenty fifth of the size of Cyprus. This has, to date, destroyed or badly damaged 25,000 buildings including 41 mosques, three churches and 12 universities.

So far 40,000 Palestinians have perished, forever, in Gaza. Ninety thousand people are maimed. Ten thousand people are missing, many presumed dead.

Fifteen thousand Palestinian children have been killed, blown up or crushed under the rubble. Eleven thousand lost children wander on their own, having been separated from their families. Fifty-five schools have been crushed. Three hundred teachers and academics have been killed. Education has stopped. What kind of future can these children see, apart from fighting the Israeli enemy when they grow up?

There are 50,000 women who carry with them babies with no destiny. Thirty-one hospitals have been partially or completely destroyed, with only five remaining functional. Five hundred medical staff have been killed. How many mothers and babies will die or suffer illness and disease during pregnancy and childbirth? What psychological damage will mothers, and their offspring suffer for life? How many mothers are thinking that these babies would be better off not coming to this world?

We are seeing, before our very eyes a biblical 2.2 million hungry human beings on an endless internal exodus, getting nowhere. Like migrating birds in a cage.

We all want to be loved and supported, or, at least feel that someone, somewhere cares about us. The constant overseers of these desperate people are not friends, but the cold dark electronic crosshairs of the hidden assailant. Fear of death, and loathing of the Israeli state must occupy every minute of their minds.

Israeli hostages who have not been killed already, and incarcerated Palestinians exist in perpetual despair, awaiting human barter which may never come.

Yet, did Jews not pray and eat First Fruits in Jerusalem? Did Muhammad not journey to and pray in Jerusalem? Did Jesus not preach and heal people in Jerusalem? Are Jews, Muslims and Christians not all the children of Jerusalem and the Fertile Valley?

The supposedly civilised and principled West, in particular the United States and United Kingdom, need to demonstrate that their moral compass will start turning in the right direction, and put an end to this Kafkaesque nightmare through an immediate cease-fire and the withdrawal of troops from Gaza alongside the release of all hostages.

As these genocidal acts take place before our very eyes, and we do nothing, but just go about our everyday chores, do we not become uninnocent witnesses of a crime against humanity?

Fahri Zihni is former chair of Council of Turkish Cypriot Associations (UK), a former policy advisor at the UK’s Cabinet Office and a former president of the Society of IT Management, UK