Continual massacre in Gaza lays bare shameful global political failure
A displaced Palestinian woman cooks in a sprawling tent camp adjacent to destroyed homes and buildings in Gaza City. Picture: AP
The chaos unleashed by Donald Trump on global economic trade is dominating headlines and consuming the world. While the US President’s controversial tariffs will hike up inflation and cost jobs everywhere, they will also likely drive up global poverty and further entrench inequality. This follows the disgraceful dismantling of USAID and cuts in aid budgets by several countries which will have profound life or death implications for millions of people in some of the poorest places on the planet.
Amidst this chaos, it seems that Gaza no longer merits serious political discussion and action. Yes, there is still outcry from politicians, but the urgency to act just doesn’t exist.
Israel has now restricted Palestinians’ access to roughly two-thirds of Gaza, either by declaring large areas as no-go zones or issuing forced displacement orders, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Tens of thousands of people in Gaza have already been forcibly displaced for the umpteenth time, with nowhere safe or remotely habitable left for them to go.
No food, water, medicines, shelter items or other essentials have been allowed into Gaza since the total blockade was announced on Sunday, March 2, in flagrant breach of international humanitarian law. Prices immediately soared, leaving people unable to afford food to eat, and now — one month later — food supplies are running out altogether.
All bakeries in Gaza have closed because there was no flour left and a shortage of diesel, depriving people of even the basic staple of bread.
Without deliveries of medicines and vital medical equipment, hospitals are struggling to treat patients injured in Israeli military airstrikes which have already killed more than a thousand people since they resumed two weeks ago, adding to the total death toll of more than 50,000.
Humanitarian workers in Gaza are doing everything they can to respond to the crisis, yet they continue to face unacceptable danger while doing their jobs. The killing of 15 humanitarian workers in southern Gaza on March 23, including eight Palestinian Red Crescent paramedics, was utterly appalling but represented a consistent pattern. Targeted in ambulances, their bodies were found in a mass grave.
A March 13 UN Commission of Inquiry report should be essential reading for all governments, particularly those who prop up Israel with arms, aid, and no sanctions for their actions.
During the first month of the war, more than nine out of ten women and children killed were in residential buildings, and 95% of women were killed together with at least one child.
One of the many examples highlighted by the UN Commission is how on November 12, 2023, Hala Abd Al-Ati, an older woman, was shot and killed in the Al-Rimal neighbourhood of Gaza City as she attempted to evacuate with her family. In a video viewed and verified by the Commission, Al-Ati is seen holding the hand of her young grandson, who is waving a white flag. The group is walking on the road through a built-up area and reaches an intersection. Her family members can be seen following a few metres behind when a gunshot is heard, and she falls to the ground. Evidence reviewed by the Commission indicates that Ms Al-Ati was shot by a sniper despite not posing any threat.
The Commission also documented a case of a pregnant woman who was killed by an Israeli sniper outside the al-Awda hospital, an ActionAid partner, during the siege of the hospital in December 2023. The hospital area was occupied by Israeli forces at the time and, as a result, people were afraid to offer the woman aid. She died due to her injuries.
The Commission’s report lays bare how Israel has deliberately targeted women’s reproductive health. The use of starvation as a method of war, destroying Gaza’s healthcare system, and denying humanitarian assistance is causing severe reproductive harms to women and girls. Pregnancies, childbirth, post-partum recovery and lactation are impacted.
On top of this, sexual and reproductive healthcare facilities have been systematically destroyed across Gaza, including maternity hospitals and Gaza’s main in-vitro fertility clinic. Israel has used sexual violence systematically against Palestinian women, girls, men and boys.
The frequency, prevalence and severity of sexual and gender-based crimes perpetrated across the occupied Palestinian territory leads the Commission to conclude that sexual and gender-based violence is increasingly used as a method of war by Israel to destabilise, dominate, oppress and destroy the Palestinian people.
Ireland has taken strong action, but why can’t we prioritise the Occupied Territories Bill, something very minor against the scale of what we see?
Whatever the global turbulence around trade and tariffs caused by Trump, Gaza must stay in focus. There must be justice and full accountability. Displaced people must be allowed to return to their homes. Gaza belongs to the Palestinians and only they have the right to determine its future.
The international community must take action and demand the full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, as stipulated in the ceasefire agreement, and the West Bank too. As the humanitarian situation approaches breaking point, there must be urgent action to resume the ceasefire and end the massacre of Palestinians, and the illegal, decades long occupation of their land.
