Famine in Gaza is hardening rhetoric in Israel
Palestinians carry boxes containing food and humanitarian aid packages delivered by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, on May 27. On Friday last, the UN said Gaza is the 'hungriest place on Earth'. Photo: AP/Abdel Kareem Hana
For three days in a row last week, some two dozen Palestinians were shot dead by Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) in or near the Israeli and American-run Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) site in Rafah in southern Gaza.
There are, however, disputes about the facts of what happened in the early days of last week. The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry reported that 20 to 30 people were killed with more than 100 injured, each day for those three days at or close to the Rafah aid site.
The IDF initially put out a statement that they were not aware of "injuries caused by IDF fire within the Humanitarian Aid distribution site." But later acknowledged that soldiers did open fire toward Palestinians who they say approached them roughly one kilometre from the aid distribution site.
Much of the mainstream Israeli media, , Israel's largest daily newspaper, the English Language , and Channel 13 evening news continue to claim the international media is distorting the facts.
The went as far as labelling the reports 'Fake News' in a Sunday afternoon headline. The GHF itself put out a statement disputing the first mass IDF shooting, claiming that aid was distributed without incident; “There were no injuries or fatalities, we have heard that these fake reports have been actively fomented by Hamas. They are untrue and fabricated."
Perhaps what is lost here in this back and forth tit-for-tat ‘what happened where’ between the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health and the Israeli Defence Forces and the American-Israeli aid organisation the GHF, is the undisputed fact that dozens of Palestinians were shot dead every day over the past three days, within approximately one kilometre of the food aid distribution site.
What is not in doubt is that the humanitarian situation in Gaza is now dire. The Chief Executive of the UN World Food Programme (WFP) warned last week that half a million people in Gaza are at risk of famine, describing the situation as a “catastrophe”.
On Friday last, the UN said Gaza is the “hungriest place on earth” and that “starving Gazans continue to be deprived of aid”. The report highlighted that 600,000 people have been displaced since mid-March and also the deaths of 30 aid workers since the beginning of May.
The GHF has been explicitly accused of politicizing aid distribution. The Secretary General of Doctors Without Borders, Christopher Lockyear, has accused the aid organisation of being used as a political tool to forcibly displace people as part of a broader strategy of ethnic cleansings.
But there is a wider context here. This has been a significant hardening of Israeli public opinion following the Hamas terror attack of October 7. A recent shocking opinion poll in - the left leaning Israeli paper of record - has stunned even Israelis, well at least those on the centre and left.
The poll found that 82% of Israeli Jews support "the transfer (expulsion) of residents of the Gaza Strip to other countries".
Some 54% of Jewish respondents were "very" supportive of the idea of the expulsion of all Israeli Arabs from Israel. Israeli Arabs or Palestinian citizens of Israel make up around 20% of the Israeli population.
But the most disturbing finding of all was, when asked if they agreed with the position that the IDF, "when conquering an enemy city, should act in a manner similar to the way the Israelites acted when they conquered Jericho under the leadership of Joshua [admittedly an ancient biblical reference] namely, to kill all its inhabitants?" almost half, 47%, agreed.
Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised. The rhetoric of the far right has increasingly permeated the public discourse here in Israel. The comments of Israeli screenwriter and actor Gil Kopatz was recently widely reported when he said that the Israeli war on Gaza was not “genocide” but “pesticide”.
In a Facebook post Kopatz further wrote: “If you feed sharks, they end up eating you. If you feed Gazans, they end up eating you. I am in favour of shark extinction and in favour of exterminating Gazans.”
Few in Ireland perhaps may be surprised by the depravity of the discourse. The rhetoric of senior politicians and ministers in the Israeli government have become increasingly bellicose and belligerent in recent months.
The far-right firebrand minister of national security, Itamar ben Gvir has in the past openly called for ethnic “voluntary” cleansing in Gaza, saying that the war presented an “opportunity to concentrate on encouraging the migration of the residents of Gaza,” calling such a policy “a correct, just, moral and humane solution”.
Just last month, Bezalel Smotrich, the Israeli minister of finance vowed “Gaza will be entirely destroyed” as a result of an Israeli military victory. Smotrich earlier this year was reported as saying that whilst “it may be just and moral” to starve two million Gaza residents until Israeli hostages are returned, but that “no one in the world would let us”.
Despite the international outcry and global condemnation, Smotrich’s apocalyptic threat of starving two million Palestinians appears to be unfolding, and frankly, the world may be letting Israel do just that.
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