Israel marked Independence Day by killing Gazans. The UN says 56 percent killed in Gaza are women and children and the overall death toll crosses 35,000. Israel slams the UN for reporting this death toll. Gazans have no place to go while the Muslim world didn’t go beyond condemnations. This is the latest of the Israel-Gaza war. It questions the world when would it save the children without food and shelter in Gaza?
Israel on Tuesday marked its Independence and its nation pledged the reoccupation of the strip. Those celebrating this day said, “Everybody across the world must know that Gaza is important to us and needs to be again in Israeli hands. If it is not, we won’t finish.” It went on in Sderot – a southern city of Israel, a few kilometers away from Gaza. The marchers holding Israeli flags, danced and sang Hebrew songs. They hailed their forces over the massacre of Gazans. They said reoccupation was the only way to secure Israel. “Instead of this smoke we want to see Jewish settlements in Gaza,” the media reports said.
Meanwhile, the UN says that killings in Gaza reached more than 35,000 and 56 percent of those killed in the Strip are women and children. Another UN report earlier said that there are reasonable grounds available to believe that Israel committed genocide.
According to the recent reports of this world body more than half a million Palestinians have been displaced in recent days by escalating Israeli military operations in Rafah and northern Gaza. No food entered the two main border crossings in southern Gaza for the past week that left 1.1 million Palestinians facing catastrophic levels of hunger and it states “A full-blown famine is taking place in the north.”
A UN agency for Palestinian refugees says that around 450,000 Palestinians have been driven out of Rafah in Gaza’s south over the past week. A UN spokesperson was reported saying that in northern Gaza, Israeli evacuation orders have displaced at least 100,000 people so far. He said that there are about 10,000 plus bodies that still have to be identified while 24,000 have been fully recognized. Israel last week questioned the UN why the figures for the deaths of women and children were suddenly halved.
The UN Spokesperson said those figures -less figures – were for identified bodies – 7,797 children, 4,959 women, 1,924 elderly, and 10,006 men while the Palestinian Ministry of Health was still under process for identifying details of the casualties. However, it was for this reason that Israel slammed the UN stating “Mimicking Hamas messages.” Meanwhile, the UN clarified its position stating what was said above is correct in terms of the percentage of women and children -56% – killed in the Israel-Gaza war since October 7. It said Gaza’s death toll was still over 35,000 but not all bodies were identified but were under process.
A UN special rapporteur on human rights – Francesca Albanese – in the Palestinian territories earlier in her report said there were reasonable grounds to believe Israel has committed genocide in its war on Gaza and afterward she received threats. In her report, she said that there are clear indications that Israel has violated three of the five acts listed under the UN Genocide Convention in its war on Gaza. When the media asked her if she had received any threats on this report highlighting Israel as having committed genocide, she was reported replying “Yes, I do receive threats. Nothing that so far, I considered needing extra precautions. It doesn’t change either my commitment or the results of my work.” “It’s been a difficult time,” she said. “I’ve always been attacked since the very beginning of my mandate.”
This report says Israel’s executive and military leadership and soldiers have intentionally “subverted their protection functions in an attempt to legitimize genocidal violence against the Palestinian people. The only reasonable inference that can be drawn from the unveiling of this policy is an Israeli state policy of genocidal violence toward the Palestinian people in Gaza.” Interestingly responding to this report Israel’s diplomatic mission in Geneva said the use of the word genocide was “outrageous” and said the war was against Hamas and not Palestinian civilians. Doesn’t it look like a mocking statement when viewed in the context of what the UN said that 56 percent of those killed are children and women?
On Tuesday Israel forced the shutting down of a field hospital in Rafah. The Doctors Without Borders said it shut a field hospital in Rafah because of Israel’s incursion into the southern Gaza city. It says 22 patients at the Rafah Indonesian Field Hospital were transferred to other facilities or sent home and a staff 180 were pulled out. This 60-bed hospital had been treating war wounded since December 2023. According to the UN 24 out of 36 Gaza hospitals have shut down and the rest are partially operating. It was reported Israel’s incursion into Rafah this week has driven some 450,000 Palestinians to flee the city.
Israel is also attacking the UN representatives. The UN says said an Israeli tank attacked a clearly marked UN vehicle on Tuesday a security officer from India was killed and another security officer from Jordan was wounded in this attack. The UN has no doubt that shots from an Israeli tank hit the back of a white U.N. vehicle while being on a route to the European hospital in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah. Israel drew international outrage last month for killing seven charity aid workers in Gaza with a series of drone strikes targeting their vehicles.
Meanwhile, it was learned through reports in the international media that White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan is expected to travel to Israel and Saudi Arabia this weekend. He was reported as saying that he would meet with his Israeli counterpart to talk about the best way to ensure Hamas’ defeat.
This was how Israel marked its Independence Day. Neither the ruling of the International Court of Justice nor the UN resolutions could stop Israel. In the given situation there is nothing left for starving, shelter-less, unsecured, and ailing children, women, and men of Gaza. For them is just hope and courage. So far, the Muslim world is continuing moral support for Gazans. Will it do something beyond that is not yet known?
(Senior journalist Rana Kashif has authored this opinion)
