The Gaza War

The ongoing Gaza war between Israel and Gaza (Hamas and by extension also Hezbollah) has been impossible to miss or ignore in the daily news since its start in October last year. Equally hard to ignore are the devastating and cruel initiatives taken by all parties whenever negotiations for a cease-fire are approaching. Sticking out like a very sore thumb, however, are the excesses in cruelty that both parties seem to find perfectly acceptable in this war. With the escalations in bad behavior as bad as they are now: where will this go, and when or where will it end?

‘Cruelty?’ you may ask yourself, ‘But it’s a war!’ Ok, so here are a few facts on the war to date:

  • Killing 1139 Israeli citizens, kidnapping 251 citizens (Hamas)
  • Killing over 40.000 Palestinians in Gaza (Israel)
  • Destroying between 60% and 80% of all buildings in Gaza (Israel)
  • Driven millions out of their houses to other parts of Gaza (Israel)
  • Guerilla warfare, aka hiding militants in civil infrastructure (Hamas)
  • Using AI in setting targets (Israel)
  • Bombing Gaza (Israel):
    • Schools
    • Hospitals
    • Refugee shelters
    • … (yes, there’s more)
  • Bombing Israel (Hamas)
  • Increasing expansion of West Bank homesteading (Israel)
  • Hiding bombs in civil distributed communication devices and systems in Lebanon (Israel)
  • USA military support (Israel)
  • Iran and Jemen (Hamas)

Here’s what Gaza City looked like in February of 2024:

Surely, there’s no lack of ingenuity amongst both parties in how to conduct warfare.

This brings up the question of how equal the war parties are, are they a match for each other? The casualty count mentioned above perhaps is a clue, the unconditional support from the USA is another. However, both parties attempt to outdo each other in moving the boundaries of acceptable warfare actions further forward.

The way things seem to progress in this war is that the civilized world, note that I’m not including Israel in this, tries to persuade the parties involved to a cease-fire. When a date for the negotiations is near, either party will launch a ferocious attack on the other. In general, each party will aim to target civilians and the civilian infrastructure of the opponent.

Simultaneously, third parties as Iran are asked not to escalate by actively joining the war. Obviously, this is already the case, certainly for Iran, Jemen, and the USA (who actively continue to assist Israel with weapons, dollars, and other forms of support).

Israel may – perhaps justifiably – state that it didn’t start the war, and claim it was Hamas when they crossed the border into a civil festival area to do their killing, raping, mutilating, and kidnapping. Hamas may – perhaps justifiably – state that Israel started the war years, or why not decades earlier. With these statements, both parties would be correct. Note the ‘perhaps justifiably’ on both sides’ arguments.

But does that justify the excesses we witness today? Nope, it does not. Hamas has had many opportunities to return the hostages, yet they have not done so. Israel seems determined to do only two things: Bring home the hostages dead or alive while exterminating Hamas. In doing so Israel doesn’t seem concerned at all on how to achieve their goals. To date, over 40.000 lives have been lost on the Palestinian side. The majority of houses in the Gaza Strip have been reduced to heaps of stones and debris, leaving hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, without a roof over their heads.

In their ‘wisdom’,  Israel decided to apply AI to determine what targets are viable and effective for their bombing or military attacks. The likelihood of a Hamas militant being there was just one parameter for the AI to advise on good bombing targets. Another parameter was the risk of civil casualties in such a bombing or attack. Still think AI is a good development?

With the benefit of hindsight, the latter parameter probably wasn’t considered as important when configuring the AI. The Israeli AI pointed out Hamas weapons depots, Hamas offices, or Hamas tunnels as viable targets. Their being in or under civil housing, schools, hospitals, children’s hospitals, marketplaces, and refugee camps played no role. The assumed homestead of any Hamas militant was a good enough reason to bomb his house and wipe out his complete family. Again, this behavior cost the lives of 40.000 Palestinians, to date – the absolute majority of them were civilians: children, women, and men.

And Israel did not stop there, several UN vehicles were shot at by Israeli troops or even bombed. These, let us call them for what they are: war crimes that caused casualties among UN personnel trying to release the hardship of the Palestinian people.

The latest in the Israeli crime spree is the detonation of a batch of thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies ordered by Hezbollah. It turned out that the devices were seemingly delivered by a series of Israeli shell companies that added explosives to them. The preliminary results: 37 deaths and close to 4.000 wounded to date, among the dead were at least 12 civilians and even several children.

Reading the above, it can only be concluded that Israel does not consider civil casualties at all: it has no regard for Palestinian life. They seek to exterminate Hamas and Hezbollah, no matter the cost or consequences. And why? And for what purpose?

Hamas and Hezbollah are not solely terrorist organizations, they once started as political parties within the Palestinian communities in Gaza and Lebanon. Both parties run schools, and hospitals, and engage in extensive civilian relief programs. As within most political parties, fractions with extremist views eventually did pop up and grabbed the opportunity to expand.

Whilst I do assume many Palestinians do support the idea of a militant section of Hamas, I also assume most of the Palestinians do not at all agree with the level of violence the militant branch displays. The same will be true among the Israeli people; most of them did not want this war and they now only want it to end as soon as possible – hopefully with the return of the remaining hostages.

Both parties are stuck with extremists who are prepared to take any risk to reach their goals. Israel is stuck with Netanyahu and his ultra-right war-happy coalition, Hamas and Hezbollah have parts of its leadership only seeking to annihilate Israel. Netanyahu is forced to stay in government as he risks legal proceedings if he leaves politics. Hamas and Hezbollah militant management either live in luxury in Dubai or live hidden amongst the Palestinian people in Gaza and Lebanon. All of them, on both sides, are estranged from the big picture of doing what’s right for their people, as opposed to committing to wiping out each other.

The only thing the above shows is that extremism must be met early or it will lead to excessive violence. And yes, extremism can be found amongst regular folks and politicians.

Does it have to be that way? No, it does not, as this handshake between Israeli and Palestinian leadership clearly showed:

At the time, it seemed like such a good sign for the future of the Middle East and the Palestinian and Israeli people in particular. Now, it seems too long ago and too far away. Will this happen again? I hope so, and soon rather than late. But if so, will it happen during my lifetime?

Paul
September 2024
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Further reading:

 

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