Gaza 2/3. NOW. Will 500,000 Palestinians die?

David vs Goliath

Over the last century a pattern has emerged of Palestinian-Israeli conflict which which is very similar to the David vs Goliath myth. David slings his stones at Goliath, who angrily swings his clubs in retribution, destroying everything in his path. David, in reality, doesn’t stand a chance. There is a pattern of oppression/occupation, rebellion and retribution repeating over and over in the last century. This current scenario is only new in terms of the scale of the October attack and its retribution.

While Israel has become wealthy and well armed. The situation for Palestinians was terrible and is deteriorating rapidly, with half living in refugee camps in Gaza, the West Bank or Lebanon, plus a global diaspora. Israels confiscations of their land and property has been estimated to be worth $300bn at 2008 prices. This process began over a century ago with Zionist land purchases and since then Palestinian land has been expropriated mainly by force.

Approximately 7,000 Palestinians languish in Israeli jails without anything resembling a fair trial and one in five Palestinians have at some time in their lives been incarcerated. Unemployment even before the latest war was over 40% in the Gaza strip and 13% in the West Bank; rates which are sadly increasing.

Gazean Palestinians lived in what is effectively a closed prison. In the West Bank Palestinians live under Israeli occupation, have their property confiscated at will, are harassed, subject to intense surveillance, arrested and imprisoned without trial and killed in considerable numbers even before the latest round of atrocities accelerated the attacks. Social media, for all its ill’s is showing this an undeniable reality.

Gaza was recognised as the poorest, most crowded place on earth before his war, and warnings were given that the status quo was unsustainable. From the comfort of our western homes imagining the situation in Gaza is difficult, but some simple comparisons may help.

Gaza

Devon is a rural UK county with a population of just over a million, and by all accounts is a very pleasant place to live. Now imagine Devon scaled up to resemble Gaza in terms of simple demographics – I will leave geography aside. That would equate to a Devon of 43 million occupants, three huge cities occupying much of its space, tower block after tower block. Little farming, poor infrastructure, more than half the population comprised of well educated, frustrated, angry and frequently humiliated youngsters. 500 lorries of aid arrives daily just to meet peoples basic needs.

You are not allowed to leave the county or travel without permission- if you go fishing can be arrested, and you cannot travel without permission. Your religion is different from those across the border and despised. Those protesting are at high risk of being shot, recently more frequently in the ankle, the most difficult of joints to reconstruct.

90% of the population have been told to migrate first to one half of Gaza to the other, then from one half to a quarter and then from here to there. The 200,000 people in Khan Younis are ordered to evacuate – Plymouth has a population of 250,000. Imagine them making their way to the smaller towns of Tavistock or Ivybridge walking distance away – all at once. Young, old, disabled, pregnant, sick and even hospital patients – everyone.

Now imagine no water, electricity and food supplies cut off.

This Devon metaphor scratches the surface. The reality is far worse. 29,000 bombs have landed on Gaza’s 365 SqKm, equating to 82 bombs per square kilometre of Gaza, and counting – that puts it in league with the bombing of Dresden and is equivalent to 500,000 bombs falling on Devon. Half are unguided ‘dumb’ bombs. Millions of people are on the move, sleeping where they can, some told to evacuate to the desert with no facilities at all. And then the winter brings its winds and rain.

Then the ‘safe’ zones to which they move are intentionally bombed. The remaining few major hospitals can only offer the most basic of care. Schools are destroyed. One toilet (if that) is shared by hundreds of people, and there is no one to call for help. Food is scarce, there is a daily struggle to find drinking water, there is little fuel, no children go to school, and few shops open with massively increased prices.

Latterly, 200 aid truck are slowly getting in daily, though bear in mind in before October 7th, 500 trucks were needed daily to meet Gazean needs in a ‘normal’ situation. According to Human Rights Watch:

“Israeli forces are deliberately blocking the delivery of water, food, and fuel, while willfully impeding humanitarian assistance, apparently razing agricultural areas, and depriving the civilian population of objects indispensable to their survival.”

Due to the lack of clean water, infections are taking hold. Plus, there seems no hope whatever of anything better, indeed dread of what is in store tomorrow or next week, or next month. What the situation will be in a year is unimaginable. Netanyahu refuses to talk at all about the medium to long term.

Human Toll

The attack on the 7th October cost 1,200 Israelis lives with 1,000 attackers killed. This included, 337 security forces, 766 civilians and 36 children. The current Palestinian death toll in Gaza is climbing daily, now more than 25,000, of which 70% are women and children. Hundreds were killed on Christmas day. 10,000 children have been killed. Israeli estimation of a civilian casualty rate of 60% seems nonsense, but even that is an all time high for war time civilian casualties. These numbers are likely to be a considerable underestimate as not all bodies can be recovered and counted and the public sector is devastated.

Already about 1 in 100 Gazean have been killed. That would be equivalent of 640,000 people in the UK. Triple or quadruple this number of people are injured – most of whom are not receiving treatment for serious blast and shrapnel injuries and will thus be adding to the daily toll due to inevitable untreated wound infections leading to sepsis and death. These deaths and injuries involve personal suffering which we are not imaginable to those in the rest of the world.

Even these underestimates of death are likely to be dwarfed now that starvation, dysentery and cholera are become established. Half of all Gazeans are now at risk of starvation and 90% have days where they have nothing to eat. Illnesses will rapidly spread due malnutrition and lack of sanitation and clean water.

Based on previous experience of conflict, it can be deduced that 500,000 Gazeans could die in 2024, a quarter of its entire population, and even that could be an underestimate if the aid continues at its present inadequate levels.

It is also estimated there are 50,000 pregnant women in Gaza, 150 giving birth daily, most outside their own homes and far from help, with a complication rate of 15%. There are no anaesthetics for those needing a Caesarian section – women and newborn babies are also suffering and dying due to deliberate widespread destruction of hospitals and health infrastructure.

In the Afghan war, 2 children a day were killed, 3 a day in the Syrian conflict and 0.7 day in the Ukraine. In Gaza, on average, over 100 children have been killed daily. Diarrhoeal illness is currently 100 times its normal level and with no treatment available deaths from infections disease will dwarf those from bullets and bombs.

And then there is the anguish. All Palestinians will have lost someone close. Children in Gaza are the most traumatised in the world, and right now there seems little hope for their future. They are hardly likely to grow up into balanced adults, but more young people driven by hatred. Women suffer while trying to keep everyone alive and cared for. Men cannot provide protection and are routinely humiliated when encountering the IDF. Most people’s personal possessions and family belongings are gone forever with nothing to pass on to descendants.

Over 200 health care staff have been killed, as well as members of WHO; UNRWA  (UN Relief and Works agency) have lost 108 colleagues. It has been the single largest loss of UN staff in history. Doctors without borders and Save the Children have lost staff. At least 50 journalists too have been killed, some of whom were killed with their families in areas which they had been advised to flee to. These numbers are increasing daily.

Kate Adie, a hardened war reporter was asked how people could understand what is going in and she said “Just look at the pictures”. She was right of course, even if the most unedited, realtime and horrific coverage comes from Aljazera English’s reporters on the ground in Gaza. Most Israeli media does not cover the plight of Palestinians.

So unless things change, it is estimated on the basis of experience that half a million Gazeans will die in the first year, how many in the second and subsequent years depends on reconstruction which right now seems to be on no ones mind.

After the IDF shot three Israeli hostages – even though they were waving white flags and shouting in Hebrew to get help – it was hoped that there might be a pause for thought, but the bombardment continued without any let up. Christmas and the new year brought a bitter intensification in bombing. The hostage shooting is clear evidence of the IDF’s indiscriminate killing and there is simply no end in sight. The USA and others keep sending in the armaments.

Israeli government have stated this war could take months or even a year. This would leave Gaza uninhabitable. As well as the impact on Gazeans, thousands of Israeli soldiers have become accustomed to perpetrating extreme violence which of course, filters back into civilian life with PTSD, increased rates of domestic violence and again, mental illness and marginalised voices for negotiation and peace. The whole nation has become more accepting of mass murder and skirt over the issue of genocide.

Does International law exist?

Hamas, being labelled as terrorists, can hardly be expected to abide by International Law they are by definition outside, but Israel has now made the whole concept of a global legal framework appear outdated and impotent. Laws of war are simply ignored. Geneva conventions mean nothing. Any minimally effective system of world governance seems totally lacking. Israel’s mocking of anyone who criticises them in the UN really does hint that they no longer accept any authority the institution may have had and even with US hesitation, will do exactly what want.

As the League of Nations crumbled as European Fascism took grip and ignored it, it is a genuine worry that now the UN seems to being threatened by the needs and ambitions of individual nation states who ignore whatever it says when inconvenient to them.

The USA

The USA has always been Israels most ardent supporter and continues to be so. The recent shipping of 10,000 tank shells without any Congressional scrutiny, the delivery of over 200+ cargo planes worth of weaponry and the stationing of aircraft carriers add to the veto of the UN Security Council calls for a cease fire and means US support continues at full speed despite impotent pleas for restraint. Its role as any sort of peacemaker is seriously compromised if not ended.

Biden is in a fix. The US supplies most of the weaponry murdering Palestinians and destroying everything in Gaza. Meanwhile, Trump sits in the background, largely quiet on the issue, no doubt delighted with widespread disillusionment with Biden’s performance. Blinken’s attempts to exert influence and tired demeanour reflects the impossibility of the situation he is trying to influence.

A Trump presidency would be more bad news for the region. He has already inflamed matters by moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem and tasked his unqualified son in law with dreaming up the most lop sided “Peace Plan” which was immediately rejected by just about everyone except Israel and the tangerine tyrant.

Rishi Sunak’s blithe comments about wanting the Israelis to “win” described how pathetic has been the UK’s role in all this, despite our historical responsibility to do something, anything, to help. Our politicians seems to pay little heed to our own history in the region and have more important things to address, such as making is possible to buy wine by the pint.

Netanyahu has emerged as a truly evil individual. Many of his ministers, appointed with the aim of keeping him in power, have extremist views – one suggested the use of Israels nuclear weapons on Gaza. He was sacked, but the rhetoric from the Israel government is savage; it’s spokespeople intransigent and oblivious to the suffering they are causing. There are many commentators urging a move to a Greater Israel from the river to the sea.

The Israeli Ambassador in the UK has restated her long held belief that there is no two state solution, hinting that the only solution is a greater Israel, ironically, from the river to the sea. Palestinians? Emigrate, accept subjugation, or die.\

The current situation then is one of unimaginable and ongoing loss pain and distress which is clearly going to get far worse, potentially many times worse. South Africa have referred Israel to the International Court of Justice for committing genocide. The definition of genocide is intentional destruction of a significant part of a population. I fail to see any defence to this as it is exactly what is happening.

So what of the future? That will be covered by my next post.