Echoes Beneath the Rubble: Life and Loss in Gaza (Are we supporting Genocide?)

                                           A Land Under Siege

The Gaza Strip and the West Bank have been the most manifest signs of a long-standing conflict for decades.  The two areas, once a single geographical territory, were changed by continuous conflict, economic isolation, and military occupation.  Common Palestinians must contend with checkpoints straddling their neighborhoods, ruined neighborhoods, and air-raid alarms daily.

In Gaza, kids grow up hearing the hum of drones and only later hearing the hum of airplane engines.  A fresh military campaign every couple of years further disintegrates the landscape and reduces the possibility of normal living.  For many residents, what began as a political struggle for boundaries and security has become a fight to survive.

The Human Price of Employment:

There is no place to escape when bombs drop onto Gaza's densely populated neighborhoods.  The US patrols the water, and the borders of the territory are sealed.  Hospitals that are short of fuel and medicine supplies struggle to treat the wounded.  Most civilians who die in serious escalations have been children, says the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Accounts of families annihilated in a matter of minutes lie beneath the statistics.  Where there are no visible military targets, human rights observers have witnessed entire blocks of houses being destroyed.  More than half of the population of Gaza has trauma-related issues due to the cycles of violence, according to local medical NGOs.

There is another form of violence in the West Bank.  Towns are divided by checkpoints, and night raids are routine.  Families discussed their fear of arrest under administrative-detention orders and not being brought to trial.  Demolitions of homes that are used as punitive operations—actions forbidden by international law—have been reported by Amnesty International and the Israeli nongovernmental group B'Tselem.

Gaza: The Largest Open-Air Prison in the World:

Israel has imposed a blockade on Gaza since 2007, which restricts the movement of people and goods by land, sea, and air.  While the program was enacted in the name of security, it has had catastrophic humanitarian consequences.  The blockade has been repeatedly characterized by the UN as "collective punishment," a term to characterizes steps that punish a people for the actions of some of their members.

Clean drinking water is a luxury, fuel is scarce, and electricity is restricted.  Over 90% of the water in Gaza is not fit for human consumption.  Hospitals are relying on generators, which often break down, risking life-support patients and preemies.  For decades, unemployment has been among the planet's highest, around 45%.

Israel tends to shut off fuel and electricity entirely during escalations, which halts water pumping and sewage disposal.  An already critical situation is aggravated by the humanitarian breakdown that ensues.  The UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) oversees international relief convoy assistance, which struggles to make deliveries when crossings are shut down or under attack.

Aiming for Life Itself: Schools, Hospitals, and Refuge:

While all parties are obligated under the law of conflict to differentiate between combatants and civilians, individuals in Gaza have been repeatedly in the firing line. Hospitals treating the wounded, apartment complexes hosting media outlets, and UN schools used as shelters have all come under bombardment from aircraft.

The Israeli army asserted that Hamas operated in the building after an Israeli rocket strike destroyed the offices of Associated Press and Al Jazeera in May 2021, a claim never publicly confirmed.  Dozens of reporters were killed in recent conflicts, reported the Committee to Protect Journalists.

The same is true for medical personnel.  Over the past ten years, hundreds of attacks on medical institutions in Gaza and the West Bank have been confirmed by the World Health Organization.  Hospitals like al-Shifa and al-Quds have been forced to close wards or run without anaesthetics due to fuel shortages and bombardments.  These facilities are entitled to particular protection under the Geneva Conventions.

Systemic Apartheid and Discrimination:

There's a more complex system of oppression behind the bombs.  Human Rights Watch, in a historic report released in 2021, determined that Israeli leaders were persecuting Palestinians and practicing apartheid.  This was corroborated by Amnesty International in 2022, which characterized a "system of oppression and domination" that treats Palestinians and Jewish Israelis differently.

Although Palestinians in the occupied West Bank live under military rule, Israeli settlers enjoy complete civil rights under Israeli law. Palestinians are only marginally issued building permits, but settlements continue to expand on confiscated land. There is disparate access to water and agricultural resources, and roads are divided. Palestinians, B'Tselem says, have access to just a fraction of the water available to settlers in the same region. Israel challenges the apartheid concept, arguing that its policies are driven more by security needs than by discrimination against any race or ethnic group.  Yet it remains difficult to harmonize the dual legal system and land-use policy with the entrenched concept of equality before the law of international conventions.

Opposition Despite Destruction:

Palestinian civil society endures despite isolation, siege, and attack.  Teachers rebuild classrooms, doctors set up temporary clinics, photographers and muralists document the destruction.  Social media campaigns bring focus to lives that would otherwise be invisible.

In spite of criticism, global organizations such as UNRWA and neighborhood humanitarian agencies such as the Palestinian Medical Relief Society still provide essential services.  Under circumstances where aid convoys cannot find access to neighborhoods, community networks distribute food and water.  In a quiet protest of hopelessness, vendors in Gaza's markets continue to sell fruit and bread between air-raid sirens.

Global Reaction and Quietness:

The international response is oscillating between censure and inertia.  Countless resolutions have been passed by the UN General Assembly calling for Israel to end the occupation and halt the expansion of settlements.  A few of them have been implemented.

Even as they continue to supply Israel with arms under long-term defense pacts, Western countries often express "concern" at civilian losses.  Even though progress has been slow, the International Criminal Court initiated an investigation in 2021 into alleged war crimes committed in Palestinian territory by all factions.

Demos across the globe, from Jakarta to London, have demanded accountability and an end to impunity.  Human rights lawyers argue that the violence cycle will keep going if there are no penalties or embargoes.  Critics point out the contrast between the international community's swift actions elsewhere and its reluctance to act firmly in this war.

 The Price of Passivity:

For the people of Gaza and the West Bank, the struggle never abates, although eventually each war recedes from the headlines.  Each ceasefire is not peace but a pause.  Surviving children of the airstrikes must endure a future of little work, little schooling, and no dependable electricity.

International humanitarian law's basis is that political disputes should never be paid for at the cost of people.  Civilians have become the currency of the war in the Palestinian land.  As that price is higher with each passing day, the world turns a blind eye to it.

More than ceasefires or negotiations will be required for lasting peace; equality, freedom of movement, and accountability must be had by all those who live between the river and the sea.  The siege of Gaza and the partition of the West Bank will remain symbols of an unresolved injustice—a wound left open by indifference—without those guarantees.

References:

• United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Occupied Palestinian Territory Humanitarian Needs Overview (2024).

• Amnesty International, Israel’s Apartheid Against Palestinians: Cruel System of Domination and Crime Against Humanity (2022).

• Human Rights Watch, A Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution (2021).

• B’Tselem, This Is Apartheid (2021).

• World Health Organization, Attacks on Health Care, Occupied Palestinian Territory (2023).

• Committee to Protect Journalists, Journalists Killed in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory (2024).

• UNRWA, Gaza Emergency Situation Reports (2024).