TWO weeks after Hamas staged an unprecedented attack inside Israel, and Tel Aviv responded with savagery, Palestinians continue to face the merciless assault of the Israeli war machine.

However, a tiny sliver of hope appeared on Saturday when the Rafah crossing that links Egypt to Gaza was finally opened, allowing 20 trucks of aid — for over 2m people — into the besieged Strip. While Israel is determined to starve Palestinian civilians to death, it took the personal intervention of the UN secretary general to open the crossing and allow in limited aid.

As António Guterres, who visited Rafah, observed, there are “food trucks on one side and empty stomachs on the other”. The UN and all states with a conscience must ensure this is not a token display of compassion, and that the requisite amount of aid reaches Gaza’s people without restriction.

Yet welcome as this development is, the world should be under no illusion that Israel has suddenly realised the human catastrophe it has unleashed in Gaza. A ground invasion of the Strip is very much on the cards, and knowing the brutality of the Israeli military, the civilian toll may go up significantly.

Already over 4,000 Palestinians, many of them children, have died during the conflict. This is more than the number of deaths in the two Intifadas. Despite these appalling figures, those who run the international ‘rules-based order’ feel no compassion for Palestinians.

Over the past few days, the US vetoed two UNSC resolutions — one Russian, the other Brazilian — that called for a humanitarian ceasefire. As the Russian UN representative noted, the Security Council had become “hostage to the selfish intentions of the Western bloc”.

The international community — at least those of its members that consider Palestinians worthy of basic dignity — must insist on an immediate cessation of hostilities. Furthermore, Israel needs to be warned that continuing slaughter of civilians during a ground invasion will not be tolerated.

Once the bloodshed stops, a serious effort, led by the Global South, must be undertaken to permanently solve the Palestine issue, ensuring a viable Palestinian state, and an end to the daily humiliation of the Arabs by Israel.

The West has shown that it is not — and arguably has never been — an honest broker in the Arab-Israeli dispute. That’s why states with a more measured approach to the issue, such as Russia and China, as well as South Africa and Brazil, can lead the effort.

History will look back at these dark times and bear witness to the ordinary people in the East and West who stood in solidarity with Palestine’s defenceless civilians. It will also remember that the world’s most powerful states — who could have stopped the violence — abetted Israel’s butchery of the Palestinian people.

Published in Dawn, October 23th, 2023