WITH Tel Aviv’s troops carrying out land incursions inside Gaza while its jets mercilessly pound the congested Strip, obliterating hospitals, residential buildings and shelters, it is clear that Israel is attempting to foist its ‘final solution’ on the Palestinian people in the name of going after Hamas.

Since Oct 7, when Hamas staged raids inside Israel, over 7,000 Palestinians have been butchered by Israel, nearly half of them children. Tel Aviv has shown no mercy, wiping out entire families, targeting civilian infrastructure, and cutting off food, water, communication links, power and fuel to Gaza — all qualifying as war crimes.

Yet Israel’s powerful friends, including US President Joe Biden, doubt the Palestinian toll; they believe Israeli accounts that Tel Aviv did not bomb the Al-Ahli Hospital, and that it was a misfired Palestinian rocket that caused the atrocity.

In fact, it is the blind support of the West that has emboldened Israel to unleash genocidal force against Palestinian civilians, as it knows it will not have to pay for its crimes.

There is also disingenuous framing of the conflict by Israel and its friends in Western officialdom and media. The fact is that the Arab-Israeli conflict did not begin with the Hamas raid. For decades, Palestinians have faced death, humiliation and the usurpation of their ancestral land on a daily basis.

And, while the targeting of civilians by both sides is condemnable, Oct 7 was the explosive reaction to years of pent-up rage, as Gaza’s people had been living under a siege enforced by Israel long before the latest hostilities broke out.

Whatever spin Tel Aviv and its claque of supporters may be putting on the conflict, people of conscience the world over are demanding an end to the massacre of Palestinians.

The majority of states voted for a Jordanian resolution in the UN General Assembly calling for a truce. Moreover, hundreds of thousands have marched in cities as diverse as London, Sana’a, Baghdad and Paris demanding an end to the slaughter. Many, many Jews have clearly told Israel: ‘not in our name’.

The Middle East stands at the edge of a precipice. If Israel continues its slaughter in Gaza, particularly through an expanded ground invasion, and if the US-led West flexes its military muscle in its support, the whole region can go up in flames.

Tel Aviv needs to immediately end its bloody campaign, while all actors must stand down and allow the grieving people of Gaza to bury their dead. The siege must be broken so that ample supplies of food, water and medicine can reach Gaza.

But if Israel continues its merciless assault, and the West continues to aid it, the Middle East will explode, and the reverberations will be felt across the world.

Published in Dawn, October 29th, 2023