Don't
Forget Gaza
By Khaled Amayreh
19 August, 2007
Al Ahram
With
the UN-sponsored ceasefire between Israel and Hizbullah going into effect,
Palestinians are apprehensive that Israel might embark on a fresh rampage
in Gaza in order to boost the morale of a conspicuously dispirited Israeli
public.
In fact, the Israeli army
never stopped murdering Palestinians and destroying their homes for
even a single day during the war on Lebanon. Palestinian medical sources
revealed this week that more than 187 Palestinians were killed, mostly
in the Gaza Strip, since the beginning of July.
According to Riyad Awad,
director of the Gaza-based Health Information Centre, the killings of
Palestinians is becoming a "macabre daily routine". "Not
a day passes without the Israeli army killing an average of five or
six Palestinians, mostly children and women and other innocent civilians.
Israel feels the world is giving it a mandate to kill and maim at will,"
he said.
On Monday, the day the ceasefire
in Lebanon went into effect, the Israeli army exterminated a mother
and her two children in northern Gaza when a Merkava tank fired an artillery
shell into their home, tearing their bodies to pieces.
Hours later, Israeli warplanes
bombed and destroyed three civilian homes in Jabalya and Beit Hanun
minutes after the Shin Bet -- Israel's domestic security agency -- telephoned
the affected families, warning them to leave or be bombed immediately.
The bombing wreaked havoc
on each neighbourhood, injuring as many 14 innocent civilians, some
seriously.
Ghazi Hamed, the Palestinian
government spokesman, told Al-Ahram Weekly that the chances of Israel
carrying out "another orgy" of terror and murder in Gaza were
more than real. "Israel believes, maybe correctly, that the world
that said nothing and did nothing while Israel was systematically destroying
Lebanon, slaughtering civilians en masse, would behave similarly if
Israel did the same in the Gaza Strip."
Hamed believes that any fresh
Israeli campaign in Gaza would not necessarily seek to achieve specific
political or security goals. Rather, a fresh slaughter would pay a domestic
dividend for a now beleaguered and much-humiliated prime minister and
defence minister. "You know nothing would enhance the collective
Israeli mood like murdering Palestinian children and shedding Palestinian
and Lebanese blood," said Hamed.
Another goal of a renewed
strafing of Gaza would be to punish Palestinians for their solidarity
and identification with Hizbullah during the war. To be sure, Palestinians,
relentlessly savaged and starved by Israel, did express satisfaction
at seeing the Israeli army take a beating at the hands of Hizbullah
fighters. Hizbullah's leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, whose portrait
is ubiquitous throughout the West Bank and Gaza, has fast become the
most popular political figure among Palestinians.
Many Palestinians, especially
within the resistance camp, dream of emulating Hizbullah in the level
of deterrence it presented the Israeli army. At present, the main means
available to Palestinians to disturb Israel are homemade Qassam projectiles.
These, however, are mainly a psychological weapon creating collective
anxiety among Israelis living in the vicinity of Gaza.
Indeed, Palestinian resistance
and political leaders realise, at least privately, that the situation
in Gaza and Lebanon are very different, since Lebanon is, in the final
analysis, a sovereign state while the Palestinians are effectively prisoners
languishing under a military occupation that controls nearly every aspect
of their lives. Hence, Palestinian guerrilla groups will continue to
opt for low-profile resistance, aiming not so much to defeat Israel
militarily -- a goal clearly beyond their capacity -- but rather to
make the occupation costly for Israel.
Meanwhile, efforts to strike
a prisoner swap deal between Israel and the Palestinians have yet to
yield substantive results as Israel, badly bruised by the war in Lebanon,
is refusing to permit any linkage between the demanded release of a
captured Israeli soldier, Corporal Gilad Shalit, and Palestinian political
and resistance detainees languishing in Israeli jails, many without
charge or trial.
A Palestinian government
official this week described the Israeli posture with regard to the
Shalit affair as "arrogant, insolent and condescending". "They
want us to free Shalit in return for a vague and noncommittal promise
to release an unspecified number of Palestinians from Israeli detention
camps," said the official, who asked for anonymity because he was
not authorised to speak to the media.
On Monday, 14 August, Israeli
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told the parents of two Israeli soldiers
captured by Hizbullah fighters five weeks ago (the incident Israel used
as justification for its pre-prepared war on Lebanon) that his government
would negotiate with Hizbullah for the release of the soldiers. The
remarks, which drew sharp criticism from some on the grounds that Olmert
could have done this without launching a war that led to the death of
over 100 Israeli soldiers, indicated that the Israeli government might
eventually agree to swap Palestinian detainees and hostages held in
Israel for Shalit.
For the time being, however,
Israel is striving to free Shalit either through a lopsided deal with
the Palestinian Authority -- which is unlikely given the adamant rejection
of both Hamas and Shalit's captors to such a deal -- or by finding the
soldier's whereabouts through intensive intelligence efforts, as indeed
the Israeli army has been trying since Shalit's capture on 25 June.
Finally, with the Hamas-led
Palestinian government barely functioning, due in part to the abduction
by Israel of many of its ministers and dozens of Palestinian lawmakers,
Fatah and Hamas leaders have been meeting in the Gaza Strip in a renewed
effort to form a government of national unity.
There are many Palestinians,
of various political backgrounds, who have come to the conclusion that
a government of national unity is probably the only thing Palestinians
can do to save the Palestinian Authority (PA) from disintegration and
collapse. Last week, Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh pointed
out that Palestinian leaders ought to seriously study dismantling the
PA, which he suggested was becoming a national liability.
Haniyeh argued that there
was no point "in deceiving ourselves and giving the world an erroneous
impression that there is a Palestinian national government when the
Israeli occupation army is killing every shred of authority and abducting
ministers and lawmakers and forcing officials to go underground."
The tacit call to dissolve the PA drew unexpected support from the Tunis-based
Fatah Chief Farouk Qaddumi who argued that there was no point in maintaining
an "Authority that has no authority."
PA President Mahmoud Abbas
rejected the call as "out of the question for the time being".
However, it is increasingly clear that should a government of national
unity fail to end Israel's US-supported blockade and give Palestinians
fresh hope for freedom from occupation, demands for dissolving the PA
would be too overwhelming to be resisted, even by Abbas.