Israel vs Hamas
After a strained 6 month cease fire period, rockets and mortars slam deep into Israeli territory, supposedly a provocative attack by Hamas militants. US condemns the attack which they say is "...responsible for breaking the cease-fire and for the renewal of violence in Gaza."
Israel, being damn pissed, launches what would be a 22-day land and air offensive, supposedly with the main aim of "busting out Hamas militants' strategic locations to cripple them" as well as "knocking out tunnels through which weapons are smuggled", which would however eventually lead to the flattening of about half of the Gaza region. Destruction of homes. Death of about approximately 1000+ Palestinians, militants and civilians alike, with the innocent people bearing the huge brunt of losses.
There have been some intelligence report suggesting that Hamas militants may have quite likely disguised themselves as civilians to "make it harder" for the Israeli troops to distinguish between militants, and civilians. Perhaps that may have just made the Israeli's throw caution (literally) to the wind and just shell every damn thing they can probably find, including homes, media centres, schools, hospitals, ambulance. C'mon. Hospitals and ambulances too? Isn't that a clear violation of the 4th Geneva Convention? Medical healthcare teams are neutral. Not firing practice targets. And the large death toll of civilians throughout the course of the conflict (estimated at 900-odd) with many more injured, coupled with the lower kill rate of militants (no sufficiently accurate figure as of yet) puts Israel on a pedestal. One thats placed on a furnace and underneath a column of spikes. Their actions throughout the war has drawn widespread criticism and hatred, more so from Muslim nations. Their acts also include the use of inhumanely vicious weapons such as white phosphorus (which burns through skin, tissues and bone till it runs out) and mini pellets so minute they get embedded deep into the body, rupturing tissues and matter within, such that doctors cannot even properly detect the source of the injury.
While we can lambast Israel for resorting to such monstrous acts, we should not forget the other side of the conflict too, the Hamas group. Knowing the extent of what Israel can and will do, the Hamas group, still defiantly (if you would like to think of it that way) continued its smuggling operations and continued smashing rockets into Israeli territory, (again if you like to think of it as such) ignoring the welfare of it's people, even to the extent of..whether intentionally or otherwise - using civilians as cannon fodder. In the aftermath of the massacre of the Gaza strip, the compensation offered by the Hamas group is, in my opinion, hardly of help to the people who have suffered greatly under the constant air-strikes and shelling of the Israeli troops, that has not only taken away homes and livelihood, but lives as well. Lives of those who perhaps in actuality, wanted nothing to do with this conflict. Children, whose innocence clearly seen and felt, were never spared from the cruel edges of death itself.
One might argue that Palestinians had a right to fight to reclaim the land that Israeli's have taken and controlled, to take back what is rightfully theirs. But at what cost? Thousands of lives? The suffering and agony endured by those blameless?
Then comes the question.
Who really is to blame? Was this the right thing for Israel to do? Can anything be done to rectify the damage?
Here are the thoughts from some quarters:
"Israel will not be able to topple Hamas unless it fully reoccupies Gaza, and it will probably not be able even to stop the rocket attacks on its cities without some kind of political settlement. For that, Israel will need the mediation of Egypt, Saudi Arabia or other Sunni states. Israel must be careful not to allow its military campaign to undermine its own diplomatic end game -- or to hand another political victory to an Iranian regime that remains a far greater threat to Israel than Hamas is."
-Washington Post editorial board. Mixed stance.
"The military surge devised by General David Petraeus succeeded in destroying al-Qaeda's operational effectiveness in Iraq, thereby allowing the Iraqi government to start taking responsibility for governing the country. Israel needs to adopt a similar strategy in Gaza, not least because a large proportion of the civilian Palestinian population would dearly love to see an end to Hamas's unwelcome interference in their affairs."
-Con Coughlin, through The Daily Telegraph. In support of the move.
"If Israel hoped to break Hamas' hold on Gaza it has gone precisely the wrong way about it. Its leaders have done this many times before, repeatedly misreading the way Arab societies work. They believe that if they hit Gaza (or Lebanon) hard enough, the local population will blame Hamas (or Hezbollah) for bringing tragedy upon them. But it doesn't work like that. Instead, Gazans blame Israel - and close ranks with Hamas."
-Jonathan Freedland through The Guardian. Against the move.
"What is urgently needed now is: an internationally monitored ceasefire, of sufficient duration to resume and conclude negotiations on that basis; for Israel then to lift the blockade; and for new elections to decide who speaks for the Palestinians – Fatah, whose position is fast being eroded by this crisis, Hamas, or a combination of them both."
-Financial Times editorial board. Against the move.
More in this list of opinions.
So who feels the major brunt of the conflict?
Palestinian civilians. Even children. Imagine.
And whats left behind out of this conflict?
Devastation. Despair. Death.
From this bloody conflict, who's wrong? Who's right?
And who is left?
