The citizens of Gaza are imprisoned in just 360 square kilometres from which there is no escape because Israel and Egypt control all the border crossings and refuse to open them. Many commentators in the British press are comparing Israel’s murderous rampage to ‘shooting fish in a barrel’. This must be the only ‘war’ in history from which there are no refugees. 1.5 million Syrians have found a safe-haven in little Lebanon, and a million more in Jordan. But when the Israelis send Palestinian families chilling telephone or loudspeaker warnings to leave their homes, where are they to go? They just scatter, hopelessly, in all directions; 50,000 are currently sheltering in United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) schools. Many have refused to heed Israeli warnings of imminent attack, staying at home and awaiting their fate. It is widely believed that the Egyptian truce initiative (penned by former British premier Tony Blair) was a cynical ploy to produce a pretext to invade. Hamas were not consulted and the terms of Cairo’s initiative were clearly going to be unacceptable. Hamas insists that lifting the blockade is a precondition for a ceasefire and Gaza’s weary citizens, who have been under siege since 2007, agree. “Life in Gaza has become little more than a slow death,” a relative told me last week. “Enough is enough. Let us live like normal people or let us die.” When four little boys were deliberately shot by Israeli artillery as they raced for their lives along the beach by Gaza’s harbour; when not one, but two, rehabilitation hospitals were ordered to evacuate their incapacitated patients in the middle of the night; when three children were shot on a roof top where they’d gone to play because they weren’t allowed out by parents worried for their safety... the world knew about it in seconds and was, rightly, aghast. Celebrities — today’s opinion formers whether we like it or not — have expressed their horror at Israel’s violence. American pop star Rihanna, American NBA star, Dwight Howard and Italy’s World Cup goalie, Gianluigi Buffon all tweeted the hash tag #FreePalestine, even if the first two later took down their tweets. Hollywood comedian and actress, Whoopi Goldberg, retweeted, ‘The men, women & children in Gaza, Palestine have been getting Massacred for the past week.’ Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters and American musician, Neil Young, released a statement on Facebook saying, ‘We stand with those who oppose the Israeli Government’s brutal policies ... Please join us and countless other artists all over the world in solidarity with the oppressed and the disenfranchised’. The list goes on... And so we come to the only good news about the ongoing genocide in Gaza. The plight of the Palestinians — which was overshadowed by the Arab revolutions for the past three years — is firmly back in the spotlight and, worldwide, public opinion is changing. The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement is galvanised by the bloodshed, there are demonstrations around the world in support of the Palestinians — including one that was held on Saturday outside Downing Street — and even the mainstream press has largely been critical of Israel. Palestinians will continue to resist as long as Israeli occupation continues and one day they will prevail: Israel has achieved none of its military aims in Gaza. Its aircraft have yet to succeed in hitting one rocket launcher or any of Hamas’s leaders; its tanks and bulldozers have uncovered only one tunnel. gulfnews/opinions/columnists/the-intifada-of-rockets-1.1362018
Posted on: Mon, 21 Jul 2014 00:28:39 +0000
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