The humanitarian crisis in Gaza continues

The ghastly images from Gaza continue to command our attention on our TV screens or on whatever other media device we use. The whole scene is absolutely astounding. The calls for a ceasefire continue, and the one country that can bring this about, the US, is not supporting it for they insist that Israel has a right to defend itself, I assume by whatever means necessary. I suspect that when this is all over, in whatever shape it takes, two of the biggest losers will be Joe Biden and Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Support for Israel is declining among the US population and calls for a ceasefire increasing. Protests continue around the world in support of Palestinians. In fact, at this very moment there is a protest outside the British parliament and in California where President Biden is meeting the Chinese President Xi Jinping. The US is now forced to state that it has not encouraged Israel to bomb hospitals. But Israel seems to be implying that to defend themselves they have to rid Gaza of Hamas and as it appears, by extension, anyone that gets in the way, premature babies, innocent civilians, the elderly, anyone indeed.

The US by continuing to supply Israel with weapons is complicit in what is happening. Biden’s dear friend Israel PM Netanyahu, whom he hugged when he was about to start his devastation of Gaza, is out for revenge. How else can he confront the fact that under his watch Hamas had been able to penetrate Israel’s defence and to attack Israel, killing hundreds of Israelis? When it is all over, he has to continue to defend himself in Israel against criminal charges and to win over those who had been protesting his efforts to put his government and himself above the Israeli Supreme Court. Biden will soon engage himself in an election battle where he can ill afford to lose any support from those who voted for him at the last presidential election.

As I write, the UN Security Council has just passed a resolution put forward by Malta calling for a sufficient urgent and extended number of humanitarian pauses to allow aid to reach those desperately in need. Russia, the UK, and the US abstained. What strange bedfellows! The US said that although it liked certain aspects of the resolution it could not vote for it because it did not include any condemnation of Hamas and the right of Israel to defend itself, areas, it should be noted, that were also not included in previous resolutions that they voted against. Are the global protests having an impact on the US? What is not known at this time is Israel’s response to the resolution which is supposed to be binding. But Israel in the past has not adhered to binding UN Security resolutions. This resolution has gotten through because it dealt with pauses rather than a ceasefire that the US was certain to veto. Powerful figures in the West have been against a ceasefire. Even the British Labour Party Leader takes that position. Hilary Clinton states that a ceasefire will be a gift to Hamas, a position that obviously Biden holds.

Today, Wednesday, Israel claimed to have carried out a” precise and targeted operation” inside the Al-Shifa hospital, the largest hospital in Gaza. Israel claims that Hamas had been using the hospital as a military command base. Some of the hostages they said were held there, but no captives were found. They have produced photos showing ammunition and other types of military equipment which they claimed they had found. This is very much in doubt since Israel has total control of the area, with no third-party observers to verify what had gone on. Israel is quite capable of planting evidence since some claims made before turned out not to be so. Medical personnel at the hospital had been calling for an international independent body to visit the hospital to investigate Israel’s claim. The longer Israel stays to produce evidence to substantiate its claims, the more there will be suspicions that they had planted any evidence they produce. During Israel’s storming of the hospital medical personnel were unable to provide any assistance to their patients and no doubt there would have been more deaths of children and other innocent persons.

Since the attack on Gaza began, over 12,000 persons were killed, 6,000 of them children, with 20,000 persons being injured, about 30 journalists were killed. Will Israel accept the latest UN Security Council resolution? It has just come to my attention that the Israeli Foreign Minister has said that Israel will not accept such a resolution. When will it all end and what will follow?

• Dr Adrian Fraser is a social commentator and historian