Their pontoon bridge, which opened last Friday for the delivery of humanitarian aid to the residents of Gaza, may ease the conscience of the United States, but above all it testifies to its indifference to the fate of the Palestinians and the trap in which they have locked themselves. in relation to Israel, out of personal interest and lack of courage. Refusing to take the necessary measures to persuade Israel’s ally to loosen its control over land crossings, Pres Joe Biden he claimed he was doing the right thing by committing last March to a massive sealift of aid from Cyprus. In effect, it meant giving Benjamin Netanyahu’s government permission to use food and medicine as weapons of war against all Gazans, in the name of its fight against Hamas.
And this is how we can see activists now Call 9a far-right Jewish group that emerged in January attacks and destroys trucks loaded with food with impunity.
For two months now, the UN has been talking about “imminent starvation” in Gaza. This is already a reality for a large part of the population, because the Israeli army is gradually attacking the city of Rafah, in the far south, and more than 600,000 people have been forced to flee to the coast in hardships we can hardly imagine. However, for the new US sea route to operate at full capacity, it would still represent only a tenth of what is needed to reduce the malnutrition and health problem prevalent in the belt, according to the United Nations.
In a powerful piece, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) describes the disturbing measures applied by the Israeli authorities block the delivery of medical supplies — such as oxygen concentrators, essential devices for the care of malnourished children suffering from severe anemia. It often takes months, MSF says, to get a single approval to bring biomedical equipment into Gaza; it will be several more weeks before the material finally crosses the tipping point. MSF describes the process as arbitrary, opaque and labyrinthine: “Without access to medical care, thousands of lives have been lost and will continue to be lost. These “silent murders” are the result of deliberate deprivation. » Serious accusations that Israel and even Washington reject. From Israel’s smear campaign against UNRWA (the UN organization that helps Palestinian refugees) to the drone attack on January 1.this one April, against the convoy of the non-governmental organization World Central Kitchen, what the residents of Gaza are suffering shows starkly the threats that burden humanitarian law and all the workers who defend it on the ground.
To specifically mention “intentional starvation of civilians as a method of warfare”, warrants requested on Monday by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) against Netanyahu for war crimes and crimes against humanity say nothing else. And by running to his defense claiming that “there is no equivalence, none, between Israel and Hamas (also targeted by the ICC),” Biden is making a biased and partial interpretation of the reasons presented by the prosecutor.
Will we ever be able to escape the vicious cycle of violence and extremist attitudes that makes Hamas and the Israeli hard right complicit in the current disaster? Faith of Lao-tzu: “It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.” »
It turns out, which doesn’t happen often, that diplomacy in recent weeks has offered a glimmer of hope, while the outrage caused by the Israeli-American alliance over Gaza is gaining momentum in the international community. The UN General Assembly’s vote on May 10 was significant: 143 of the 193 members voted in favor of a resolution paving the way for the Palestinian Authority to join the organization as a full member, something the United States opposed.
Although the day is far from when a real political solution will emerge from the labyrinth of diplomatic and geopolitical calculations, we can still see the potential emergence, through a common front against the fixed positions of the United States and the delaying positions of Israel, a capital “change”, to use the established expression. A change that calls for the reversal of the 1993 Oslo accords process, which made the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel the basis, not the goal, of peace talks. Even Canada – about time – agreed to do it a step in this direction. In the current state of affairs, the result is that the United States, even a superpower like the Netanyahu government and its far-right clique, looks increasingly lonely. The ICC’s approach deepens this isolation. It is imperative that the paradigm shift finally happens. First for the Palestinians, but also for the Israelis, it will never happen soon enough.