Build on this joint statement to try and save Gaza

A recent joint statement by about 30 western states, which includes the United Kingdom, France and Italy, has called for an end to the war in Gaza. It condemns Israel’s ‘drip feeding of aid and the inhumane killing of civilians, including children, seeking to meet their most basic needs of water and food.’ It says that the Israeli government is denying ‘essential humanitarian assistance to the civilian population’, which it finds ‘unacceptable’. And it calls Israeli plans to sequester and eventually force Palestinian citizens out of Gaza ‘completely unacceptable’.

This is the strongest western criticism yet of Israeli conduct across Palestine, and it has coincided with Israel’s offensive on Deir al-Balah, the city which has acted as a refuge for thousands of displaced people. It has the infrastructure, logistical bases and personnel to keep people alive, and its destruction will be catastrophic.

It appears unlikely that this western condemnation will deter Israel. With a few exceptions, western governments have been calling upon their ally, Israel, to stop or moderate its behaviour while also ensuring that Tel Aviv has not suffered serious diplomatic, economic or military costs for acting with impunity across Palestine. Further, neither Germany nor the United States, Israel’s most steadfast backers and its largest arms suppliers, have signed that statement. This is a signal that there has been no change in their policies and may be another reason why Israel is unlikely to stop.

But there is still time for the world to act and prevent the Palestinians from being destroyed.

The facts

Is Israel committing genocide? The International Court of Justice (ICJ) may take years to determine this. Several jurists, legal and other scholars argue that what is unfolding in Gaza is in fact a genocide. However, rather than guiding us to facts, this question has become politicised and an end in itself. And the facts are sickening.

Gaza had a population of about 2.3 million people when the war began in October 2023. About 60,000 people are confirmed dead, perhaps half of them women and children, and 90% the population has been displaced multiple times. The United Nations says that Gaza’s remaining population has been squeezed into about 46 square kilometres of land where systems of food, health and hygiene have collapsed. That is about 43,478 people per square kilometre, living in conditions that one would not wish upon any form of life.

Tel Aviv’s game plan

But these numbers do not capture what is widely suspected to be a systematic destruction of human life and habitat in Gaza through a micromanaged plan of starvation. Israel has curbed aid inflow when the war began. Earlier this year, it imposed a total blockade of 11 weeks and followed it up with a new aid delivery system that, according to the western nations’ statement, ‘deprives Gazans of human dignity’. Israeli forces have killed about a thousand desperate people seeking limited amounts of food under degrading conditions. And the UN says a third of the population has been living without eating. Exhaustion is endemic. Starvation is widespread. And famine looms. Is this not a genocide?

Israel does not allow foreign journalists to report freely from Gaza. And it discredits the non-Israeli accounts coming out of Gaza. This has allowed it to dispute any assessment of its likely endgame in the territory.

That Israel is carrying out ethnic cleansing is clear. Israeli leaders have publicly stated their plan to control most of Gaza, force the Palestinians into a ‘humanitarian city’, and let them out only if they choose to leave for another country. Two former Israeli Prime Ministers, Ehud Olmert and Yair Lapid, have called this ‘city’ a ‘concentration camp’. Conditions for a future generation of Palestinians in Gaza are being destroyed. And as Jean Drèze recently noted in this daily, once famine sets in, people will turn against each other, which will put an end to all solidarity and chances of reconstituting. It would then be used as evidence of Palestinian barbarism and sub-humanity — and thus further proof that the Palestinians are not a people.

Stop the hedging

The UN says that the ‘last lifelines to keep people alive are collapsing’, but the world can still step in. The world has a chance to halt the catastrophe. Governments can review the scale of their diplomatic, economic and military ties with Israel. International peacekeepers can be sent to Gaza. Russia, China and India could join their ‘Global South’ partners in exerting additional pressure on Israel to stop. The Gulf countries and Türkiye should stop hedging. The western nations’ statement has ‘… urge[d] the international community to unite in a common effort’ to end the war. Non-western governments can test western sincerity by offering to evolve a common approach.

There are some of us who know what is going on in Gaza is an act that will end the idea that ‘humanity is one and universal’. Therefore, we must do what we can. Governments and corporations have more influence, but individuals can act on their conscience too. The time to act is now. Otherwise, we will be hanging our heads in shame and regret.

Atul Mishra teaches international relations at the Shiv Nadar University, Delhi-NCR