Israel’s military has claimed it has encircled Gaza City and divided the besieged coastal strip into two, as Gaza came under its third total communications outage since the start of the war.
“Today, there is north Gaza and south Gaza,” Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari told reporters on Sunday, calling it a “significant stage” in Israel’s war against Hamas.
Israeli media reported that troops are expected to enter Gaza City within 48 hours. Strong explosions were seen in northern Gaza after nightfall.
But the “collapse in connectivity” across Gaza reported by internet access advocacy group NetBlocks.org and confirmed by the Palestinian telecom company Paltel made it even more complicated to convey details of the new stage of the military offensive.
The problem is that the Palestinians are stuck in Gaza because no one really cares about them. The Palestinians are more convenient as pawns to use in a proxy war against Israel (for example by Iran and Syria) than to actually achieve a permanent, stable arrangement. For Netanyahu, achieving a settlement alienates his base which wants to expel the Palestinians completely, and the conflict maintains anxiety that keeps him elected.
Which country able to absorb 2 millions refugees without causing catastrophic socioeconomic issues? Egypt certainly can’t do it. Even if it’s spread evenly among, say, 20 richest countries, 100k refugees is still a huge number to deal with and will cause many social issues for years until the refugees are fully integrated into the new society.
And even worse, Hamas uses them too. They have stockpiles of food and water and medicine that aren’t sharing with the Palestinians. They take aid meant for the Palestinians. They try to infiltrate refugee groups. They even dismantled a drinking water system the EU funded and used the pipes for rockets.
A global coalition needs to put boots on the ground and simultaneously evacuate civilians while engaging Hamas. They’re a pox on everyone.
Lots people across the world care about the plight of Palestinians. The US effectively bribes the ruling classes of several middle-eastern countries to prevent popular will from spilling over into open warfare to oppose Israel’s treatment of the indigenous population. It’s impossible to understand how Israel gets away with what it does without acknowledging this.
The issue isn’t about caring … the problem is that Palestinians, and the broader middle-east generally, are being oppressed by a western-backed settler-colonial movement.
The US had to twist Egypt’s arm to get them to accept refugees, so that doesn’t explain things entirely.
Quite a few Arab countries took in Palestinians in the past. The problem is that extremists embedded themselves with the refugees. Egypt, Lebanon, and Jordan all saw civil wars and strife from the extremists who wanted it to be a radical Islamic state. Jordan’s king was actually killed by the extremists and the conflict was called Black September. Subsequently, they aren’t eager to take in Palestinian refugees.
Bernie Sanders had a fantastic opinion piece the other day that lambasted Israel and Netanyahu, but very importantly, also said lasting peace could not be established without eliminating Hamas. This is a big reason why. Hamas is using the Palestinians.
I never actually said what my point was – this is a complicated conflict. It isn’t as easy as just blaming the US. There’s all sorts of geopolitics and history at play here.
The reason why neighboring states are reluctant to accept refugees is that they know they will never be able to return, and the influx of people would destabilize their own societies.
The solution isn’t for other countries to start accepting refugees - it’s that the Israelis need to stop murdering them.