Violence has returned to Israel and Palestine after the Israelis
killed Hamas’ top military official, Ahmed Jabari, in a rocket strike last
week. The situation turned from bad to worse when both sides pounded each other
with rockets and missiles. Many feared an escalation was possible when rockets
from Gaza managed to reach Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, both cities are usually safe
from rockets. Yet the reality is that this situation is much worse for Gaza,
already 130 Palestinians have been killed, the vast majority of which have been
civilians. This is significantly lower than the number killed on the Israeli
side, the figure is still in single digits. Until today a ground invasion by
Israel appeared imminent with Israel amassing tanks and troops on the border as
well as calling up over 70,000 reservists. With the world watching the
situation seemed completely out of control. Then today good news began to roll
in with both sides announcing talks towards a ceasefire that would take place
today or tomorrow. Unfortunately that ceasefire has not come and both sides
continued shelling each other throughout today, with far more devastation occurring
on the Palestinian side of the border.
The President of Egypt, Mohamed Morsi, has been an important
mediator in the past few days, attempting to get Israeli and Palestinian
officials talking over a deal to end the violence. Although he is a member of
the Muslim Brotherhood, an organisation with many links to Hamas and he is very
pro-Palestinian, he does not want to appear confrontational. He is trying to
show support for Hamas whilst respecting the treaty with Israel, in trying to
broker a peaceful solution he has invited regional players such as the Qataris
and Turks to negotiate with the Israelis and Palestinians in Cairo. The ceasefire
may not come for a while yet, but the most important thing he can do is to try
and stop a ground invasion occurring. It would turn the international community
against Israel, cause the death of hundreds, maybe thousands of innocent
Palestinian civilians, and make it impossible for Egypt to maintain a
relationship with Israel. The latter could further destabilise the Israel-Palestine
relationship further and bring the whole region crashing down.
Nobody knows how long this conflict will last for; hopefully
a ground invasion will be avoided. Regardless of when a ceasefire does happen,
the situation in that region will not improve until Palestine is recognised as
a sovereign state with all the protections and international recognition that
nationhood affords. Peace in
this region may be several centuries off, but it can never come if we never
work for it.
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| Israeli rockets land in Gaza Source: Guardian |
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