US 'Only Administration With Leverage' to Stop Israeli Assault, End 'Humanitarian Crisis' in Gaza
© AP Photo / Evan Vucci
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An international human rights lawyer said the United States is the only country with the necessary pull on the Israeli government to be able to force an end to the war in the Gaza Strip, which has generated a massive humanitarian crisis.
As the Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip enters a new phase, turning its attention toward the southern cities of Khan Yunis and Rafah, more than 1 million refugees who fled from the north have been left in an increasingly precarious position.
The war has aroused fury among populations around the globe, including in the United States, where a mass protest movement has generated large demonstrations in dozens of cities every day demanding a permanent ceasefire. However, the Biden administration has remained staunchly in support of the Israeli operation, even as the White House begins to moderate its tone and express more concern for the civilian population in Gaza.
“We need three things from the US: munitions, munitions, and munitions,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently told a group of ministers, according to Israeli media. “There are huge demonstrations in Western capitals. We need to apply counterpressure … There have been disagreements with the best of our friends.”
In the territory of 2.3 million people, an estimated 80% of Gaza’s population has been displaced from their homes amid the Israeli operation, which has devastated the area. As of Monday, analysis of data collected by satellite photography had revealed more than 60% of the buildings in northern Gaza had been destroyed or severely damaged by the Israeli bombing campaign and ground invasion. The most recent reports from Gaza’s Health Ministry on Friday said that 17,177 people, including 7,112 children, had been killed and 46,000 wounded since October 7.
The Israeli operation was launched in response to a massive cross-border raid by Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups based in Gaza, which attacked several Israeli border towns and killed an estimated 1,200 people. However, Israeli media has revealed that many of those deaths were likely caused by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) firing on civilians. In the aftermath, Netanyahu announced a “complete siege” of Gaza and an operation to destroy Hamas for good.
International human rights attorney Moien Odeh told Radio Sputnik’s The Backstory on Thursday that it was likely impossible for the IDF to achieve its stated goal of destroying Hamas, saying that the military operation would only generate enmity among more generations of Palestinians, who will join Hamas or organizations like it, and continue to fight Israel.
6 December 2023, 06:25 GMT
“I believe until the US understands that this war is going to have its own interests in the region and until they understand that there is no exit for Israel from this war, they will continue supporting Israel doing whatever they want,” he said.
Two Audiences for Israel
He said that Israel’s position that the war in Gaza will not stop until it has achieved its military goals is intended as a message to two different audiences.
“One is internally for their own people, for the Israeli people, to tell them that ‘we will [take] revenge [for] what happened on October 7 and then the Palestinians will pay a very heavy price for that’. This is from one side. The other side will be, of course, to the whole world that ‘we will not stop until we will achieve our own military goal’ - which is until now, we keep changing every couple of weeks, and it's clear that it's unachievable, but until now, they are continuing the war despite all the thousands of dead Palestinians and the tens of thousands of injured, the hundreds of thousands displaced. But unfortunately, the end of this war doesn’t look close, for now at least.”
“Unfortunately, international law is bent mainly on the international will to follow it or not,” he observed. “And so far, it looks like the international will - and mainly that the US will - does not exist. So without any political will from the world and really from the US, the international law will continue to be only on the shelves of an international organization. So I can't say that the support of the US is allowing Israel to continue its crimes without any kind of responsibility. And in this regard, we can mention the visit of the ICC, the International Court Criminal Court, last week to the Palestinian territories. And until now, despite over 60 days of war on Gaza, they or Mr. Khan, the ICC prosecutor, didn't even start an investigation against all of these crimes.”
“I think many Palestinians have already lost hope and believe in international law. But I think it'll be a devastating result on the whole system, and prove again and again that the International Criminal Court is a hostage, unfortunately, for the Israeli narrative and and that the double standards is happening all the time and that the ICC is just a political tool to punish some countries, mainly the the the African countries, for some crimes without any real results in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
5 December 2023, 19:55 GMT
Odeh said that the international community is largely incapable of stopping the Israeli operation even if they wanted to, noting that the United States is “the only administration that has any leverage on the Israeli government.”
“And unfortunately, so far there was no kind of clear push for a ceasefire to stop all these bombings against civilians, against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip,” he said.
'No Safe Area' in Gaza
Odeh noted that the IDF has launched a new phase of its military operation in Gaza, which has brought the same strength against the south of the territory, where it had told more than 1 million Gazans to flee to, as it did previously against the north of the territory, from which it had previously evicted them due to the military operation.
“I think it's worse now, because at least at the beginning, they used to claim that if you tell the civilians that you can leave the north and go to the south and you'll be safe. Now, they are saying that you can't go either back to the north, you can’t stay in the south. But what should people do? [There is] no safe area, despite that they keep talking about safe areas in the south. But from the other side, they keep saying that Hamas is using the safe areas to launch rockets against Israel, so they attack in these areas.”
“I think the people are really in a very, very bad situation now. They are suffering a lot, I think it's literally a humanitarian crisis now in the Gaza Strip. Not enough food, no clear water at all, and fuel, no houses, after thousands of housing units were destroyed and many others were affected. So people are very, very suffering. And unfortunately, until now, the international community keep ignoring all of this stuff and thinking that Israel still can achieve its goals by destroying Hamas, which is I don't believe that it's achievable even if they will be able to destroy Hamas militarily, which is the big question, Hamas would continue existing in other places and this will just create another generation of Palestinians who hate Israel more for what's happened in 2023, now.”
Odeh said that it appeared the IDF had drawn up its present war plans years ago and was waiting for an opportunity to implement them - which they found in the October 7 attacks.
“I think even before this war and for years, Gaza was a big problem for Israel. They already had ideas and plans about how to deal with Gaza. And it looks like after the attacks on October 7, they found it a good opportunity to to start moving people and displacing people inside Gaza, hoping that many people will really move to Egypt or to Sinai and they will clean as much [of the population] as possible from the Gaza Strip.
‘All of what's happening, all the bombing, It's not really helping them to achieve the military goal that they had at the beginning. And it's proof again that all the displacement, all of these attacks are just for one reason: it is just to collectively punish the people and to push the people to be against Hamas itself, which is - I don't think this is an option for many people now, to stand against Hamas and to show up to tell Hamas that ‘you did this to us’. People will only see Israel as the only reason behind their suffering and they will continue this conflict with Israel for more and more generations.”
