Editorial | Condemn Gaza starvation

Jamaica has a profoundly moral obligation to unequivocally condemn the vote by Israel’s Knesset to ban the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). So, too, must the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).

For the action by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government places beyond doubt – if that was in question – that Israel’s prosecution of the war in Gaza has long moved from the principle of self-defence and/or the destruction of Hamas, the radical organisation that governed the territory, to collective punishment of Palestinians. Only now, Israel is openly, and cynically, saying that it is willing to employ the extreme tool of starvation.

Gaza, we remind, is a narrow strip of land – 25 miles long and six miles wide. It is, in area, about the size of the Jamaican parish of St James where fewer than 200,000 people live.

But Gaza is one of the world’s most densely populated places. A year ago, before the October 7, 2023, incursion into Israel by Hamas militants and their wanton killing of 1,200 people, including women and children, it had a population of 2.3 million.

Since retaliation for Hamas’ massacre, more than 43,000 Palestinians, disproportionately women and children, have been killed in Israeli bombardments. More than 10,000 others are known to be missing, and over 100,000 are injured. It is believed that many thousand bodies lie beneath the rubble of the almost completely flattened territory.

Additionally, even before Israel’s action this week, experts warned that thousands more Gaza residents would die because of, or be severely affected by, malnutrition and various communicable diseases that flow from the squalid and unsanitary conditions in which they now exist.

There is little water in the territory, and even before its action this week, Israel had limited the inflow of relief.

NEW OPERATIONAL GUIDELINES

It is in this context that UNRWA, a long-standing presence in the lives of Palestinians now looms larger and is of even greater importance.

Established in the aftermath of the partition of Palestine and the creation of Israel, UNRWA was charged with looking after the welfare of the over 750,000 Palestinians who were expelled or fled the territory in what Palestinians call the Nakba, or catastrophe.

Since then, UNRWA has provided food, shelter, medical support, and education to millions of Palestinians in countries in neighbouring Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria, where refugee camps were established, as well as in the occupied territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

The Palestinians have insisted on their right to return. The United Nations and most of the world agrees, but in the context of a two-state solution based on borders that existed before the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

Israel, though, has long been suspicious of UNRWA, arguing that it has enabled radicalised Palestinians who harbour the idea of the destruction of the Jewish state. After the Hamas attack, Israel claimed that UNRWA staff (the agency has more than 1,000 in Gaza) were among the fighters who crossed into its territory.

Based on the information provided by Israel and its investigations, UNRWA fired about a dozen employees and announced new operational guidelines for staff. Most western countries that suspended funding to UNRWA after Israel’s allegations, have since resumed their financing.

But now Israel has gone further with its law that will, in three months, make it illegal for UNRWA to operate in its territory, including illegally annexed Arab/Palestinian East Jerusalem.

NO VIABLE ALTERNATIVE

Israel’s decision will have a devastating impact, given its control of all crossings into the West Bank and Gaza, and the logistical importance of UNRWA’s offices and staff in the country. On its face, this decision will also violate international treaties and humanitarian.

Several countries, including several of Israel’s closest allies in Europe and the United States, condemned the Knesset’s vote, warning that the Netanyahu government was courting a humanitarian catastrophe.

Indeed, most have agreed that there is no viable short- or medium-term alternative to UNRWA, noting that previous efforts to skirt the agency have failed.

Whatever may be Israel’s concerns about UNRWA, the solution can’t be crass collective punishment that will lead to the death of many. Mr Netanyahu and his right-wing coalition may find it more efficient (and cynically humane) just bombing Gaza.

Neither option is where this newspaper believes the moral compass of the vast majority of Israelis leads them. Neither is it, or should be, Jamaica’s. We must tell that to Benjamin Netanyahu.