By: Suleman Yousaf
Around 80 years ago, the world pledged not to let the horrors of the Holocaust repeat. Yet, they’re repeating in Gaza today. We’re almost reaching the 200-day mark of Israel’s aggression over the people of Gaza, which is a depressing milestone to consider, especially in the modern world where a major catastrophic event occurred in the face of World War 2 less than a hundred years ago. But it seems as if we haven’t learned a single thing at all.
More than 6 months have passed of Palestinians being relentlessly eradicated in all brutal ways. Israeli bombs ripped them apart, their bullets pierced through their skulls, and their imposed siege is starving them to death. More than 6 months have passed in which the countries that promised NEVER AGAIN to the atrocities of the Holocaust did nothing to stop the extermination of Palestinians.
More than 6 months have passed in which, the people of Palestine pleaded, the UN pleaded, humanitarian organizations, and people across the globe pledged, but no one batted an eye.
Probably, we shouldn’t be surprised at the silence because Israel’s brutality and illegal occupation were allowed to carry on for all this time till it made the history books.
Throughout this period, the Israeli government and army have controlled all aspects of Palestinian lives, including economic, social, and political aspects. In simple words, Isreal has been telling the Palestinian people what they can eat, what they can drink, what they can buy, where they can live and where they can go, whether to travel or not, who can they marry, which schools to go to, where to garden, and what not.
Basically, Israel is telling the people of Palestine who they are as a nation. They are telling them that they are Arabs, Muslims, Circassians, or Christians, but not Palestinians. So they’re trying hard to break up the very Palestinian social fabric.
Israel has persistently caused divisions between the two major Palestinian parties: Fatah and Hamas, for the past 15 years. This political disunity has caused plenty of damage to the Palestinian community during these years and has ultimately caused weakness within.
Israel has also made sure that the people of Palestine remain vulnerable and poor through continuous land theft, home demolitions, and expulsions as well as economic dependence. This has kept the Palestinian economy on the brink of a collapse without private businesses and economic activity.
Consequently, there have been high unemployment rates and this has forced many Palestinians to work for the occupiers and in most cases in illegal Jewish settlements that were built on their stolen land.
Israel has consistently undermined agriculture in the occupied land, which is the strongest economic sector in Palestine. Limited access to water and restricted access to land resources has resulted in a dramatic decline in Palestinian agri-output and this has disrupted conventional livelihoods.
In Gaza, the economic destruction is at its worst, thanks to the 17-year-long ban imposed by Israel resulting in restricted imports and exports and effectively killing any trade with the world outside.
This has damaged the manufacturing, as well as, the agricultural sector to a further worse condition. Israel has even counted the amount of food calories that it is allowing into Gaza to make sure, that the people of Palestine barely have enough to survive.
And when Palestinians have resisted all this, the Israeli occupation has shown no remorse. It has tortured, punished, killed, imprisoned, and done anything it possibly could. In the current Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip, this drive to decimate Palestinians has grown to become of genocidal proportions.
More than 6 months have passed and Israel has managed to slaughter thousands upon thousands of Palestinians and survivors continue to face a lethal combination of fear, thirst, and hunger under the indiscriminate bombardment of Israel and its total siege.
More than 6 months have passed and Israeli occupation has denied any entry of water, food, and medicine into the Gaza Strip. And above all that, Israel’s air strikes have strategically targeted every source of life.
From bakeries, to water treatment plants and wells, farms, solar panels, electricity generators, and whatnot. Israel is targeting any means of relief for the people of Gaza.
It is important to understand that the aid that is currently coming into Gaza is not enough even to cover the needs of a small popualtion here. People are getting desperate due to hunger and thirst, and they even end up attacking and ransacking the aid trucks out of desperation. These goods are then sold in the streets at higher prices and never reach those who are in need the most.
It’s one of the intended outcomes of the siege and the other one was highlighted by a Member of KTG (Knesset Tali Gottlieb) back in October. Of course, without thirst and hunger among Gazans, we can’t recruit collaborators, we can’t recruit intelligence, and we can’t bribe people with drink, food, or medicine to obtain intelligence.
This is how much Israeli officials have become in the US. To aid the process of obtaining intelligence, Israeli officials regularly drop small packages from the sky, offering medicine and food to Gazans in exchange for cooperation.
But behind it, there’s another even more sinister goal that Israel pursues. With the current situation in Gaza, Isreal is in hopes of spreading helplessness and despair among the people cuase dby the harshness and unpredictability of daily life in Gaza.
Many Palestinians, children in particularly, suffer from anxiety, depression, and multiple stress disorders. Many of them haven’t healed from traumas of the past, before 7th October 2023 happened.
If we dig a little deeper into the history such brutal tactics have been used before as well. The ancestors of the Israeli population experienced it all in the form of the Holocaust.
In the 1940s, Jews across all of Europe were forced into concentration camps where they faced abuse, starvation, and mass death. The Nazis used hunger as a tool to control and dehumanize. The constant threat of death, violence, and hunger, devasted minds and souls.
The same thing is happening in Gaza today where more than 2.3 million Palestinians are crammed into areas with dwindling resources and are forced to endure conditions that are unliveable. This is history repeating itself. Only this time, the entire world is just watching and doing nothing to make it stop.
The vow “Never Again” that resulted from the Holocaust was meant to prevent such atrocities from ever happening again. It was a collective conscience of the world that etched the commitment towards the vulnerable people no matter where they are that they would be protected and kept safe and their tormentors would be stopped. But this vow rings hollow as we take a gaze at the Palestinian people.
But there are sparks of hope more and more governments are taking a stance and accusing Isreal before the eyes of the world. This is the hope for the people of Palestine. This is what keeps them going.
Through these dark days for the people of Palestine,”never again” can’t remain just a phrase for remembrance. It must turn into a call to action. The world must act to protect the dignity and rights of all people living on any continent.
Suleman Yousaf (SY) is a seasoned writer with a decade of expertise, illuminates diverse niches through the pages of “The Advocate Post”. With a potent pen, SY channels over a decade of writing and editing experience into shedding light on issues deserving of attention. As a dedicated storyteller, SY’s work resonates with a passion for meaningful narratives that inspire and inform.
