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With several hundred rockets being fired from Gaza targeting Israel’s towns, Israel and Palestinians are once again locked in the worst-ever conflict in recent times. The Israeli response has been robust, as it has always been, launching hundreds of air missile strikes into Gaza. Civilian casualties on both sides are mounting, with Palestinian casualties in Gaza climbing above a hundred dead and hundreds injured. Israeli deaths have been in single digits, with scores injured.
Riots and physical confrontation between Israelis and Arabs have broken out in several Israeli towns, prompting caretaker PM Benjamin Netanyahu to call in the Army to stamp out the violence. An Indian national, working as a caregiver in the Israeli town of Ashkelon, close to Gaza, died in one of the rocket attacks. Her body is being flown back and will be received personally by Shri V Murleedharan, MoS, External Affairs.
The escalation began in Jerusalem, where tensions rose when Palestinians were injured in a police raid and stampede at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the 3rd holiest site in Islam after Makkah and Madinah. The Jewish people call this site the ‘Temple Mount’, where the Jewish Temple was located and which was destroyed when this region was part of the Roman Empire in the first century CE.
Clashes spilled over into the streets, as Israeli far-right religious groups and Palestinians clashed. One major cause for further escalation was the rockets fired from Gaza towards Jerusalem, an attack that had not happened for many years.
Israeli right wingers provoked the Palestinians by organising a flag-weaving march on ‘Jerusalem Day’, usually accompanied by anti-Arab slogans. The route of this march passed via the Damascus Gate, one of several gates in the old walled city of Jerusalem, a popular venue for Palestinians to gather during Ramzan evenings to socialise. Israel had imposed curbs on such gatherings, resulting in protests and clashes with the Israeli Police.
The Israeli Police ordered the march by right wing Jewish groups to change their route which led to its cancelling but this did not prevent Jewish marchers from entering the mosque’s premises and Palestinian neighbourhoods, where Israeli-Palestinian clashes have occurred periodically, over evictions by hard-line Jewish settlers, determined to take over Palestinian land.
The inevitable happened and the conflict escalated into retaliatory exchanges of rockets and air strikes that have continued for over a week. Hamas, not surprisingly, has blamed Israel for the provocation and escalation. While Israel’s high-tech anti rocket system, the ‘Iron Dome’ has managed to intercept rockets and destroy many among the several hundred fired from Gaza, several landed on civilian homes.
Some are blaming caretaker PM Benjamin Netanyahu for the escalation as he faces corruption charges which will dog him if he loses power.
Netanyahu’s Likud Party had won the maximum number of seats in the Knesset in another inconclusive election. He was given the first go at forming the government by Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin. Netanyahu failed to cobble together the required numbers for a working coalition within the 30-day period. Centrist opposition leader Yair Lapid, a former journalist and a former Finance Minister has now been invited to form a government. If he succeeds, he will break Netanyahu’s record of holding the PM’s position for straight 12 years. Lapid is engaged in forming a national unity government which may enlist the support of the Arab parties.
The Palestinians have been waging a long and protracted struggle for their future for an independent and sovereign Palestine, as promised in the UN Resolution of 1948 which created the two states of Israel and Palestine. Palestinians want East Jerusalem as their capital, an end to Israeli occupation, stoppage of eviction of Palestinians from their homes and land and removal of Jewish settlements from Palestinian territory. Israel controls the whole of Jerusalem and regards it as its unified capital, though the city is segregated between its Jewish and Arab populations.
Arab citizens of Israel, numbering over a million, have come out in solidarity with their Palestinian brethren. Palestinians are nervous about Israel’s growing ties with other Arab nations which have established formal diplomatic ties with Israel and view this trend as undermining their struggle. Gaza has been under virtual siege for several years even since HAMAS captured power.
As the conflict shows no sign of abating, Israel has brought up troops around Gaza in preparation for a ground assault codenamed ‘Guardians of the Wall’. Hamas and Islamic Jihad are bearing the brunt of Israeli air strikes. Both these organisations, operating out of Gaza, have built tunnels, nicknamed ‘Metro’, for storing weapons, use as bomb shelters and infiltration into Israel. The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) are masters of deception. They tweeted that ground forces were attacking Gaza. The news spread like wildfire across major media channels and social media.
International opinion has varied from outright condemnation of Israel to calls for exercising restraint. The USA has pressed for a quick ceasefire and India has called for restraint and talks.
International attention is focussed on the pandemic, the Indo-Pacific and Iran. The Biden Administration has to first rectify the damage done to American policy by former President Trump.
The enfeebled United Nations will remain ineffective, since the US will not permit any international action against Israel. Iran, which has supported Hamas and Islamic Jihad, may not want to risk negotiations with the US on the JCPOA (Nuclear Deal). The future of this round of conflict has potential for escalation, with Hezbollah in Lebanon joining the fray.
Perhaps, a new centrist government in Israel may agree to concessions, but at best it can halt further settler activities but cannot reverse facts on the ground that have been created by the Netanyahu government.
(The author is a former Secretary in MEA and Ambassador; a founder Director of DeepStrat, a think tank, he has served as DCM in Israel and is currently, a Visiting Fellow at ORF, Delhi. This is an opinion piece, and the views expressed are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)
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