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Nermin Aydemir
JTW
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Friday, 9 January 2009
"…Parties to a conflict shall at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants in order to spare civilian population and property. Neither the civilian population as such nor civilian persons shall be object of attack. Attacks shall be directed solely against military objectives…"
Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols
The death toll in Gaza nears 750 and thousands of others are wounded. Almost all the victims are civilians, including hundreds of children. Medical care options are highly limited since the Israeli Defense Force neither hesitates to bomb hospitals, nor keeps ambulances out of the bomb shower. The attack on the Gaza Strip (around 40 km long and 10 km wide, situated near the Mediterranean Sea) left nothing to be dependent on. Almost all the infrastructure is razed to the ground. Those living in Gaza have no electricity or gas and can barely fulfill the basic humanitarian needs. A recent report tells us how intense life in Gaza is. The relief workers of the International Committee of the Red Cross found four starving children sitting next to their dead mothers and other corpses in a house in a part of Gaza City bombed by Israeli forces on 7 January 2009.
Prolonged predispositions and biases seem to shape the public opinion in the case of Israeli attack on Gaza. Rather than being commonsensical and formulating policies under the light of basic humanitarian norms, many seem to regard the issue from their own stances and try to persuade the others how great victims and heroes at the same time their parties are. For those who are against the policies of Israel, the suicide bombings are nothing but stories of braveness and sending the self-made Hamas rockets without taking any preconditions against the civil loses is just self-protection. When it comes to those on the side of Israel, the country is confronted with barbaric enemies who are impatient to slip the country away on the first occasion. And there of course those having strong economic and politic bonds with Israel/ Israeli affiliated people who are very much confused until everything passes of.
Hamas suicide attacks to Israeli civilians are by no means acceptable. Neither are the rocket attacks to the Israeli territory. But bombing a district of 500 square km for ten days with the most advanced weapons, killing hundreds of people without making any distinctions between civilians and armed militias is nothing less than a war crime.
Assaulting Gaza and razing the city to the ground due to the Hamas Rockets does not sound a valid excuse since these rockets are quite primitive, hand-made weapons which have little more than a psychological effect. It is not very simple to count how many rockets are launched by Hamas. Yet, the fatalities are not more than five. The Israeli affiliated groups the country’s right in defending itself against the terrorist rockets. Yet the argument does not sound that much since if those primitive missile powers were that dangerous, Hamas would have already given serious damage to a small territory like as Israel instead of launching rockets randomly. It is quite strange to see how much the Hamas rockets are mentioned and how less its effects are told in this regard.
The reasons behind the Hamas popularity are other untold stories. Unlike the media coverage in many distinguished media sources, Hamas is not solely a terrorist group. Rather, Hamas is regarded as a multifaceted organization, operating in the Palestinian society as a social aid agency and a political actor, as well. If truth to be told, the UN aids had long been distributed to the region through Hamas. According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the unemployment rate in Gaza is 45 %. 80% of the Gaza population is dependent on food aids. All in all, the situation within the region does not seem very promising without understanding the reasons behind the Hamas popularity among Palestinians.
Israel, no longer wants to be confronted with the Hamas missiles, which sounds a very reasonable demand. Yet, indiscriminately killing hundreds of civilians and giving serious damaging of thousands of others through a collective punishment to all the Gaza city is not an option for achieving this goal. Terror will obviously not be eliminated by breaking the most fundamental standards of the international law such as distinguish between the civilian population and combatants or using weapons or methods of warfare that are likely to cause unnecessary losses. Improving the socio-economic conditions and giving people hope towards a peaceful Middle East sas the only option to stop violence.
Email: n.aydemir@turkishweekly.net
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