Gaza: revenge and redemption
One day in late February, a young man who was an active American air serviceman, barely 25 years old, burned himself to death in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington DC. He captured his self-immolation on video, stating that it was an act of “extreme protest” against the genocidal war being committed by Israel against the Palestinian people in Gaza, which his own country, the US, was supporting.
His last words before flames consumed his body were that he could no longer be “complicit to genocide”. This young man’s death was not a senseless act of suicide but a highly symbolical act of redemption, not only for the US but the entire humanity.
The relentless act of revenge by Israel against Gaza, extending to the West Bank, camouflaged as “legitimate selfdefence”, has now entered its fifth month. For more than 150 days, Israel has been repeating perpetually the horrors of October 7 on the Palestinian people, sparing no children, no women, no hospitals, no schools, with vengeance and cruelty that goes beyond any imaginable definition of the concept of selfdefence in modern history.
According to the Middle East Monitor, Israel has dropped more than 45,000 bombs on Gaza, weighing 65,000 tonnes of explosives over the first 89 days of the invasion. According to the same source, “the weight of the explosives dropped on the Gaza strip exceeded 65,000 tonnes, which is more than the weight and power of three nuclear bombs like those dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima”.
As for the horrific number of civilians killed in this war, it is rapidly approaching 35,000, 70 per cent of whom are women and children, with many still unaccounted for under the rubble. According to some sources, including the Anadolu Turkish Agency, the death toll for women and children in Gaza exceeds six times the toll of the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war over the last two years.
This is not meant in any way to belittle the suffering of innocent Ukrainian citizens in an ugly war waged against their country but simply to show the ferocity of the Israeli war against Palestinians in the name of self- defence.
South Africa was right. Israel is waging a genocidal war, not against Hamas portrayed as “pure evil”, but against the Palestinians. Under two million people are under siege and being starved to death. They are being dehumanised in one of the worst open concentration camps since the Nazi horrors of World War II.
The cries of demonstrators in Tel Aviv calling for the conclusion of a deal with Hamas to release the hostages fall on deaf ears. The fanatic war lords such as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir, who blatantly justified the shooting of a Palestinian child in Jerusalem as a legitimate act against a “terrorist”, can only hear themselves.
They continue to repeat their mantra that there will be no “victory” until Hamas is destroyed. To achieve that ephemeral goal, it does not matter if many more thousands are killed and an entire population is starved to death. It does not really matter if hospitals are attacked, if babies suffocate in the non-functioning incubators; in fact, in their distorted logic, nothing sacred to humanity really matters as the destruction of Hamas is a “noble” ideal that must be achieved whatever the cost.
If Hamas applies this logic, it can justify any act against Israel as “legitimate” to achieve a higher and nobler goal, which is namely ending the occupation.
The time has come for Israel to learn the painful lesson of history. The spirit of resistance is not defeatable. What Israel truly needs is an act of redemption. It has to redeem its own soul; otherwise, Palestinian blood will haunt the Jewish conscience for centuries to come.
“The weight of the explosives dropped on Gaza exceeded 65,000 tonnes, more than the weight and power of three nuclear bombs like those dropped on Hiroshima
Saadun Suayeh is a former Libyan ambassador to Malta.