Israel’s latest move against Gazans bound to fail

The regime’s plans to build a sea barrier will not stop Palestinians from highlighting their plight

By any yardstick, the two million people who inhabit Gaza face the worst kind of embargo in the world today. The decadelong blockade imposed by the Israeli regime has turned the impoverished Palestinian territory into the world’s largest open air prison. Not content with this, the regime in Tel Aviv also carries out periodic massacres, as seen in the wars against the imprisoned populace in 2008-9, 2012, 2014, and the recent slaughter of 62 Palestinians on the 70th anniversary of the Nakba.

Now, Israel has announced it is going one step further. It is working on a “new and impenetrable” barrier off the Zikim beach, a few kilometres north of Gaza. The fortified breakwater will be topped with barbed wire to “prevent infiltrations from Palestinian” fighters. Rights groups have rightly slammed it as yet another measure meant to penalise an already suffering population.

This latest announcement comes as another potential Israeli massacre looms on the horizon. The unbelievably courageous people of Gaza will today try to breach the naval blockade by boat, in a fresh challenge to the occupation regime.

The boat will carry patients needing medical care, students and job-seeking university graduates. The Israeli navy has a long-established tradition of firing at Palestinians and their supporters at sea — from fishermen who venture a bit too far erroneously, to the case of the Turkish-registered Mavi Marmara that sought to break Israel’s blockade and enter Gaza in 2009. Ten Turkish activists were killed in that operation.

Israel must realise that a people who have nothing to lose, whose lives are a living hell, will do all they can to highlight their plight. And no barrier can stop them from trying.