The newly-published report of the United Nations international commission of enquiry, into the shootings in Gaza a year ago, is a damning indictment of the murderous policies of the Israeli government.
The commission investigated over 180 deaths and thousands of injuries to demonstrators between March and December last year. It conducted 325 interviews and meetings with victims, witnesses, government officials and members of civil society, from all sides, and gathered more than 8,000 documents, including affidavits, medical reports, open source reports, social media content, written submissions and expert legal opinions, video and drone footage, and photographs.
Indiscriminate shooting with live ammunition
The report tabulates the totals of deaths and injuries. Out of 183 deaths from live ammunition it lists 35 of children. Of over 6000 injuries from live ammunition, 940 were to children. There are too many instances to list here, many of which are indisputably proven by video footage, but a few examples can illustrate the general nature of what were indiscriminate shooting with live ammunition, by sniper fire:
“Mohammad was a footballer. At approximately 9 am, Israeli forces shot him with a single bullet in both legs while he was walking alone approximately 150 m from the separation fence. His injuries ended his football career…
“Israeli forces shot a schoolboy in the face as he distributed sandwiches to demonstrators, 300m from the separation fence…
“Israeli forces killed Abed (18), from Beit Lahia, when they shot him in the back of the head as he ran, carrying a tyre, away from and about 400 m from the separation fence…
“Israeli forces injured a schoolgirl with bullet fragmentation. As she lay on the ground, four men attempted to evacuate her. Israeli forces shot three of them…”
And so on.
The commission could only identify one singe incident in Central Gaza on October 12, out of all the killings and maimings when the actions of a participant “may” have constituted an “imminent threat to life or serious injury” to the Israeli security forces. “In all other cases”, it argues, use of live ammunition “was unlawful”. The Israeli state has claimed that many of the demonstrators were members of armed Hamas groups, but the commission could only identify 29 members of such groups, who in any case at the time of their being shot were not armed or “participating in hostilities or posed an imminent threat to life”.
In most of the cases the victims who were hundreds of metres away from the Israeli forces and visibly engaged in civilian activities. In the overwhelming majority of the cases, the commission found no ‘threats’ to the safety of Israeli troops, who were, in effect, taking pot-shots at unarmed civilians, with complete disregard of their age, sex, disabilities or their clearly-marked status as journalists or medical staff.
“International law” has no meaning to Israel
The background to the demonstrations has been the ongoing blockade of Gaza. Since the withdrawal of Israeli settlements in 2005 and especially since the election victory of Hamas a year later, Israel has strangled all normal economic life in Gaza, assisted across a short common border by the Egyptian state. The commission points out “As the occupying Power, Israel has obligations under international law to ensure the health and welfare of the Palestinian population.”
In reality “international law” has little meaning beyond moral pressure, as the Israeli government has shown many times by ignoring UN resolutions on the occupation and settlement of Palestinian areas. But the UN commission report is nevertheless revealing, because it clearly backs up the arguments of those in the labour movement internationally who support the rights of the Palestinian people.
Gaza blockade is a collective punishment of the population
Gaza is a narrow strip of land, only 42km long, with a population of 2 million – over half of whom are children – and a population density that is one of the highest in the world. The commission found that the continued blockade by Israeli has had a seriously damaging effect on the health-care system, and has ensured an ongoing shortage of all the essential goods and services “necessary for a dignified life”. This includes basic medical supplies, safe drinking water, electricity and sanitation. Depriving the Gaza population of these things, the report adds “constitute violations of the fundamental rights to life and health.” What was particularly damning was the fact that having severely wounded unarmed demonstrators, the Israeli authorities denied the right of the injured to leave Gaza for urgent medical treatment.
By 2015, the Israeli blockade and restrictions on entry and exit of goods and people had already had the result of halving the GDP of Gaza. That has resulted in more of the population relying on international aid to survive at all. Gaza has the world’s highest unemployment rate, at 54 per cent, including 70 per cent youth unemployment. 68 per cent of the population are considered “food insecure”. Both the United Nations and the International Red Cross consider that the blockade constitutes “collective punishment” of the Palestinian of Gaza and they have pointed to an ever-deepening water, electricity, health, education and food crisis resulting from the blockade.
Given the ongoing status of Gaza as an open sore, an “open prison” with restricted food, fuel, services and virtually no hope or prospects for any future improvements, it is hardly surprising that there is a boiling anger within the population. An anger that is always seething below the surface, but occasionally boils over.
This entire report of this UN commission makes grim reading, but it ought to be made compulsory for Labour MPs in particular. There is an active lobbying campaign, organised from every Israeli embassy around the world, to defend the interests and activities of the Israeli government and they have, predictably, branded this latest report as ‘biased’. The London Israeli embassy is no different to others and we know from exposés such as those on Al Jazeera, that its reach extends right into the heart of the Parliamentary Labour Party.
https://www.aljazeera.com/investigations/thelobby/
Israeli policies building up a powder-keg
The greatest irony – and one that seems not to have occurred to the Labour Friends of Israel – is that the policies of the Israel state are building up a powder-keg of opposition that will inevitably explode at some point. With 70 per cent youth unemployment, how can Gaza not blow up? Taken together with the ongoing military occupation of the West Bank and the confiscation of Palestinian land for exclusively Jewish settlements – and the increasing number of acts of terrorism and vandalism being perpetrated against Palestinians by armed settlers – the political future for Israel is anything but ‘secure’. Far from offering a ‘safe homeland’ for Jewish people, Israel is offering only war, social upheaval, death and destruction. Can LFI not see this?
Socialists must support and express their solidarity with the struggle of the Palestinian people for their national and social rights. But unlike Netanyahu, the Israel right and the Labour Friends of Israel, we do not believe that Palestinian rights can only be met at the expense of the Jewish population of Israel. There are other paths that can be followed. We believe that socialists needs to base themselves on the common interests and a common struggle of Arabs and Israelis; of Jews, Christians and Muslims, for socialist change. One thing is clear: there is no future but only a Hell, on the road of Jewish or Muslim exclusivity.
All Labour Party members and branches should discuss the UN commission report and what it outlines as the “war crimes” of the Israeli state. This is not an “anti-Semitic” campaign, but at one level only basic humanity. From a socialist perspective, it is necessary to discuss the awful situation in which Palestinians are trapped and the need for an alternative way forward.
March 1, 2019
