Part 2: Diplomats dither despite death, destruction and displacement

THE world continues to fail Palestine as thousands continue to die, while diplomats representing the most powerful nations dither over resolutions, disagreeing on who to blame for what’s turning out to be the worst 21st century armed conflict.

The all-powerful but totally-divided United Nations Security Council (UNSC) failed to agree on three resolutions proposed by Russia, Brazil and the USA, passing-the-buck earlier this week to the powerless UN General Assembly.

Some European Union (EU) leaders hastily met with Arab counterparts at a recent Egypt summit that ended without a final communique or an agreement on a way forward; and now the 27-member grouping remains divided on whether to call for a ‘ceasefire’ or a ‘pause in fighting’.

Unimaginable Numbers
The numbers are simply unimaginable, unbelievably-staggering and impossible to keep up with, even on a daily basis.

By October 27:
• Over 7,000 Palestinians and 1,400 Israelis were killed
• 57 UN staff and over 100 emergency health workers died on the job
• 1,650 Palestinians were still missing, including over 900 children, with hundreds still under rubble, dead or alive
• 108 Palestinians were killed in the occupied West Bank in the past fortnight
• Entire Gaza families continue to be killed in their sleep, while having dinner or praying at mosques
• 50 captives held by Hamas have been killed by Israeli air strikes
• 24 journalists were killed on the job, including 20 Palestinians
• Israel hit over 250 Gaza targets in 24 hours, taking the number of Palestinians injured to 28,000
• Over 51 per cent (170,000) housing units were destroyed
• 66.6 per cent of Gaza’s health facilities were rendered inoperable by bombs, or lack of fuel and medicines
• Raids, deaths and arrests continued in refugee camps in occupied areas; and
• Fighting increased between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon

Utter Devastation
Israel’s actions in the first 20 days resulted in utter devastation of Gaza through unprecedented levels of seemingly-indiscriminate bombardments.
Calls grew louder globally for an end to the fighting this past week, including by Israelis at home concerned about the fate of over 200 captives still in Gaza.
Jews in the USA (and elsewhere) have also been publicly protesting that this war is ‘Not in our name!’, while Israel is being called-on to observe ‘rules of war’.
The devastating war on Gaza is still being seen and hailed by some in many places as an acceptable response – even though disproportionate and vengeful – to the deadly Hamas attack on October 7.

It was the first time in 75 years that so many Israelis died in any Palestinian attack: over 1,400, including 350 soldiers.
As a result, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched a declared War of Obliteration against Hamas and collective punishment of 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza.
Governments are today playing ‘Snakes and Ladders’ at international fora, still calling for application of UN Security Resolution 242 (of 1967) and the ever-elusive ‘Two-state solution’ negotiated in Oslo decades ago.

But both calls have been overcome by recent events, including the new waves of occupation by over half-a-million Israeli settlers, in total disregard of international law and UN resolutions condemning settler expansion.

This week the situation worsened as the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) bombed a mosque in Lebanon and banned Muslim prayers at the Al Aqsa Mosque.
These continued violations of Palestinians’ rights to worship also help fuel already-inflamed tensions across the Arab world, with victims turning on aid agencies as rage is flared by hunger, thirst and citizen insecurity.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu felt safe enough to very early promise to ‘wipe-out Hamas’ and President Herzog said there are “no innocent Palestinians in Gaza…”
Too many the world over misunderstood the accumulated effects of the long history of the Israeli occupation and the Palestinian resistance, or that Palestine was reduced from the huge land-mass it was before 1948 to almost wiped-out of existence.

Indeed, while the original map of Palestine was splattered with just a few Israeli settlements seven decades in 1948, the reverse applies today, with Palestinians chased-out of their homeland, only allowed to remain as prisoners, hostages-at-home, or refugees.

But what the world has seen in the past three weeks has been more-than-enough to convince human beings that it’s all wrong and from the very beginning Israel has succeeded over the past seven decades to keep Palestine from gaining recognition as an equal state at the UN, where it only enjoys Observer status despite being recognised by over 180 nations.

After this 2023 Nakba (Catastrophe), many of Israel’s traditional regional allies (including Jordan, Egypt, Qatar and other Gulf and Arab states) have strongly-criticised Israel and shown some diplomatic rebuff, some joining Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in refusing to meet President Biden when he visited Israel.

US support for Israel has remained expectedly-solid, but at the cost of loss of global approval for Washington’s stances – like refusing to condemn Israel’s continuing overreaction and sending more military support, including two aircraft carriers with rapid-deployment missiles and over 4,000 soldiers.

Turkey and Qatar have assumed roles as mediators with President Recep Erdogan inviting regional nations to consider responding together, but not through what he described as an emasculated UN.

China has warned that Israel’s borders with Lebanon and Syria can lead to further escalatory problems, while Russia this week held talks with Hamas and Iran representatives about releasing captives.

The UN took a stronger stance on the Israeli destruction on UN Day (October 24), attracting stern criticism from Israel, but its relief and works agency (UNRWA) insists too little is being done to help those most in need, especially in Gaza, where water, food and electricity continue to be used as weapons of war.

Meanwhile, Ukraine and Haiti – the world’s two top hotspot stories before October 7 – have been scrubbed-out of the headlines by Israel’s war on Gaza.

And in the midst of it all, millions of Palestinians continue to live in dire straits under occupation and facing death, destruction and displacement.