What now for Palestine -in the shadow of genocide and a non-caring world

In the weeks prior and following its recognition as a state by the UN, Israel, carried out massacres in Palestinian towns and villages. One of the worst massacres took place at Deir Yasin where over 200 Palestinian civilians were murdered in cold blood

In a shocking turn of events, armed police personnel of the Palestinian Authority (PA) too, began raiding the same refugee camps, claiming the camps harboured armed militants not affiliated to the PA

On 7 October 2023, Israel commenced bombardment of Palestine’s Gaza Strip. Gaza is a small beachside land-strip of around 365 sq miles bordering the Mediterranean Sea, sandwiched between Egypt and Israel. The territory with a population of around 2.3 million Palestine is one of the most densely populated areas in the world.

Today the death toll from Israel’s war in Gaza stands at over 61,709 killed including 17,492 children. Over 14,222 persons are missing and presumed dead. More than 111,588 persons have been injured, and almost all of Gaza’s homes have been damaged or destroyed. 

Since October 2023 Israel has deprived Gazans of water, food, medicine, fuel and everything other than the air they breathe. 

Israel’s attack on the Gazan people followed an attack by the Palestinian group ‘Hamas’, on Israeli occupied Palestinian territory in Gaza on October 7. Around 1,200 Israeli  settlers were killed and over 250 were hostage.

The crisis in Palestine however did not begin on 7 October 2023. It began with the UN carving out the State of Israel in what was originally undivided Palestine in November 1947. 

The birth of Israel in May 1948 led to the mass expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from the newly created state of Israel. ‘Britannica’ estimates the number of Palestinians displaced from their original homes, and villages by Israeli militias between December 1947 to January 1949 range from about 520,000 to around a million people. Palestinians commemorate the 15th of May as the day when the destruction of Palestinian society and homeland in 1948.

In the weeks prior and following its recognition as a state by the UN, Israel, carried out massacres in Palestinian towns and villages. One of the worst massacres took place at Deir Yasin where over 200 Palestinian civilians were murdered in cold blood. 

In fear, thousands of Palestinian families fled. Many of them to the Gaza Strip. Continuing Israeli attrocities led to large numbers of other families fleeing to Arab countries in the vicinity. They retained their Palestinian identity and are today part of the estimated 9.17 million displaced Palestinians worldwide. 

In June 1967 Israel annexed the Gaza Strip. During and immediately after that war, around a quarter a million Palestinians were displaced from their homes.  

Today Israel occupies the entirety of Palestine including the West Bank. There are around 700 check points in the West Bank which Palestinians have to cross to go from one point to another. While your destination could be just 15 minutes distant, if you are Palestinian it would take around two to three hours to reach ones destination.

Palestinians are permitted to use only backroads to reach their destinations.

The main roads are for the exclusive use of Jews. Israel permits Palestinians around one-third the water given to illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Meanwhile illegal Jewish settlers receive unlimited water all day. Palestinians receive just two hours water a day. 

This has been going on for over three decades.

A Palestinian home being destroyed by Israeli military

Though the Palestinian population is growing, they have to manage with the same amount of water. They are also not permitted to extend to their homes. Despite owning the land and the house, if they even construct a wall, the Israeli military breaks down the entire house.

Fake deeds are then written in the name of Jewish people living in the US claiming he or she has purchased that piece of land. Homeowners are stripped of their lands, homes and dispossesed. Today’s reality is that Israel has turned the whole of Palestine into a concentration camp. 

In August, 1993, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators initialed the Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements in Oslo, which became known as the Oslo Accords. It aimed at taking the peace process forward, providing self-rule throughout Palestine and created the Palestine Authority which governed the West Bank and Gaza.

However, since the signing  of the Accords in 1993, Israel has built hundreds of ‘Israeli only settlements’ in the West Bank in violation of the Oslo Accords. In August 2024, BBC reported there were at least 196 Israeli settlements in the West Bank. 

The Israeli population in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem has more than doubled: According to the UN, the number of Illegal Israeli settlers stands at between 600,000 and 750,000.Of these 29 were set up in 2023 alone.

The Palestinian struggle therefore is a battle for the most basic human rights. It is a struggle against the callous grip of occupation. It is a struggle against the denial of basic human dignity and rights. In short it is a struggle to break the shackles of tyranny which continues to this day. 

The Hamas attack on Israeli occupied territory in Gaza on October 7 2023 was in effect an attempt to break out of the concentration camp-like condition Palestinians have been forced into. The war waged by Israel on Palestinian civilians in Gaza and the West Bank is an extension of the genocide and displacement unleased by Israel on Palestinian citizens since Israel’s creation.

Today’s death toll from Israel’s war in Gaza stands at around 61,709 killed and includes 17,492 children. Over 14,222 persons are missing, presumed dead. More than 111,588 persons have been injured, and almost all of Gaza’s homes have been damaged or destroyed. Since October 2023 Gazans have also been deprived of water, food, medicine and fuel. 

During World War II the Soviet Red Army and countries of the West liberated  the concentration camps for Jews set up by Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler. 

So why is no effort being made to liberate Palestinians from the concentration camp run by Israel? The answer lies in the West’s need for a continuous supply of petroleum-based energy.

In the aftermath of the two ‘World Wars’, the militaries of US and West have become dependent on oil and petroleum resources, whether it be naval, aerial or for movement of men and machineery.

The Western way of life -based on the concept of high rise buildings and the supermarket system -- is also dependent on petroleum-based products. Even agriculture in these continents is dependent on petroleum-based fertiliser and pesticides.

Both the West and the US are therefore in need of huge and uninterrupted supplies of fuel and oil. The Middle East, awash with the precious product has been the West’s main source of petroleum-based products. 

With the colonial era coming to an end, both the West and the US needed to prevent the formation of a strong independent cartel of oil producing nations who could disrupt a continuous supply of the much needed product to the West.  

It is for this reason the US and West European powers set up the state of Israel in the Middle East amid Arab nations. The US and the West need Israel’s presence in the region as a destablising force to ensure the West has continued and unlimited access to the petroleum resources in the Middle East.

In August 2019 an UNCTAD confirmed geological studies of the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) lies above sizeable reservoirs of oil and natural gas wealth, in Area C of the West Bank and the Mediterranean coast off the Gaza Strip.

In March (2025) in the shadow of a ceasefire in Gaza, Israel began attacking Palestinian refugee camps in Jenin in the West Bank claiming Hamas militants were active in that camp. 

Platform of the Leviathan natural gas field in the Mediterranean Sea

In a shocking turn of events, armed police personnel of the Palestinian Authority (PA) too, began raiding the same refugee camps, claiming the camps harboured armed militants not affiliated to the PA. According to the PA the group was intent on breaking the  Osolo Accords and endangering peace in the West Bank. 

The PA turning on fellow Palestinian militants roused a hornets’ nest both in Palestine, as well as among Palestinan supporters worldwide. Allegations of the PA serving Israeli interests began to surface. It led to fears of internecine warfare between Palestinian groups could break out. 

The Peoples Liberation Organisation of Thamil Eelam (PLOTE), during the Tamil insurgency in Lanka was among the militant Tamil groups which supported the Palestinian people’s struggle against Israeli occupation forces. 

Reffering to the attack carried out by the PA on refugee camps in Jenin, former PLOTE spokesman Skanda said he did not believe the PA had become a cat’s paw to the Israelis. He described the PA attack on fellow militants as a classic case of an oppressed people’s misidentification of the enemy. 

He said that rather than jointly taking on the enemy forces (in a number of instances amid great oppression), militants groups with differing ideologies tend to turn on one another. He pointed out that similar mistakes occurred during the Algerian war of liberation against the French colonial power as described in Frantz Fanon’s ‘The Wretched of the Earth’. 

He said the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) too made a similar mistake. They accepted arms from late Lankan President Premadasa to destroy fellow militant groups with differing strategies to achieve a common target. 

The internecine killing of fellow freedom fighters weakens the resolve of ordinary  people struggling for freedom - -be they Lankans or Palestinians. Internecine killing within freedom struggles only weakens the movement itself and Palestinian freedom fighters need to guard against falling into this trap.

(The writer is the former International Editor Daily Mirror)