Massive protests in Middle East over the Israeli bombing of a hospital in Gaza with at least 500 casualties. A UN-run school housing refugees was also struck in a raid. Image: Al Jazeera screenshot/APR
An Israeli air strike has hit Al Ahli hospital in Gaza City where thousands of civilians are seeking medical treatment and shelter from relentless attacks. The Gaza Health Ministry said at least 500 people were killed in the hospital blast. Donna Miles, an Iranian-Kiwi columnist, penned this article before news of the attack on the hospital.
COMMENTARY:By Donna Miles
Of everything that I have read and watched about the unfolding events in Israel and Gaza, a tweet and a short video have stood out the most.
The tweet came from Dov Waxman, a professor of Israel studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. It read:
“To the people celebrating the mass murder of Israeli citizens, you have lost your humanity. To the people enthusiastically calling for Israel to decimate Gaza, densely populated with 2 million Palestinian citizens, you have lost your humanity. Israelis and Palestinians are real people, just like you and me.”
The video, posted on X, is a short clip of an interview with the distressed father of the young Israeli woman whose video of being taken hostage on a motorbike went viral on social media.
The father speaks in Hebrew with a voice full of pain. A written translation reads:
”Also Gaza has casualties… mothers who cry… let’s use this emotion, we are two nations from one father, let’s make peace, a real peace.”
The heroic words of this Israeli father and his belief in peace, despite his incredible suffering, reduced me to tears.
To the people celebrating the mass murder of Israeli civilians, you have lost your humanity. To the people enthusiastically calling for Israel to decimate Gaza, densely populated with 2 million Palestinian civilians, you have lost your humanity. Israelis and Palestinians are real…
We, the international community, bear a big responsibility for the bloodbath of the past few days and the hell that is to come by failing to bring “a real peace” for Palestinians and Israelis.
A Gazan schoolgirl looks into the BBC camera and says: “I wish I could be a normal child, living with no war”.
We, the international community, have failed this child and one million other Gazan children who are about to pay “a huge price” for the crimes that they’ve had no parts in.
Protesters at the Auckland rally last Saturday in solidarity with the Palestinian right to freedom and calling for an end to the killing of civilians. Image: David Robie/APR
For more than 40 years, hundreds of UN Security Council and General Assembly resolutions, including one co-sponsored by New Zealand, have stated that “Israel’s annexation of occupied territory is unlawful, its construction of hundreds of Jewish settlements are illegal, and its denial of Palestinian self-determination breaches international law”, but there has been no accountability for Israeli occupation and its apartheid practices.
But now that we have this horror unfolding before our eyes, we are, at last, prepared to pay attention and listen to Palestinians as they are finally invited to the likes of CNN and BBC to tell us that what we have seen in the past few days, they have been experiencing for the past 75 years.
Husam Zomlot, the head of Palestinian Mission to the UK, described Gaza as the biggest open air prison, where 2 million people have been taken hostage by Israel for the last 17 years.
As I type this, Israel has ordered a total siege of the densely-populated Gaza, cutting off fuel, food and electricity to an already deprived population while conducting massive retaliatory airstrikes.
Half of Gaza is children
Half of Gaza’s 2.2 million population are children. These children have no Iron Dome to stop the rockets, and no sophisticated army to protect them as their houses are flattened and their bodies are charred and mangled.
An airstrike has already wiped out 19 members of the same Palestinian family who were sheltering in their house in a jam-packed refugee camp in Gaza.
A shell-shocked survivor of the strike said he didn’t understand why Israel struck his house. “There were no militants in his building, he insisted, and his family was not warned”.
Many Gazans have already lost family members, including children and infants, in previous wars.
The 2-year-old son and wife of Israel’s most wanted man, the leader of Hamas’ military arm, Mohammed Deif, were killed as Israel tried and failed to kill him during the 2014 Israeli offensive on Gaza which, shockingly, killed over 500 Palestinian children.
Targeting schools, hospitals, mosques and marketplaces, as Israel is doing now and has done in the past, in a densely populated area where people have nowhere to flee, can only reflect Israel’s total disregard for the lives of Palestinian civilians.
If we expect occupied people not to target civilians then surely we must demand the same from their powerful occupier.
It’s rare to find a full body with all its parts the deeper we went into the hospital the more shocking and terrifying the scene became in gaza in result of the israeli air strike that hit the #baptisthospital#Gazapic.twitter.com/tR9KC5sRvb
Staggering failure
There has been much talk about the staggering failure of Israeli intelligence on multiple fronts. But Israel’s biggest intelligence failure is the ongoing assumption that occupation can ever co-exist with peace — it cannot.
Columnist Donna Miles . . . “We have been here before, and have learnt that collective punishment of Palestinians will only strengthen their resolve to fight for their freedom.” Image: DM/APRColumnist Donna Miles . . . “We have been here before, and
I have no doubt that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will do as he has promised and will exact “a huge price” for Hamas’ murderous attacks.
But we have been here before, and, time and time again, have learnt that collective punishment of Palestinians will only strengthen their resolve to fight for their freedom.
In his first message after the attacks, Netanyahu quoted from the poet Hayim Nahman Bialik: “Vengeance… for the blood of a small child, / Satan has not yet created.”
Netanyahu left out the preceding line: “Cursed be he who cries out: Revenge!”.
Killing more Palestinians will not solve Israeli’s security problems. The only path to peace is by ending the illegal settlements, annexations and dispossession of Palestinians.
Donna Miles is an Iranian-Kiwi columnist and writer based in Christchurch. This article was first published in The Press last Friday and is published here with the permission of the author.
Australia's The Voice vote . . . passionate supporters and deep divisions for both the "yes" and "no" camps in an historical vote that will have significant consequences. Image: @The_Voice_2023
SPECIAL REPORT: By Yamin Kogoya
The referendum on the indigenous Voice in Australia last Saturday was an historic event. Australians were asked to vote on whether to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Peoples of Australia in the Constitution through an indigenous Voice.
The Voice was proposed as an independent, representative body for First Nations peoples to advise the Australian Parliament and government, giving them a voice on issues that affect them.
Here are some key points:
The proposal was to recognise Indigenous Australians in the Constitution by creating a body to advise Parliament, known as the “Voice”.
The “Voice” would be an independent advisory body. Members would be chosen by First Nations communities around Australia to represent them.
The “Voice” would provide advice to governments on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, such as health, education, and housing, in the hope that such advice will lead to better outcomes.
Under the Constitution, the federal government already has the power to make laws for Indigenous people. The “Voice” would be a way for them to be consulted on those laws. However, the government would be under no obligation to act on the advice.
Indigenous people have called for the “Voice” to be included in the Constitution so that it can’t be removed by the government of the day, which has been the fate of every previous indigenous advisory body. It is also the way indigenous people have said they want to be recognised in the constitution as the First Nations with a 65,000-year connection to the continent — not simply through symbolic words.
It was necessary for a majority of voters to vote “yes” nationally, as well as a majority of voters in at least four out of six states, for the referendum to pass.
Unfortunately, it was rejected by the majority with more than 60 percent with the vote still being counted. In all six states and the Northern Territory, a “No” vote was projected.
The Voice vote nationally – “no” ahead with 60 percent with counting still ongoing. Source: The Guardian
According to the ABC, a majority of voters in all six states and the Northern Territory voted against the proposal.
New South Wales 81.2 percent counted, 1.81 million voted yes (40.5 percent) and 2.67M million voted no (59.5 percent).
Victoria 78.5 percent counted, 1.56 million voted yes (45.0 percent), and 1.91 million voted no (55.0 percent).
Tasmania 82.7 percent counted, 134,809 voted yes (40.5 percent), and 198,152 voted no (59.5 percent).
South Australia 79.1 percent counted, 355,682 voted yes (35.4 percent), 648,769 voted no (64.6 percent).
Queensland 74.3 percent counted, 835,159 voted yes (31.2 percent), 1.84 million voted no (68.8 percent).
Western Australia 75.3 percent counted, 495,448 voted yes (36.4 percent), and 866,902 voted no (63.6 percent).
Northern Territory 63.4 percent counted, 37,969 voted yes (39.5 percent), and 58,193 voted no (60.5 percent).
ACT 82.8 percent counted, 158,097 voted yes (60.8 percent), and 102,002 voted no (39.2 percent).
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has said the next steps after the failed Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum are yet to be decided and called the expectation of having a plan just days after the vote “not respectful”.
In addition to being viewed as divisive along racial lines, concerns about how the Voice to Parliament would work (whether indigenous Australians would be given greater power) and uncertainties about how the new body would result in meaningful change for indigenous Australians contributed to the rejection.
Australia has held 44 referendums since its founding in 1901. However, the referendum on the Indigenous Voice to Parliament in 2023 was the first of its kind to focus specifically on Indigenous Australians.
As part of a broader push to establish constitutional recognition of Indigenous Australians, the Voice proposal was seen as a significant step towards reconciliation and was the result of decades of indigenous advocacy and work.
A key turning point came in 2017 when 250 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander delegates from across the country met at Uluru for the First Nations’ National Constitutional Convention. The proposal, known as the Voice, sought to recognise Indigenous people in Australia’s constitution and establish a First Nations body to advise the government on issues affecting their communities.
However, the Voice proposal was not unanimously accepted. In the course of the campaign, intense conflict and discussion ensued between supporters and opponents, resulting in what supporters viewed as a tragic outcome, while the victorious opponents celebrated their victory.
The support of Oceania’s indigenous leaders Pacific Islanders expressed their views before the referendum on the Voice to Parliament.
Henry Puna, Secretary-General of the Pacific Islands Forum, said that Australia’s credibility would be boosted on the world stage if the yes vote won the Indigenous voice referendum. He stated that it would be “wonderful” if Australia were to vote yes, because he believed it would elevate Australia’s position, and perhaps even its credibility, internationally.
The former Foreign Minister of Vanuatu (nd current Climate Change Minister), Ralph Regevanu, warned Australia’s reputation would plummet among its allies in the Pacific if the Voice to Parliament was defeated.
These views indicate the potential impact of the voice referendum on Australia’s relationship with Pacific Island nations, which it often refers to as “its own backyard”.
The “No” camp claimed the Voice was an “elite” idea, that “real” Indigenous people didn’t want it, because Peter Dutton had spoken to “shoppers”. Even with the results, they still insist communities did not want one – taking away what little voice they gothttps://t.co/kWt0hjDHEC
Division, defeat and impact A tragic aspect of the Voice proposal is the fact that not only were Australian settlers divided about it, but even worse, indigenous leaders themselves, who were in a position to bring together a fragmented and tormented nation, were at odds with each other — including full-on verbal wars in media.
While their opinions on the proposal were divided, some had practical and realistic ideas to address the problems faced by indigenous communities in remote towns. Others proposed a treaty between settlers and original indigenous people.
There are also those who advocate for a strong political recognition within the nation’s constitutional framework.
Despite these divisions among indigenous leaders, the referendum on Voice represents a significant milestone in the ongoing indigenous resistance that spans over 200 years.
It is a resistance that began on January 26, 1788, when the invasion began (Pemulwuy’s War), and continued through various milestones such as the 1937 Petition for citizenship, land rights, and representation, the 1938 Day of Mourning, the 1963 Yirrkala bark petitions, the 1965 Freedom Rides, and the establishment of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra in 1972.
It further extended to 1990-2005 with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC), the 1991 Song Treaty by Yothu Yindi, Eddie Mabo overturning terra nullius in 1992, Kevin Rudd’s 2008 apology, and the Uluru Statement from the Heart until the recent defeat of the Voice Referendum in 2023.
A dangerous settlers’ myth and its consequences The modern nation of Australia (aged 235 years) has been shaped by one of European myths: “Terra Nullius”, the Latin term for “nobody’s land”. This myth was used to describe the legal position at the time of British colonisation.
Accordingly, the land had been deemed as terra nullius, which implies that it had belonged to no one before the British Crown declared sovereignty over it.
Eddy Mabo: A Melanesian Hero An indigenous Melanesian, Eddy Mabo, overturned this myth in 1992, known as “the Mabo Case,” which recognised the land rights of the Meriam people and other indigenous peoples.
The Mabo Case resulted in significant changes in Australian law in several areas. One of the most notable changes was the overturning of the long-standing legal fiction of “terra nullius,” which posited that Australia was unpopulated (no man’s land) at the time of British colonisation.
In this decision, the High Court of Australia recognized the legal rights of Indigenous Australians to make claims to lands in Australia. It marked a historic moment, as it was the first time that the law acknowledged the traditional rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. In addition, the Mabo Case contributed directly to the establishment of the Native Title Act in 1993.
Even though these changes are significant, debates persist regarding the state of indigenous Australians under colonial settlement.
Indigenous Affairs reporter Isabella Higgins says the No victory in the Indigenous Voice to Parliament Referendum could change the way Indigenous Australians will want to interact with the rest of the country going forward. pic.twitter.com/g5CxBaU0Op
Indigenous leaders need to see a big picture The recent referendum on the Voice sparked heated debates on a topic that has long been a source of contention: the age-old battle of “my country versus your country, my mob versus your mob, I know best versus you know nothing.”
While it’s important to celebrate and protect cultural diversity and the unique perspectives it brings, it’s equally important to recognise that British settlers didn’t just apply the myth of terra nullius to a select few groups or regions — they applied it to all areas inhabited by indigenous peoples, treating them as a single, homogenous entity.
This means that any solution to indigenous issues must be rooted in a collective, unified voice, rather than a patchwork of fragmented groups.
Indigenous leaders need to prioritise the creation of a unified front among themselves and mobilise their people before seeking support from Australians. Currently, they are engaging in competition, outdoing each other, and fighting over the same issue on mainstream media platforms, indigenous-run media platforms, and social media.
This approach is reminiscent of the “divide, conquer, and rule” strategy that the British effectively employed worldwide to expand and maintain their dominion. This strategy has historically caused harm to indigenous nations worldwide, and it is now harming indigenous people because their leaders are fighting among themselves.
It is important to note that this does not imply a rejection of every distinct indigenous language group, clan, or tribe. However, it is crucial to recognise that indigenous peoples throughout Oceania were viewed through a particular European lens, which scholars refer to as “Eurocentrism”.
This “lens” is a double-edged sword, providing semantic definition and dissection power while also compartmentalising based on a hierarchy of values. Melanesians and indigenous Australians were placed at the bottom of this hierarchy and deemed to be of no historical or cultural significance.
This realisation is of utmost importance for the collective attainment of redemption, unity and reconciliation.
The larger Australian indigenous’ cause From Vasco Núñez de Balboa’s momentous crossing of the Isthmus of Panama to Ferdinand Magellan’s pioneering Spanish expedition across the Pacific Ocean in 1521, and Abel Janszoon Tasman’s remarkable exploration of Tasmania, Australia, New Zealand, and Fiji, to James Cook’s renowned voyages in the Pacific Ocean between 1768 and 1779, the indigenous peoples of Oceania have endured immense suffering and torment as a consequence of the European scramble for these territories.
The indigenous peoples of Oceania were forever scarred by the merciless onslaught of European maritime marauders. When the race for supremacy over these unspoiled regions unfolded, their lives were shattered, and their communities torn asunder.
The web of life in Australia and Oceania was severely disrupted, devalued, rejected, and subjected to brutality and torment as a result of the waves of colonisation that forcefully impacted their shores.
The colonisers imposed various racial prejudices, civilising agendas, legal myths, and the Discovery doctrine, all of which were conceived within the collective conceptual mindset of Europeans and applied to the indigenous people.
These actions have had a lasting and fatalistic impact on the collective indigenous population in Australia and Oceania, resulting in dehumanisation, enslavement, genocide, and persistent marginalisation of their humanity, leading to unwarranted guilt for their mere existence.
The European collective perception of Oceania, exemplified by the notion of terra nullius, has resulted in numerous transgressions of indigenous laws, customs, and cosmologies, affecting every aspect of life within the entire landscape. These violations have led to the loss of land, destruction of language, erasure of memories, and imposition of British customs.
Furthermore, indigenous peoples were forcibly relocated to concentration camps, missions, and reserves.
The Declaration received support from a total of 144 countries, with only four countries (which have historically displaced indigenous populations through settler occupation) voting against it — Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States.
However, all four countries subsequently reversed their positions and endorsed the Declaration. It should be noted that while the Declaration does not possess legal binding force, it does serve as a reflection of the commitments and responsibilities that states have under international law and human rights standards.
The challenges and concerns confronting indigenous communities are undeniably more severe and deplorable than the current “yes or no” referendum. It is imperative for the entire nation, including indigenous leaders, to acknowledge the profound extent of the Indigenous human tragedy that extends beyond the divisive binary.
Old and new imperial vultures Similar to the European vultures that once encircled Oceania centuries ago, partitioned its territories, subjugated its people, conducted bomb experiments, and eradicated its population in Tasmania, the present-day vultures from the Eastern and Western regions exhibit comparable behaviours.
It is imperative for indigenous leaders hailing from Australia, Melanesia, Polynesia, and Micronesia to unite and demand that the colonial governments be held responsible for the multitude of crimes they have perpetrated.
Message to divided indigenous leaders Simply assigning blame to already fragmented, tormented, and highly marginalised Indigenous communities, and endeavouring to empower them solely through a range of government handouts and community-based development programs, will not be adequate.
Because the trust between indigenous peoples and settlers has been shattered over centuries of abuse, deeply impacting the core of Indigenous self-image, dignity, and respect.
My personal experience in remote indigenous communities I am a Papuan who came to Australia over 20 years ago to study in the remote NSW town of Bourke. I lived, studied, and worked at a small Christian College called Cornerstone Community.
During my time there, I was adopted by the McKellar clan of the Wangkumara Tribe in Bourke and worked closely with indigenous communities in Bourke, Brewarrina, Walgett, Cobar, Wilcannia, and Dubbo.
Unfortunately, my experiences in these places left me traumatised.
These communities have become so broken. I found myself succumbing to depression as a result of the distressing experiences I witnessed. It dawned upon me being “blackfella” — Papuan indigenous descent — was and still consistently subjected to similar mistreatment regardless of location.
This realisation instilled within me a sense of guilt for my own identity, as I was constantly made feel guilty of who I was. Tragically, a significant number of the young indigenous whom I endeavoured to aid and guide through diverse community and youth initiatives have either been incarcerated or committed suicide.
West Papua, my home country, is currently experiencing a genocide due to the Indonesian settler occupation, which is supported by the Australian government. This is similar to what indigenous Australians have endured under the colonial system of settlers.
Indigenous Australians in every region, town, and city face a complex and diverse set of issues, which are unique, tragic, and devastating. These issues are a result of how the settler colony interacted with them upon their arrival in the country.
Nevertheless, the indigenous people were not subjected to centuries of abuse and mistreatment solely based on their tribal affiliations. Rather, they were targeted by the settler government as a collective, disregarding the diversity among indigenous groups.
This included the indigenous people from Oceania, who have endured dehumanisation and racism as a result of colonisation.
It is imperative to acknowledge that the resolution of these predicaments cannot be attained by a solitary leader representing a particular group. The indigenous leaders need a unified vision and strategy to combat these issues.
All indigenous individuals across the globe, including Australia, New Zealand, Oceania, and West Papua, are afflicted by the same affliction. The only distinguishing factor is the degree of harm inflicted by the virus, along with the circumstances surrounding its occurrence.
A paradigm shift Imagine a world where indigenous peoples in Australia and Oceania reclaim their original languages and redefine the ideas, myths, and behaviours displayed on their land with their own concepts of law, morality, and cosmology. In this world, I am confident that every legal product, civilisational idea, and colonial moral code applied to these peoples would be deemed illegal.
It is time to empower indigenous voices and perspectives and challenge the oppressive systems that have silenced them for far too long.
Commence the process of renaming each island, city, town, mountain, lake, river, valley, animal, tree, rock, country, and region with their authentic local languages and names, thereby reinstating their original significance and worth.
However, in order to accomplish this, it is imperative that indigenous communities are granted the necessary authority, as it is ultimately their power that will reinforce such transformation. This power does not solely rely on weapons or monetary resources, but rather on the determination to preserve their way of life, restore their self-image, and demand the recognition of their dignity and respect.
Last Saturday’s No Vote tragedy wasn’t just about the majority of Australians rejecting it. It was a heartbreaking moment where indigenous leaders, who should have been united, found themselves fiercely divided.
Accusations were flying left and right, targeting each other’s backgrounds, positions, and portfolios. This bitter divide ended up gambling away any chance of redemption and reconciliation that had reached such a high national level.
It was a devastating blow to the hopes and aspirations for a better world for one of the most disadvantaged originals continues human on this ancient timeless continent — Australia.
Yamin Kogoya is a West Papuan academic who has a Master of Applied Anthropology and Participatory Development from the Australian National University and who contributes to Asia Pacific Report. From the Lani tribe in the Papuan Highlands, he is currently living in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
Rallies spread around the world in support of occupied Palestine's cause for freedom and its own state, and against Israel's "collective punishment" strategy of repeatedly bombing Gaza, condemned by critics as a war crime. Image: Al Jazeera screenshot/APR
ANALYSIS:By Kalinga Seneviratne in Singapore
In the aftermath of Palestinian group Hamas’ terror attack inside Israel on October 7 and the Israeli state’s even more terrifying attacks on Palestinian urban neighbourhoods in Gaza, the media across many parts of Asia tend to take a more neutral stand in comparison with their Western counterparts.
A lot of sympathy is expressed for the plight of the Palestinians who have been under frequent attacks by Israeli forces for decades and have faced ever trauma since the Nakba in 1948 when Zionist militia forced some 750,000 refugees to leave their homeland.
Even India, which has been getting closer to Israel in recent years, and one of Israel’s closest Asian allies, Singapore, have taken a cautious attitude to the latest chapter in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Soon after the Hamas attacks in Israel, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted that he was “deeply shocked by the news of terrorist attacks”.
He added: “We stand in solidarity with Israel at this difficult hour.” But, soon after, his Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) sought to strike a balance.
Addressing a media briefing on October 12, MEA spokesperson Arindam Bagchi reiterated New Delhi’s “long-standing and consistent” position on the issue, telling reporters that “India has always advocated the resumption of direct negotiations towards establishing a sovereign, independent and viable state of Palestine” living in peace with Israel.
Singapore has also reiterated its support for a two-state solution, with Law and Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam telling Today Daily that it was possible to deplore how Palestinians had been treated over the years while still unequivocally condemning the terrorist attacks carried out in Israel by Hamas.
“These atrocities cannot be justified by any rationale whatsoever, whether of fundamental problems or historical grievances,” he said.
“I think it’s fair to say that any response has to be consistent with international law and international rules of war”.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has blamed the rapidly worsening conflict in the Middle East on a lack of justice for the Palestinian people.
The International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) has warned the UK’s Prime Minister that it intends to prosecute UK government officials for complicity in war crimes in Gaza.
ICJP co-director Crispin Blunt spoke to Sky News on Saturday morning to discuss the warning. pic.twitter.com/04MA2Bczou
Lack of justice for Palestinians
“The crux of the issue lies in the fact that justice has not been done to the Palestinian people,” Beijing’s top diplomat said in a phone call with Brazil’s Celso Amorim, a special adviser to Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, according to Japan’s Nikkei Asia.
The call came just ahead of an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on October 13 to discuss the Israel-Hamas war. Brazil, a non-permanent member, is chairing the council this month.
Indonesian President Jokowi Widodo called for an end to the region’s bloodletting cycle and pro-Palestinian protests have been held in Jakarta.
“Indonesia calls for the war and violence to be stopped immediately to avoid further human casualties and destruction of property because the escalation of the conflict can cause greater humanitarian impact,” he said.
“The root cause of the conflict, which is the occupation of Palestinian land by Israel, must be resolved immediately in accordance with the parameters that have been agreed upon by the UN.”
Indonesia, which is home to the world’s largest Muslim population, has supported Palestinian self-determination for a long time and does not have diplomatic relations with Israel.
But, Indonesia’s foreign ministry said 275 Indonesians were working in Israel and were making plans to evacuate them.
Many parts of Gaza lie in ruins following repeated Israeli airstrikes for the past week. Image: UN News/Ziad Taleb
Sympathy for the Palestinians
Meanwhile, Thailand said that 18 of their citizens have been killed by the terror attacks and 11 abducted.
In the Philippines, Foreign Affairs Secretary Enrique Manalo said on October 10 that the safety of thousands of Filipinos living and working in Israel remained a priority for the government.
There are approximately 40,000 Filipinos in Israel, but only 25,000 are legally documented, according to labour and migrant groups, says Benar News, a US-funded Asian news portal.
According to India’s MEA spokesperson Bagchi, there are 18,000 Indians in Israel and about a dozen in the Palestinian territories. India is trying to bring them home, and a first flight evacuating 230 Indians was expected to take place at the weekend, according to the Hindu newspaper.
It is unclear what such large numbers of Asians are doing in Israel. Yet, from media reports in the region, there is deep concern about the plight of civilians caught up in the clashes.
Benar News reported that Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has spoken with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan about resolving the Palestine-Israel conflict according to UN-agreed parameters.
Also this week, the Malaysian government announced it would allocate 1 million ringgit (US$211,423) in humanitarian aid for Palestinians.
Western view questioned
Sympathy for the Palestinian cause is reflected widely in the Asian media, both in Muslim-majority and non-Muslim countries. The Western unequivocal support for Israel, particularly by Anglo-American media, has been questioned across Asia.
Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post’s regular columnist Alex Lo challenged Hamas’ “unprovoked” terror attack in Israel, a narrative commonly used in Western media reporting of the latest flare-up.
“It must be pointed out that what Hamas has done is terrorism pure and simple,” notes Lo.
“But such horrors and atrocities are not being committed by Palestinian militants without a background and a context. They did not come out of nowhere as unadulterated and uncaused evil”.
Thus Lo argues, that to claim that the latest terror attacks were “unprovoked” is to whitewash the background and context that constitute the very history of this unending conflict in Palestine.
US media’s ‘morally reprehensible propaganda’
“It’s morally reprehensible propaganda of the worst kind that the mainstream Anglo-American media culture has been guilty of for decades,” he says.
“But the real problem with that is not only with morality but also with the very practical politics of searching for a viable peace settlement”.
He is concerned that “with their unconditional and uncritical support of Israel, the West and the United States in particular have essentially made such a peace impossible”.
Writing in India’s Hindu newspaper, Denmark-based Indian professor of literature Dr Tabish Khair points out that historically, Palestinians have had to indulge in drastic and violent acts to draw attention to their plight and the oppressive policies of Israel.
“The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), under Yasser Arafat’s leadership, used such ‘terrorist’ acts to focus world attention on the Palestinian problem, and without such actions, the West would have looked the other way while the Palestinians were slowly airbrushed out of history,” he argues.
While the PLO fought a secular Palestinian battle for nationhood, which was largely ignored by Western powers, this lead to political Islam’s development in the later part of the 1970s, and Hamas is a product of that.
“Today, we live in a world where political Islam is associated almost entirely with Islam — and almost all Muslims,” he notes.
Palestinian cause still resonates
But, the Palestinian cause still resonates beyond the Muslim communities, as the reactions in Asia reflect.
Indian historian and journalist Vijay Prashad, writing in Bangladesh’s Daily Star, notes the savagery of the impending war against the Palestinian people will be noted by the global community.
He points out that Hamas was never allowed to function as a voice for the Palestinian people, even after they won a landslide democratic election in Gaza in January 2006.
“The victory of Hamas was condemned by the Israelis and the West, who decided to use armed force to overthrow the election result,” he points out.
“Gaza was never allowed a political process, in fact never allowed to shape any kind of political authority to speak for the people”.
Prashad points out that when the Palestinians conducted a non-violent march in 2019 for their rights to nationhood, they were met with Israeli bombs that killed 200 people.
“When non-violent protest is met with force, it becomes difficult to convince people to remain on that path and not take up arms,” he argues.
Prashad disputes the Western media’s argument that Israel has a “right to defend itself” because the Palestinians are people under occupation. Under the Geneva Convention, Israel has an obligation to protect them.
Under the Geneva Convention, Prashad argues that the Israeli government’s “collective punishment” strategy is a war crime.
“The International Criminal Court opened an investigation into Israeli war crimes in 2021 but it was not able to move forward even to collect information”.
Kalinga Seneviratne is a correspondent for IDN-InDepthNews, the flagship agency of the non-profit International Press Syndicate (IPS). Republished under a Creative Commons licence.
National Party's Christopher Luxon has scored a strong victory in the Aotearoa New Zealand election and while the Greens and Te Pāti Māori both saw big gains, taking crucial electorate seats, it has been at the expense of Labour. Image: 1News screenshot/APR
By Debrin Foxcroft, Finlay Macdonald, Matt Garrow and Veronika Meduna
From winning a single-party majority in 2020, Labour’s vote has virtually halved in 2023 in the Aotearoa New Zealand general election.
Pre-election polls appear to have under-estimated support for National, which on the provisional results last night can form a government with ACT and will not need NZ First, despite those same polls pointing to a three-way split.
While the Greens and Te Pāti Māori both saw big gains, taking crucial electorate seats, it has been at the expense of Labour.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins . . . ousted as New Zealand prime minister with a stinging defeat for his party. Image: 1News screenshot/APRLabour leader Chris Hipkins . . . ousted as
Special votes are yet to be counted, and Te Pāti Māori winning so many electorate seats will cause an “overhang”, increasing the size of Parliament and requiring a larger majority to govern.
There will also be a byelection in the Port Waikato electorate on November 25, which National is expected to win.
So the picture may change between now and November 3 when the official result is revealed.
But on last night’s count, the left bloc is out of power and the right is back.
New Zealand Parliament party seats. Source: Electoral Commission
Big shift in the Māori electorates
Te Pāti Māori has performed better than expected in the Māori electorates – taking down some titans of the Labour Party and winning four of the seven seats.
The Māori electorate boundaries. Source: Wikimedia, CC BY-SA
The party vote remained at 2.5 perecent — consistent with 2020.
One of the biggest upsets was 21-year-old Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke’s win over Labour stalwart Nanaia Mahuta in the Hauraki-Waikato electorate. Mahuta has represented the electorate since 2008 and has been in Parliament since 1996.
This was a must-win race for Mahuta, the current foreign affairs minister, after she announced she would not be running on the Labour party list.
Labour won all seven Māori seats in 2017 and six in 2020.
Advance voting
In 2017, 1.24 million votes were cast before election day, more than the previous two elections combined.
In 2020, this rose to 1.97 million people – an extremely high early vote figure attributable to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
This year, more than 1.3 million New Zealanders cast advance votes before election day – higher than 2017 but significantly lower than 2020.
The comeback kid
After a dismal showing at the 2020 election, NZ First’s Winston Peters has yet again shown himself to be the comeback kid of New Zealand politics. Peters and his party have provisionally gained nearly 6.5 percent of the vote, giving them eight seats in Parliament.
On the current numbers, the National Party will not need NZ First to help form the government. But the result is still a massive reversal of fortune for Peters, who failed to meet the 5 percent threshold or win an electorate seat in 2020.
The heart of Wellington goes Green
Urban electorates in the capital Wellington have resoundingly shifted left, with wins for the Green Party’s Tamatha Paul in Wellington Central and Julie Anne Genter in Rongotai.
Chlöe Swarbrick has retained her seat in Auckland Central.
The Wellington electorates had previously been Labour strongholds. But the decision by outgoing Finance Minister Grant Robertson to compete as a list-only MP opened Wellington Central to Paul, currently a city councillor.
Genter takes the seat from outgoing Labour MP Paul Eagle.
Both Wellington electorates have also seen sizeable chunks of the party vote — 30 percent in Rongotai and almost 36 percent in Wellington Central — go to the Greens.
About 2000 people from Aotearoa New Zealand communities, including many families, staged a vibrant rally in Auckland’s Aotea Square and marched down Queen Street today in support of freedom for #Palestine and an end to the Gaza massacre.
Marchers held placards proclaiming “This is a massacre not war”, “Free Palestine – End the Occupation now”, “Land back” — with reference to Israel seizing Palestinian land on a banner also displaying the Aboriginal, Māori (Tino Rangatiratanga) and West Papua (Morning Star) flags.
Warning about a “new Nakba” — the 1948 forced eviction of 750,000 Palestinian refugees from their homeland — the Jewish Voice for Peace advocacy group said in a statement that the Israeli government had declared a “genocidal war” on Palestinians in Gaza.
Israeli officials are openly planning to open “the gates of hell” on Gaza, referring to the two million Palestinians trapped inside as “human animals”, the statement said.
“The Israeli military has launched non-stop airstrikes and bombing over Gaza.
“Our partners tell us of entire neighbourhoods being flattened, schools and hospitals being bombed, apartment buildings being brought down.”
At least 583 Palestinian children have been killed by the Israeli military offensive on Gaza so far, representing one-third of the total death toll with casualty count rapidly rising, reports Defence for Children International.
The Gaza “evacuation” zone as ordered by the Israeli military which has been condemned by global critics as a “death sentence”. Image: JVP
“The Israeli government has shut off all electricity to Gaza. Hospitals cannot save lives, the internet will collapse, people will have no phones to communicate with the outside world.
“Gaza will be plunged into darkness as Israel turns its neighborhoods to rubble. Still worse, Israel has openly stated an intention to commit mass atrocities and even genocide, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying the Israeli response will ‘reverberate for generations’.
“All of this with the full throated support of the US.
“End the occupation now” says a placard held by these young Palestinian women protesting in Auckland today in solidarity with the Gaza suffering. Image: David Robie/APR
“On Friday, the Israeli military called for all civilians of Northern Gaza — over one million people, including half a million children — to relocate south within 24 hours, as it amassed tanks for an expected ground invasion.
“According to the UN, it is impossible to evacuate everyone with power supplies cut and food and water in the Palestinian enclave running short after Israel placed Gaza under total siege.
The UN said this invasion would have “devastating humanitarian consequences”, the statement said.
“For 16 years, Palestinians blockaded in Gaza have lived in the most densely populated place in the world. That density is set to double, if one million Palestinians are pushed from the North into the South.
“We shudder to think what will happen if the north is vacated: Israel could annex the territory. Another Nakba could be imminent.”
It was perhaps inevitable that the shock Hamas attack on Israel would become a minor election sideshow in New Zealand. Less than a week from the Aotearoa New Zealand polls, a crisis in the Middle East offered opposition parties a brief chance to criticise the foreign minister’s initial reaction.
But if it was a fleeting and fairly trivial moment in the heat of a campaign, the crisis itself is far from it — and it will test the foreign policy positions of whichever parties manage to form a government after Saturday.
It can be tempting to see the latest eruption of violence in Gaza and Israel as somehow “normal”, given the history of the region. But this is far from normal.
What appear to be intentional war crimes and crimes against humanity, involving the use of terror against citizens and guests of Israel, will provoke what will probably be an unprecedented response.
The bombardment and “complete siege” of Gaza, and preparation for a possible ground invasion, have catastrophic potential.
Hundreds of thousands may be forced towards Egypt or into the Mediterranean, with the fate of the hostages held by Hamas looking dire. Israel has now said there will be no humanitarian aid until the hostages are free.
There is a risk the war will spread over Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, with Hezbollah (backed by Iran) now involved.
“The number of bombs that Israel has dropped on the Gaza Strip in the last six days is equal to the number of bombs that America has dropped in Afghanistan in a year.”
Beyond these immediate concerns, however, the world is divided. Outrage in the West is matched by support in Arab countries for Palestinian “resistance”. Despite US efforts to get a global consensus condemning the attack, the United Nations Security Council could not agree on a unified statement.
With no global consensus, New Zealand can do little more than assert and defend the established rules-based international order. This includes stating clearly that international humanitarian law and the rules of war are universal and must be applied impartially.
That’s akin to New Zealand’s position on the Russian invasion of Ukraine: the rules of war apply to all, both state and non-state forces (irrespective of whether those parties agree to them). War crimes are to be investigated, with accountability and consequences applied through the relevant international bodies.
This applies to crimes of terror, murder, hostage-taking and indiscriminate rocket attacks carried out by Hamas. But the government needs also to emphasise that war crimes do not justify further retaliatory war crimes.
International law prohibits collective punishments, and access for humanitarian relief should be permitted. To hold an entire population captive – as a siege of Gaza involves – for the crimes of a military organisation is not acceptable.
The two-state solution It is also important that New Zealand carefully considers definitions of terrorism and legitimate force. Terrorists do not enjoy the political and legal legitimacy afforded by international law.
Whether this distinction is anything more than a fiction needs to be reviewed. If this were to change, it would mean the financing, participation in or recruitment to any branch of Hamas would be illegal. This might have implications for any future peace process, should Hamas be involved.
At some point, most people surely hope, the cycle of violence will end. The likeliest route to that will be the so-called “two-state solution”, requiring security guarantees for Israel, negotiated land swaps and careful management of Jerusalem’s holy sites.
New Zealand has long supported this initiative, despite its apparent diplomatic near-death status. An emergency meeting of the Arab League in Cairo this week urged Israel to resume talks to establish a viable Palestinian state, and China has also reiterated support such a solution.
New Zealand cannot stay silent when extreme, indiscriminate violence is committed by any group or nation. But joining any movement of like-minded nations to continue pushing for the two-state solution is still its best long-term strategy.
People across the world have taken to the streets to voice their solidarity with Palestinians and their right to resist Israel's occupation. Image: The New Arab
COMMENTARY: By John Minto
The tragic events in Israel/Palestine these past few days have highlighted the absolute failure of Western governments like New Zealand to hold Israel accountable for its myriad war crimes against the Palestinian people for more than 75 years.
Even in the past year the New Zealand government has failed to speak up despite obvious signs that unbearable pressure was building in Palestine following the election in late 2022 of the most extreme far-right government in Israel’s history.
This new government has taken numerous steps to ramp up pressure on Palestinians everywhere in the occupied Palestinian territories by:
Announcing the building of more illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian land;
Encouraging attacks on Palestinian towns villages and rural communities by illegal Israeli settlers and provided Israeli military support for the settlers;
Organising highly provocative incursions into the Al Aqsa mosque compound by Israeli government ministers; and
Justifying and casualised the killing of Palestinians resisting the Israeli occupation of their country (more than 250 Palestinians were killed in the first nine months of this year including dozens of children)
The total silence of Western governments such as New Zealand to these developments has emboldened Israel to act with impunity as it bulldozes more Palestinian land, builds more illegal settlements.
The reaction from Hamas when its attack came has shocked and appalled Israelis, Palestinians and most of the world community.
Attacks on civilians condemned
Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) has condemned the Hamas attack on civilians as a war crime under the Fourth Geneva Convention, just as we condemn any attack on civilians no matter who the attacker is.
But unlike our Prime Minister, Chris Hipkins, and most Western governments, we also condemn Israeli war crimes.
It is a war crime to use collective punishment against civilian populations. In other words it is unlawful to punish a whole group for the actions of a few.
It is also unlawful to withhold, food, water and the essentials of life from people living under military occupation as Israel is doing to Gaza.
The New Zealand government must not only condemn war crimes committed by Hamas but it must also condemn war crimes against the Palestinian people.
A grief-stricken Gaza man weeps for his dead loved ones and the destruction of his home in indiscriminate Israeli air strikes. Image: Al Jazeera
More war crimes
Meanwhile, Israel has announced preparations to commit more war crimes against Palestinians.
“We are fighting against human animals” said Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant yesterday as he announced what he called a “complete siege” on Gaza which Israel is set to impose.
Hearing racist, dehumanising, language about Palestinians from Israeli politicians is nothing new but this time Israel is using genocidal language to justify the massive death toll which they are planning to inflict on Palestinian refugees in Gaza — refugees created through war crimes committed by Israeli militias in 1948.
On Saturday, Palestinians and their supporters are holding rallies and vigils around New Zealand to demand our government speak out and condemn not only the killing of Israeli civilians but also the slaughter of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
We will be demanding the government take action to hold Israel to account for the crimes of its occupation of Palestine in the same way we have held Russia to account for its crimes against the Ukrainian people in its occupation of Ukraine.
The start of each rally will include a minute of silence to remember all the civilians — Palestinians and Israelis — who have been killed in the last week.
Nationwide rallies on Saturday, October 14, calling for an end to the Israeli-Gaza war and the killing of civilians — in Auckland at 2pm at Aotea Square.
Israel continued to pummel Gaza today with air raids, killing dozens of people, including nine children in the city of Khan Younis. Image: Al Jazeera screenshot/APR
A progressive foreign policy group is calling for the New Zealand government to condemn the siege of Gaza, and demand an immediate ceasefire to allow the establishment of a humanitarian aid corridor in the region.
Israel’s complete siege on the Gaza Strip has cut off power, food, water, electricity and fuel to the region, as the death toll from Israeli air strikes climbs over 1,100.
Human rights advocates are condemning this action as a crime against humanity.
Thousands of Palestinians — including the deaths of seven journalists bearing witness — and humanitarian workers have been targeted, injured and killed by Israeli air strikes.
Hospitals in Gaza are overwhelmed, as fuel supplies needed to run generators have been cut off, resulting in a power blackout across the region.
“We are horrified by the New Zealand government’s failure to demand an end to Israel’s genocidal campaign against Palestinians in Gaza,” said Te Kuaka co-director Dr Arama Rata.
“We call for the New Zealand government to urge an immediate ceasefire and the provision of healthcare and humanitarian assistance in Gaza.”
Reckless rhetoric
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant justified the siege by claiming: “We are fighting human animals and we act accordingly.”
US President Joe Biden condemned Hamas as a “terrorist” organisation, and affirmed “Israel’s right to defend itself”.
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins and Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta reiterated these statements.
A member of Te Kuaka, researcher and writer Dr Max Harris, said: “There is a pressing danger right now that claims about Israel’s right to self-defence are being used as cover for profound violations of international law, and the destruction of families and communities in Gaza.”
The UN Special Rapporteur on the Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, has expressed deep concern about the situation, and about UK Labour leader Keir Starmer’s comments claiming Israel’s right to self-defence justified the cutting off of electricity and supplies to Gaza.
Albanese has called the intentional starvation of civilians as part of a broader attack on civilians a “war crime and, potentially, a crime against humanity”.
Dr Harris said: “New Zealand must set other countries’ sights on the need for a humanitarian aid corridor, and our political leaders must avoid reckless rhetoric that will pave the way for war crimes and further senseless loss of life.”
Nationwide rallies on Saturday, October 14, calling for an end to the Israeli-Gaza war and the killing of civilians – in Auckland at 2pm at Aotea Square.
Indiscriminate Israeli bombardment of civilian districts in Gaza where dozens of families have been wiped out - 974 people (including at least 260 children) have been killed in the enclave. Image: Jadaliyya
ANALYSIS:By Mouin Rabbani
Almost 50 years to the day after the joint Egyptian-Syrian offensive that launched the 1973 October War, Israel has once again been caught with its pants down. On this occasion its briefs were dangling from its ankles as well.
Operation Al Aqsa Storm, as Hamas named its 7 October 2023 offensive into Israeli territory, represents an even greater Israeli failure.
Extensive and reasonably successful Egyptian and Syrian efforts to conceal their intentions, preparations, and capabilities notwithstanding, Israel in 1973 received multiple warnings about an impending Arab attack from, among others, King Hussein of Jordan, a high-level Egyptian agent, and several of its own intelligence officers.
Its primary failure was not ignorance, but the haughty dismissal of knowledge that contradicted preconceptions.
While hubris and complacency have been mainstays in Israel’s dealings with Arab military adversaries, on this occasion it additionally had no information about the impending operation.
This despite its world-leading surveillance and intelligence capabilities, and the reality that the Gaza Strip is not only miniscule in size but also the most intensively and intrusively surveilled territory and population on the planet, and one that has furthermore been under blockade for 17 years.
That Hamas and Islamic Jihad were under these circumstances able to plan and prepare an operation of such scale, scope, and sophistication, a process that will have consumed many months at the least, and will have required extensive communications among leaders, cadres, and operatives, is an astonishing achievement and testament to the legendary resourcefulness of Gaza’s Palestinians.
Launched in plain view
While we can at this point only speculate as to how Hamas managed to prepare and launch this offensive in plain view of Israel, the avoidance or effective encryption of electronic and digital communications will certainly have played an important role.
Similarly, Hamas has in recent years considerably improved its counter-intelligence capabilities to minimise infiltration, an essential feature given the nearly constant flow of Palestinians who transit through Israeli-controlled border crossings and are susceptible to recruitment by Israeli intelligence as conditions for access to health care, employment, and the like.
Rather than serving as Israel’s eyes and ears within the Gaza Strip, it seems likely at least some of these Palestinians conducted reconnaissance for Operation Al Aqsa Storm within Israel.
As for the weaponry used, much of it is either rudimentary or of local manufacture, making ingenious use of available materials such as paragliders, steel from a British ship that sunk off the Gaza coast decades ago to manufacture rocket tubes, and unexploded Israeli ordnance. More advanced capabilities will have been smuggled in, presumably with the assistance of Hezbollah in Lebanon, perhaps with the cooperation of sympathetic or corrupt Egyptian border patrols.
The legendary corruption of Israel’s own border crossings with the Gaza Strip may also have played a role.
Committed to fighting the previous war, Israel constructed formidable underground obstacles to prevent Palestinian commandos from infiltrating Israel through their tunnel network. In response, Hamas and Islamic Jihad simply breached the weak points in the barriers surrounding the Gaza Strip, such as wire fences that relied on electronic monitoring rather than more sturdy concrete obstacles (some of which also appear to have been breached).
And a key objective of the initial Palestinian missile barrage, which targeted Israeli military airfields among other objectives, was to paralyse and thus delay Israel’s ability to rapidly respond.
Immediate objectives
Al Aqsa Storm’s immediate objectives were to infiltrate and seize key Israeli security installations, such as the Re’im military base which serves as the headquarters for the Gaza Division; kill or capture a significant number of Israeli soldiers; establish Palestinian territorial control over population centers within Israel’s boundaries for the first time since 1948; and present significantly improved Palestinian capabilities to the Israeli public and security establishment with a massive missile barrage at Israeli cities and the deployment of new infiltration and combat techniques.
While Israeli civilian casualties do not appear to have been an objective as such, it appears that many were killed, and others abducted. Additionally, there are reports of a massacre at a desert party.
In the event, the operation succeeded in nearly all respects, one suspects beyond the wildest expectations of those who planned and executed it. Dozens of Israeli soldiers, including a major general, were spirited into captivity inside the Gaza Strip.
Many more, including senior officers, were killed and wounded, and almost 24 hours after the operation commenced, Palestinian fighters remained ensconced in multiple locations and installations inside Israel.
Images of Israeli bulldozers and missiles deployed against the Israeli police headquarters in Sderot to dislodge Palestinian fighters within it will remain with us for some time, and as with the Egyptian military’s nearly effortless crossing of the Suez Canal in 1973, won’t be erased by subsequent developments.
A more difficult question concerns Hamas’s motives and broader aims. Seen from the movement’s perspective, Israel has simply gone too far, for too long.
Particularly under the stewardship of the Netanyahu government and its predecessor, escalation has been consistent and transformed into a strategy.
Ethnic cleansing
Ethnic cleansing of the Jordan Valley, army-enabled attacks on villages throughout the West Bank by settler auxiliaries, and increasing incursions by prominent Israeli politicians and settler groups into the Haram al-Sharif in Jerusalem’s Old City have reached new heights, and done so in the explicit service of formal annexation.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu holds a map of the “New Middle East” without Palestine during his September 22, 2023, address to the UN General Assembly in New York. Image: Common Dreams
In the Gaza Strip, Israel has shown no inclination to lift or significantly relax the blockade, and treats Hamas as a force that can safely be ignored on the grounds that the movement cares about little else than maintaining its rule over the Gaza Strip.
Within Israel’s prisons, the situation of Palestinian detainees has been deteriorating by design. Yet every Israeli escalation has been normalised by Israel’s US and European partners, with each outrage met by little more than paeans to “shared values” and Israel’s “right to defend itself” and, under Washington’s leadership, a focus on an Israeli-Saudi agreement intended to render Palestine and the Palestinians irrelevant.
Within the region, a growing number of Arab states have in practice extended to Greater Israel a halal certificate, at Palestinian expense. Closer to home, Turkey has forced a number of Hamas leaders it previously hosted to leave the country, and Qatar has in recent months reduced the financial support it provides to Gaza in agreement with Israel, on the grounds that Hamas needs to find a more sustainable solution to its financial crisis.
So what is Operation Al Aqsa Storm meant to achieve? It appears that the movement concluded, some time ago, that a repeat of previous confrontations with Israel, such as during the 2021 Unity Intifada, the first that Hamas rather than Israel initiated, would be insufficient to break the logjam, and that only a spectacle on the scale of what we witnessed on October 7 would serve to concentrate minds in Israel and other relevant capitals.
In other words, the main objective would seem to be to render the status quo obsolete and put paid to the Israeli-Egyptian blockade, entirely or at least in its current form. Secondly, Hamas appears determined to free Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails, and additionally use those it has captured and abducted as leverage in negotiations on other matters, including for example those relating to the Haram al-Sharif.
Insurmountable obstacles
It is highly unlikely that undermining Saudi-Israeli diplomacy formed an important motivation, because the proposed deal faces too many insurmountable obstacles in Washington and Israel, and both Hamas and its allies understand this.
Additionally, if Muhammad bin Salman is determined to proceed with such a deal, there’s no indication he would be deterred by a mound of Palestinian corpses any more than his Arab cohorts who preceded him, and in any case, could consummate any agreement after a decent interval.
This notwithstanding, embarrassing not Riyadh specifically but all regional capitals that maintain formal or informal relations with Israel is an added benefit for Hamas. Particularly so if mass demonstrations in the region in support of the Palestinians serve to remind its governments and the world at large that Palestine remains a live issue.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad can additionally be presumed to hope that their offensive fatally weakens the PA ensconced in Ramallah, thereby creating greater freedom of action for their movements in the West Bank.
The above notwithstanding, the timing of this operation is curious, because conventional wisdom held that Israel’s various adversaries were content with a strategy of managed escalation so as not to interrupt the growing polarisation and dysfunction within the Israeli political arena.
That Hamas nevertheless chose an unprecedented offensive at this moment may have been related to matters of operational security and fears of exposure, or an assessment that this was an opportune moment with Israel having prioritised sadism in the West Bank and reinforcement of its border with Lebanon, or indeed a revised assessment that exposing the colossal failure of Israel’s extremists and security establishment is the best way to weaken them.
It is inconceivable that Hamas would have embarked on an operation of this scale without also preparing for an unprecedented Israeli response. Together with Islamic Jihad and others, it will probably have prepared for massive Israeli incursions into the Gaza Strip launched for the purpose of significantly degrading their organisations and infrastructure, killing cadres and assassinating leaders it can locate, and leaving a massive trail of death and destruction.
Last stand thinking
Better a last stand than a slow death, the thinking apparently goes, particularly if that stand gives a renewed lease on life. Israel will presumably also conduct a massive sweep throughout the West Bank, crack down on Palestinians within Israel, and may also seek to abduct or liquidate Hamas leaders based abroad.
It’s a scenario based on the reasonable assumption that Israel remains unprepared to resume direct control of the entire territory for a protracted period of time. In other words, and as with previous assaults on the Gaza Strip, Israel’s objective may ultimately be to restore a version of the status quo that produced the present crisis.
Inflicting significant casualties in close-quarter combat, as the Palestinians succeeded in doing in 2014, could reduce the length and intensity of such incursions. The Palestinian organisations presumably know better than to believe that holding dozens of Israeli prisoners will provide them with a measure of protection from the authors of the Hannibal Doctrine, which considers a dead Israeli soldier preferable to a captive one.
It is an issue that can at most be used for psychological warfare.
A key question is whether Gaza’s militants will confront Israel only with their existing preparations, or whether Operation Al Aqsa Storm is part of a broader initiative by the self-styled Axis of Resistance, in which Hezbollah and perhaps others will join the fray if Israel crosses certain red lines to relieve the pressure on the Gaza Strip.
If Israel follows through on its demands of mass evacuations of densely populated Palestinian neighborhoods and proceeds with intensive carpet bombing to flatten them, causing mass casualties in the process, we may soon find out.
Mouin Rabbani has published and commented widely on Palestinian affairs, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the contemporary Middle East. He was previously senior analyst Middle East and special advisor on Israel-Palestine with the International Crisis Group, and head of political affairs with the Office of the United Nations Special Envoy for Syria. He is co-editor of Jadaliyya Ezine.
"Free Palestine" protesters have demonstrated outside the White House in Washington as thousands of people supporting both sides in the Israel-Hamas conflict across the world have called for an end to the war. Image: Al Jazeera screenshot/APR
COMMENTARY: By John Minto
Aotearoa New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins is correct to condemn Hamas killing Israeli civilians in its attacks on Israel this week.
The killing of civilians or taking them hostage is a war crime under the Fourth Geneva Convention and should be universally condemned.
However, the Labour government has been deathly silent on the war crimes committed by Israel against Palestinians under Labour’s watch these past six years.
Under his prime ministerial watch this year, Chris Hipkins has looked the other way while Israel has built more illegal Israeli settlement homes on Palestinian land; killed more than 250 Palestinian civilians; supported Israeli settler pogroms against Palestinian towns and villages across the occupied West Bank and encouraged highly-provocative Israeli ministerial and settler incursions into the Al Aqsa compound in occupied East Jerusalem.
Why does he only wake up when Israelis are killed? Why does he think Israeli lives are more important than Palestinian lives?
The Prime Minister’s pro-Israel stance is one-sided and blatantly racist.
Israel and Gaza are not two countries at war. Gaza is a territory under siege, where every aspect of life is controlled by Israel.
Palestinians didn’t break through a “border” to enter Israel. They destroyed a fence separating them from the homes they were forced out of. pic.twitter.com/Vt6BjbapyX
New Zealand, along with other Western countries, bears heavy responsibility for the deaths of Palestinians and Israelis in recent days because we have never held Israel to account for its crimes against the Palestinian people.
We have given Israel a free pass to murder and abuse Palestinians and this led to the inevitable tragedy last weekend.
It is precisely the attitude of Western leaders such as our Prime Minister which has meant so many lives have been lost.
The Prime Minister has the blood of Palestinians and Israelis on his hands.
John Minto is national chair of Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA).
Gaza Strip . . . about 2.3 million people have been living trapped under an Israeli air, land and sea blockade since 2007. Image: Al Jazeera (CC)
The besieged Gaza Strip
The Palestinian enclave — home to about 2.3 million people — has been under an Israeli air, land and sea blockade since 2007, reports Al Jazeera.
More than 100,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been displaced and thousands have taken shelter in UN schools as Israeli attacks intensify, forcing Palestinians to flee their homes.
Buildings, mosques and offices have been targeted as Netanyahu promised “mighty vengeance” for the deadly attacks that has sent shockwaves across Israel.
Harrowing images from inside Gaza have emerged with 19 members of a family killed when an air strike on Sunday hit their residential building. More than 60 percent of Gaza’s population are refugees who were ethnically cleansed from their homes currently in Israel.
Israel has maintained a land, sea and air blockade on Gaza since 2007, a year after Hamas was democratically elected into power. The voting came nearly two years after Israeli troops and settlers withdrew from the enclave.
The blockade gives Israel control of Gaza’s borders, and Egypt has stepped in to enforce the western border.
Israel has stated it has blocked the borders to protect its citizens from Hamas, but the act of collective punishment violates the Geneva Conventions and has long been considered illegal by groups including the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Republished from Asia Pacific Report with permission.
