Ground Incursion: Now What?

 

Day 22: October 28

Ground Incursion: Now What?

Amidst talks of a humanitarian truce and negotiations for hostage release, everyone was surprised and heartbroken by this development: the ground incursion.   The rare images of Palestinian journalists in Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City at the center of this incursion were horrifying. Oblivious to their names, utter darkness was frequently lit by all types of bombs and shells. From land, sea, and air, sounds of this inhuman and arbitrary shelling of civilians were ominously telling of the apocalyptic scenes that will soon emerge. The images reminded me of the first Gulf War. Still, it was more horrifying because the number of explosions was higher and more frequent in a much smaller and more heavily populated area. All internet and phone connections are still cut off from those areas. Nobody has an idea what happened to the civilians in those parts of the Gaza Strip or what targets for Hamas the Israeli army can claim to have hit.  

This morning, not only Gaza was shrouded with grey mist, but also the future of the Palestinian existence on this land. The fate of our continuance as an indigenous population on our land on which we existed, even before the ‘Godly decree’ of the Bible, is formed inch by inch in this critical time for Palestinians. The grandeur of these heavy moments cannot be easily digested. Each moment carries the burden of our past, filled with the bitterness of loss associated with displacement and refuge. Each moment can potentially form a different future encompassing a more multifaceted society. One million civilians in the Northern and Central parts of Gaza are asked to move south. Many of them come from families that were displaced in 1948, and yet they are not guaranteed to be safe in the South. Nobody knows what happened last night. The number of deaths is still unknown. Rockets are still flying into Israeli cities, and Israeli planes are still bombing Gaza.

Like most Palestinians, it wasn't easy to sleep last night. Angry and determined solidarity demonstrations marched through Palestinian cities. Most people in the West Bank consider the armed factions of Hamas, Jihad, and Al-Aqsa Brigade as resistant groups. People around the world and Western Media can argue all they like about how they classify these factions. For Palestinians, we have long been abandoned by everyone, especially the powerful countries that created the conventions of peace after atrocities in their own countries but failed to stay true to them. We know it is our right, guaranteed by international law, to fight back. Of course, hurting civilians is not accepted by anyone, yet it happens. 

These moments are equally challenging for Palestinians in the West Bank. In these ghetto-like cities of the West Bank, we have our hearts in Gaza and our eyes on the land in the West Bank. The land in these Biblically named cities and villages is the actual prize for this settler-supported government. Violent attacks on the people living in certain crucial or remote villages have doubled long before this war began. Today, a villager, in the season of picking olives in the Village of Al-Sawiya, was shot dead in front of his brothers and father by settlers who are usually protected by the army. Watching the genocidal war in Gaza, the West Bankers fear their own ethnic cleansing campaign will soon begin at a time when the whole world is turning numb to atrocities done outside their borders, especially in this part of the world. With our faces above water, Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank are drowning in fear for our future.  A lot depends on how much pain, blood, betrayal, thirst, and starvation the world can turn a blind eye to. 

With this new phase of ground incursion in Gaza, this war is now fought inch by inch, minute by minute, tunnel by tunnel. Just like there are mazes of underground tunnels where the military battle will take place and where clearly Hamas and Jihad are at an advantage, the theological mental tunnels of the righteousness of 'us over them' are where the real and monumental battles need to take place to achieve peace. These battles haven't even begun.

I believe, however, that with every inch captured by both the Israeli and American troops in Gaza, and yes, there are American troops in Gaza, helping Israel reoccupy parts of Gaza, as consultants and experts, if not in the battlefield, with every inch they re-occupy in Gaza to claim some victory, they can get mired in a Vietnam-like scenario. They can get the winning photo, but just like the US didn’t succeed in eradicating Al-Qaeda or ISIS, Israel and its leading military generals know and say openly in their own press, ‘We cannot eradicate Hamas.’  So, what is next? No one can tell. Militarily and politically, it depends on day-by-day events.