For the last 11 years, Israel has imposed an illegal blockade on the Gaza Strip that has devastated the lives of its two million inhabitants. Movement in and out of the area is severely curtailed, there are massive food shortages and electricity is only available for a couple of hours a day. On the other side of the border, Egypt too has sealed all entry and exit points. The people of Gaza are under siege and it is their right – in fact, their duty – to fight back. When they try to do so, however, Israeli forces unleash even more violence. This is what happened on Monday, when an Israeli raid killed seven Palestinians. The Hamas government responded by firing over 400 rockets which in turn led to dozens of Israeli air raids. The difference between the two sides, of course, is in scale. While Hamas rockets are crude and rarely cause any casualties, Israel’s US-funded weaponry specifically targets Palestinian civilians. With such a gross mismatch of power, Hamas has had little choice but to accept a ceasefire brokered by Egypt. For now, the ceasefire will hopefully hold and ease tensions for a while. But a ceasefire is not a permanent solution. The violence mostly flows from one direction and that side is eagerly cheered on by the global superpower.
There are many steps Israel has to be forced into taking for there to be any chance for this ceasefire to result in peace. First, it has to end its inhumane blockade of the Gaza Strip. A people who are angry and starving can be seen as justified in using whatever means they have to end this occupation – in this case, all they have are Hamas’s rockets and sticks and stones. Then, Israel needs to recognise the right to return of Palestinians who have been displaced from their homes. There needs to be an immediate end to the construction of new settlements on disputed territory and the removal of existing settlements. The system of apartheid that Israel has imposed, where Palestinians live in isolated bantustans, will have to be ended. None of this is likely to happen under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or indeed even less extreme Israeli leaders. The pressure needs to come from an international community that has largely abdicated its duty to the Palestinian people. A temporary ceasefire may have ended direct Israeli raids for now but the architecture of occupation is still standing.