Growing call for a ceasefire mistakes a boon for Hamas as a humanitarian move
British politics and short-termism have gone hand in hand for decades. Acutely sensitive to fashionable protests and twitter storms, both parties have perfected the art of winning the 24 hours news-cycle - and sacrificing long term vision in the process. Win in four years time, and forty years time can take care of itself. Everything from infrastructure and energy, to immigration and the economy has suffered from our jam-today mentality. So it’s refreshing to suddenly see the leaders of both parties making the case for the long term. Arguing in favour of persevering with a difficult today in the knowledge that, if done right, it will herald a better tomorrow. It’s just a shame that it’s not Britain they’re talking about, but Israel.
Both Sunak and Starmer recognise - for now - that a ceasefire is in no-one’s interest but Hamas, giving them time and space to regroup, rearm and reorganise. Many of the people currently calling for a ceasefire - which interestingly doesn’t include Hamas themselves - will recognise that fact, but deem it a price worth paying if it helps civilians. The thinking being that a ceasefire would allow crucial supplies into Gaza, supplies that would presumably benefit the civilian population.
Israel’s argument for not allowing supplies into Gaza during the conflict, is that Hamas diverts the aid away from civilians and towards its own militants. Such aid, therefore, only perpetuates the conflict. Proof of the Israeli claims seemed to come on the afternoon of the 16th October, when UNRWA tweeted that “staff were compelled to evacuate UNRWA headquarters in Gaza City on a few hours notice during the night of 13th October. Since then UNRWA has had no access to the compound and no additional details about the removal of the assets…fuel and other types of material are kept for strictly humanitarian purposes - any other use is strongly condemned.” UNRWA then confirmed that they had “received reports that yesterday a group of people with trucks purporting to be from the [Hamas run] Ministry of Health…removed fuel and medical equipment from the Agency’s compound”.
A few hours later those tweets were deleted by the UNRWA and replaced with a statement that no looting had taken place and that images circulating online of men taking supplies from their compound were in fact “a movement of basic medical supplies from the UNRWA warehouse to health partners”. The Israeli organisation COGAT, which co-ordinates civilian issues in Palestinian territories, confirmed that some 24,000 litres of fuel and medical supplies, donated to Gaza by the UN was now likely in Hamas hands. The problem here is that once aid comes into Gaza via the UN, the UNRWA, which is responsible for it, actually has no control over where it goes or how it is administered.
What is clear, is that when it comes to receiving aid and the necessities of life, Gazan civilians are at the back of the queue. A Lebanese official recently confirmed to the New York Times that Hamas has 3-4 months worth of supplies below ground - a volume that must have taken years of stockpiling. Yocheved Lifshitz, the elderly hostage released on the 23rd October claimed that she and Hamas’s own fighters had regular food every day and access to hygiene products - which are non-existent amongst the civilian population on the surface.
Most crucially, Hamas’s extensive tunnel network requires a sizeable ventilation system that operates on electricity, supplied by diesel generators. The IDF has released images of twelve oil tanks in Gaza that they say still holds hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil, but which seems to be ‘off limits’ to the territory’s hospitals. The IDF have even released a phone call they claim features a Hamas official telling a doctor from the Indonesian Hospital in Gaza that they’re about to divert the hospital’s vital fuel supply.
Fuel and Electricity
The issue of fuel is at the heart of the Israeli control of goods into Gaza. They need to suffocate the Hamas fighters in the tunnel system by forcing them to turn off - or significantly ration - their ventilation system. At the same time, they don’t want Gazan civilians to die by having to forego hospital treatment. One way Israel has squared this circle is by inviting European countries to send hospital ships that can treat Gazan patients off shore. A French one is already on its way and a German ship is due to follow shortly.
The issue of fuel raises another illuminating question about this conflict and the years running up to it. Many headlines have focused on Israeli’s cutting off of utilities, in particular the electricity, without asking why Israel was freely supplying Gaza with electricity and water in the first place?
For many decades now Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) have had a quid-pro-quo arrangement whereby Palestine pays Israel for the supply of its electricity and water. This is part of a network of financial deals that also includes imports / exports etc. Such deals are hoped to be the basis upon which further peaceful agreements can be reached. In 2006, when Hamas seized control of Gaza, the PA in the West Bank informed Israel that it would no longer pay for electricity and water into Gaza. With Hamas also refusing to pay Israel for the utilities, Israel found itself in a tricky position. Cutting off these utilities would lead to the deaths of potentially thousands of people, and so Israel decided to maintain the supply of the utilities for free. There is no other instance of a nation giving the means of life freely to people who preach their destruction. The suggestion that Israeli taxpayers should continue providing Hamas with complimentary electricity during a war is, quite frankly, ludicrous.
To read the headlines one would assume that it was normal for small countries to receive the means of life - water and power - freely from larger neighbours. Yet Cyprus, Malta, Singapore and even Gibraltar (one fiftieth the size of Gaza) all provide such utilities to their citizens, either domestically or through imports. Indeed, the supply of the basic necessities of life is the most mundane of benchmarks for any functioning government. Despite running Gaza since 2005 and receiving billions of dollars in international aid since then, Hamas has failed to build the infrastructure required for clean drinking water and electric power, and failed to sign any international agreements to import such commodities from abroad. That’s because Hamas’s military complex has soaked up the most of the territory’s resources. With the living standards of Gazans so low on Hamas’s priority list, it’s hard to see why they would now prioritise civilians for the receipt of any aid delivered during a ceasefire.
Repeated Ceasefires
A ceasefire, by its nature, is temporary. The last ceasefire was signed on the 20th May 2021. Prior to that a ceasefire was signed on the 26th August 2014. Before that it was the 19th August 2014. The ceasefire previous to that one was signed on the 21st November 2012. You get the picture. A ceasefire signed in 2023 will simply be the latest in a long list of ceasefires. An agreement to pause the conflict rather than solve it, a cessation in hostilities until the next round of violence can begin again.
What civilians on both sides need is a permanent peace. But a permanent peace is impossible when Gaza is in the grips of an organisation that is sworn to the destruction of Israel and refuses to recognise its right to exist. And as Hamas allow no internal opposition to their rule, it’s hard to see how Gaza will break free of its permanent state of conflict with Israel. What's needed for peace to reign is for Hamas to be forcibly removed and a new Palestinian government installed - one that recognises Israel and welcomes peace. Winning such an outcome militarily will be neither quick nor easy. As with Ukraine, the world will need to show patience on the battlefield, giving Israel the time to fulfil its military objectives. Short term pain, for long term gain - for both Gazan and Israeli civilians. The alternative is that we’ll all be back here in a few years time, after another bout of violence, calling for another ceasefire.
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