By Dr Suresh Khairnar
More than sixteen thousand children were killed in one year and more than eighteen thousand children became orphans! Air strikes and military action by the Israeli army have been going on in Gaza Strip for the last one year! More than 41000 people have died so far in Gaza, which has a population of about 2.3 million ! 16,765 of them are children! People coming from different parts of Gaza are forced to live only in Al-Awasi humanitarian area which is only 10% of Gaza Strip! Children are bearing the brunt of Israel’s attacks! The United Nations estimates that more than 18000 children have become orphans in the last one year due to the war, there is no one left to raise them! Talin Al-Hinawi, who lost her father in the Israeli attack, has no one left in her family now, so she is living in Al Barka orphanage camp! She tells that her entire family has been destroyed in the war! Talin says that she wants to return to her home in Gaza City so that she can study like others! A similar story is of 10-year-old Nada al-Gharib who lives in Khan Younus refugee camp. She says that this war has taken away my father and my only brother from us! She says that our camp was attacked by the Israeli army and all the members of our family were killed! I had gone out to get food, so I survived!
The situation in Lebanon is almost the same! In Lebanon’s capital Beirut, refugees are seen everywhere from the roads to the parking lots! People affected by the war are sleeping on mattresses on the roadside, parking their vehicles in the parking lots and living in temporary tents! Some people are living in wooden or plastic camps in the beach area on the seashore!
The Lebanese government has arranged refugee camps in schools, colleges and other government buildings. These refugee camps are being run by social welfare organizations. In a refugee camp located in Beirut’s Omar Farooq School, Imad, an engineer by profession, used to work abroad but after the war he has returned to help the people. Ella is also helping with Imad. She studies in a college which is currently closed.
Noor Hassan, a Syrian, came to Lebanon as a refugee 25 years ago. Before the recent attacks, Noor’s husband used to work in a bakery, but now he himself is waiting in line at the refugee camp to be given bread. 52-year-old Saosan is sitting on a mattress near a church in Beirut. She is a resident of Der Jahain, 50 kilometers south of Beirut. She shows the picture of her house on her mobile phone and says that her entire house has been destroyed in the attack carried out by Israel.
Despite all this, the attitude of the world’s big countries America and England towards Israel in this war has been continuing for the last seventy-five years. The mistake of creating Israel on the land of Palestine of 10,000 square kilometers has been of these two countries. Where the total population of Palestine was 20 lakhs, in which the population of Jews was only six lakhs, 56% of the land was given to the Jews, 5,700 square kilometers of land was given to six lakh Jews. And 4,300 square kilometers of land was given to 14 lakh Arabs. And in that too, the most fertile land was given to the Jews and the Arabs were given the rugged hilly area. How unjust has this division been? And the matter did not stop here. Israel has taken over the land from the Arabs in the last seventy-five years after every fight and quarrel. In view of that, Israel has encroached upon 90% of the remaining land of Palestine instead of 56%! And has erected 25 to 30 feet high concrete walls at various places! And does America and England, who claim to be the champions of human rights, not see the need to maintain the world’s most densely populated areas, Gaza Strip and West Bank?
Mahatma Gandhi had said in 1938 itself, “Surely it would be a crime against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestine can be restored to the Jews partly or wholly as their national home” saying that just as England belongs to the British and France belongs to the French, Palestine belongs to the Arabs. It is wrong and inhuman to impose Jews on Arabs. Mahatma Gandhi had warned about this ten years before Israel came into existence. And all of us who talk about Gandhiji’s legacy have a moral responsibility to stand with the people of Palestine in such a time of crisis.
Dr Suresh Khairnar is former president of Rashtra Sewa Dal (RSD)
7 October 2024
Source: countercurrents.org