Tel Aviv votes with Palestinian lives

This is an editorial from China Daily.

Although the Palestine-Hamas conflict is often mentioned in parallel with the Russia-Ukraine conflict as the two burning global issues the international community needs to immediately help resolve, they are not even similar, let alone being the same, in nature. Unlike the Ukrainians, the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip are not engaged in a conflict with, but are being butchered by, Israeli forces.

In the latest assault, the warmongering Benjamin Netanyahu Cabinet, defying the global opposition to what some term as "genocidal onslaught" in the Palestinian enclave, including symbolic ones from the United States, carried out two air strikes on Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza, on Tuesday, killing at least 88 people, including dozens of women and children.

In its offensive in northern Gaza over the past weeks, Israel has launched deadlier and more frequent ground operations, raising alarm over the worsening humanitarian situation in the already devastated enclave.

In a hypocritical show, the Netanyahu government said it allowed 50 trucks of humanitarian aid from Jordan into northern Gaza earlier this month, taking pride in the weaponization of food, water and medicines.

The UN World Food Programme warned on Tuesday that the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza could soon turn into a "famine" unless immediate action is taken. As winter approaches, the lack of food and other necessities in Gaza will likely lead to catastrophic consequences.

By passing two bills on Monday to remove the only UN agency providing humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people in Gaza, the Israeli administration demonstrated what a Netanyahu-led Israeli system free from UN restrictions would look like.

As the Tuesday attacks show, after Gaza is turned into rubble as a result of Israel's "precise strikes", which in reality are more like carpet bombing, the Israeli military, ignoring Hamas' signal that it is ready to resume cease-fire talks, has been targeting places where displaced Palestinians have taken shelter, if one can call them that.

For instance, Israel's recent offensive in northern Gaza is focused on the Jabalia refugee camp, where it has already killed hundreds of people and driven tens of thousands from their homes.

As Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said in his harshly-worded message to Netanyahu and most Cabinet members hours before Israel struck Iran over the weekend, Israel's war efforts have become aimless as Tel Aviv has been following an "outdated compass", so it needs to refocus its attention given the regional developments over the past year. Though Gallant made the remarks in a different context, it is clear Israel needs to refocus efforts to end the conflict.

Netanyahu's office called Gallant's letter "bizarre", saying "there is a single compass, and that is the war aims as determined by the Cabinet".

With more than 150,000 people reportedly dead, wounded or missing in Gaza, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk urged the world to act immediately to protect civilians in Gaza. "My gravest fear is, given the intensity, breadth, scale and blatant nature of the Israeli operation currently underway in north Gaza, that number will rise dramatically," the UN human rights chief said.

However, judging by Washington's indulgence of Netanyahu — US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller played down the Beit Lahiya attacks as coming "at a great cost to civilians" — Gaza will continue to be a death hell, a living testimony to the US' inhuman callousness.

It seems Israel has intensified its attacks in Gaza as it awaits the results of the US presidential election scheduled for next week before possibly responding to Egypt's two-day cease-fire proposal for Israel and Hamas to consider on Sunday. By tightening its siege of and military operations in northern Gaza, Netanyahu is trying to do his part to influence the election results by killing Palestinians.