Alwaght- A week after end of the confrontation between the Israeli regime and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad forces in Gaza, the European Union called for a transparent and independent investigation about what happened in the Palestinian enclave, especially the death of children in the Israeli airstrikes.
The European call comes as during the three-day air campaign by the Israeli air force, the EU turned a blind eye and left the Israeli hands open for committing crimes.
On Tuesday, the Israeli military officially admitted that in its missile raids on Gaza, five Palestinian children were killed. Palestinian sources put the number of children and women killed in the recent atrocious attacks larger. The request for an investigation follows reports by human rights activists announcing that the Israeli forces committed war crimes in the Gaza war, which led to the killing of dozens of Palestinians, and expressed the hope that Tel Aviv would eventually be convicted under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Although the international investigation into the Israeli crimes that have been going on for 8 decades against the Palestinians is a good move, it should not be limited to Gaza and cover the whole Israeli crimes committed across Palestine. Many agree that these crimes have gone beyond killing a few people and now amount to a genocide.
The Israeli history is inundated with crimes in which thousands of innocent women and children have fallen victim to the excesses of the Tel Aviv leaders. Tel Aviv’s violation of the commitment to comply with the recognized principles of humanitarian rights, especially the choice of combat methods, including the basic separation of military personnel from civilians, avoidance of blind and inappropriate attacks, and precautionary measures has caused civilians including women and children always to be the main victims of the Gaza wars. Violation of these cases is considered a war crime according to the ICC laws.
In addition to military attacks, the Israeli regime has abused the Palestinians in Gaza with all their might in recent decades, and the economic problems in this besieged Palestinian territory have intensified day by day due to the all-out siege imposed by Tel Aviv, creating extreme conditions for the Gazans. Due to the restrictions, the Palestinians living in Gaza are deprived of healthcare services and even during the coronavirus outbreak, although the Israeli government had surplus medicines and vaccines, they destroyed them and did not give them to the Palestinians. Restrictions on Palestinian fishermen in Gaza who make a living in this way, as well as many other examples of such crimes, are clear forms of genocide that are observable on a daily basis in Gaza and the West Bank. The international community has so far been silent to these criminal actions.
Threadbare Western scenario concerning Israeli crimes
For years, the Western countries have been interfering under the excuse of advocacy for human rights in the internal affairs of countries non-compliant with their policies. However, they back the Israeli criminal actions in Palestine, apparently in recent war on Gaza.
The humanitarian rhetoric of the West about the crimes of the Israeli regime, which is seen every few years only during the war between Tel Aviv and the Gaza resistance groups, is not more than a sham gesture aimed at public deception, and in practice they take no measures to punish the Israelis in the international justice organizations. Washington blocked issuing anti-Israeli resolutions as much as possible. In March 2021, following frequent calls by the Palestinians, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, and the Amnesty International and approval of a UN resolution, then ICC chief prosecuter Fatou Bensouda launched formal investigation into the Israeli war crimes against the Palestinians in Gaza and Al-Quds (Jerusalem). The Israeli leaders rejected any cooperation with the investigators and with Western diplomatic support even committed new crimes in Gaza.
Therefore, the current request of the European Union to investigate Israeli war crimes in Gaza will go nowhere, and the Palestinians will not pay attention to these false scenarios and will not be deceived by this gesture. In recent years, the Palestinians have come to believe that they should not rely on the support of the West and consider armed struggle as the only option to confront the decades-long Israeli occupation, and all the successes they have achieved against the Israelis were the result of armed struggle.
The Palestinian resistance forces are sure that they gain their rights from the Israelis only through force and missiles and the Gaza war bear witness to this reality. Tel Aviv’s fear of the rocket capabilities of the Palestinian resistance and the warnings by Israeli security officials about full-scale wars against the Palestinians indicate that the Israeli regime is afraid of the resistance.
The paradoxical approach of the West to war crimes became clear to the world in Ukraine war. In the last six months, in addition to supporting the Ukrainian government against Russia, Western officials have trumpeted the killing of Ukrainian children and women and labeled them a genocide that the international community must respond to. But on the other hand, the Western approach to the killing of Palestinians by the Israeli forces is different, and while tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli military, the Western politicians have always remained silent in the face of these crimes, and justified these crimes as an act of self-defense. This contradictory approach in reaction to the crimes against the two events is so rife in the Western policy that even Josep Borrell, the EU foreign policy chief, admitted it.
The Israeli leaders go to great lengths to undermine the huge Palestinian resistance capabilities, but their efforts fail to their frustration. The Palestinians make defense accomplishments everyday and recent unveiling of new missiles and drones speak about these achievements. In addition to Gaza, West Bank is increasingly growing to be a new anti-Israeli front for resistance, making the Israelis afraid of dual-front Palestinian attacks in case of future wars. Driven by this thought, in recent weeks, the Israeli military has intensified security measures in parts of the West Bank, such as the Jenin Camp, where they feel the greatest threat, and every day they raid Palestinian homes and arrest a number of them.
The Israeli forces have put some Palestinian families whose youths have launched operations against the Israeli targets in the West Bank under economic pressure to force them out of their homes.
Giving Israeli settlers leeway for daily abuses against the Palestinian families is another part of a criminal scenario to spread terror and insecurity among the Palestinian civilians in the West Bank, away from the international eyes.
But as Israeli crimes increase in the West Bank, so does the anger and hatred of the Palestinians, and now many Palestinians living in the West Bank are favoring Gaza resistance and consider armed struggle the only way to liberate Al-Quds from the occupation.
At the end, it is noteworthy that millions of Palestinians have been living with the Israeli crimes and violation of their basic rights for years. But the Western world remains silent to the apartheid measures by Tel Aviv and is in practice responsible for the Israeli bloodshed. The Palestinian groups, however, have found the right way and with their growing military capabilities are grabbing the calm from the Israeli eyes. Aware of the Palestinian capabilities, the Israelis try to steer clear of a full-scale confrontation with the resistance forces. The short length of recent war revealed a reality: With every new war, the Israeli regime falls out of breath and moves one step closer to collapse.
