Thursday, December 06, 2007

A catastrophe in the making

Dec.6, 2007

A catastrophe in the making

THE residents of Gaza, already reeling under isolation and suffering from shortages of food and essential supplies as well as fuel, are facing yet another catastrophe. The Israeli army has announced that it has completed plans for a large offensive in the Gaza Strip and is only waiting for government approval for such action.
Israeli attacks have killed 31 Palestinians in Gaza in the last 10 days, with the army saying the assaults were in response to rocket attacks coming from the coastal strip.
Any Israeli military incursion into the Gaza Strip this time around would be sweeping and thus devastating for the people who live there, whether supporters of Hamas or otherwise. The reasoning is clear: The Israeli political and military establishments would use the opportunity to inflict as much harm as possible in the Gaza Strip in an intense bid to weaken Palestinian armed resistance and destroy Hamas. That would mean heavy casualties among the Palestinian civilians in Gaza, one of the most densely populated areas in the world.
The possibility of a sweeping Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip has become all the more strong in view of assertions that Fatah al Islam, which fought the Lebanese army for almost four months from a stronghold in the Palestinian Nahr Bared refugee camp in North Lebanon, has launched operations against Israel from the Gaza Strip. Reports also claim that Israeli military officers have observed new tactics on the Hamas side that recall the combat methods the Israeli army encountered in southern Lebanon in its war against Hizbollah in the summer of 2006.
No doubt, these reports, which are by nature difficult to verify, are Israel's way of preparing the ground for an allout assault on the Gaza Strip. It might not come this week or even the next, but it is definitely in the offing because Hamas and likeminded groups based in Gaza would not back down.
Indeed, the other side of the coin is that such an operation would also cause casualties among Israeli soldiers since Hamas and other fighters are no doubt prepared to fight to their last.
The political fallout of an Israeli incursion of such a scale would be too bitter for hopes attached to the renewed bid for peace launched in Annapolis last week.
On the ground, however, the real victims would be the ordinary people of Gaza, who would have to pay the heaviest price for Israel's quest to weaken all challenges to its efforts to impose its own solution on the Palestinian people.