Weekly Blog - 16 October 2023 - Gaza Crisis
Gaza crisis
Last week’s Arise weekly blog looked at the violence in both Israel and Gaza, following the horrific invasion of Israel by Hamas on Saturday 7 October. It looked at the suffering on both sides, the historical background, considered what the Bible teaches, established that Israel has a right to defend itself from extremists, but that this must be limited and proportionate, and must go alongside major efforts to restart the peace process with the wider Palestinian population. (Previous blogs on Israel and Palestine have also considered the theological background to the conflict.) This week, focus shifts to Gaza in this fast moving situation, specifically the siege and brutal bombardment of the region in what is clearly not a proportionate response and is fast turning into a humanitarian disaster. We ask what should be happening instead.
Humanitarian crisis
Following the horrific events of Saturday 7 October, Israel has placed Gaza under siege, closing all border crossings and shutting off all electricity, fuel, food, goods and water supplies to the region, affecting both Hamas extremists and innocent civilians alike. Israel has also conducted hundreds of airstrikes, aimed at Hamas infrastructure, but again inevitably including many civilian casualties, men, women and children, since Hamas sites are intricately embedded in civilian areas. More than 2,329 Palestinians have been killed and at least 10,859 injured. On Friday 13 October Israeli forces dropped paper notices from the sky warning civilians to flee from the northern half of Gaza to the south in the next 24 hours, to remove themselves from a planned conflict zone. Over 300,000 Israeli troops are massing on the border set to launch a ground offensive. So far that ground offensive has not been launched, but it seems to be only a matter of time. More than 2.3 million Palestinians are tightly packed into the Gaza strip, a mere 41 kilometres long and 10 kilometres wide. It is one of the most densely populated areas of the planet. Now around half of them are on the move, fleeing south.
Humanitarian access has been denied and humanitarian agencies are massing at the Rafah crossing on Gaza’s border with Egypt, waiting for that to be opened and safe access allowed. The situation in Gaza is fast turning into a huge humanitarian crisis. In just once incident, Reuters reports how Gaza’s Khan Younis hospital is being overrun and is fast running out of essential supplies, electricity and water. After a municipal building being used as a shelter was hit by an airstrike, the hospital is overflowing with casualties. Bodies in the morgue are laid out on stretchers on the ground, with their names written on their bellies. Relatives are called to collect the bodies as there is no more space for the dead. “No place is safe in Gaza, as you see they hit everywhere” said Ala Abu Tair, one survivor who is using the shelter with his family after fleeing their home near the border.[1]
At the same time some 199 Israeli civilians, men, women, children and even babies, who were seized by Hamas during their horrific incursion into Israel on Saturday 7 October are still being held in Gaza. Hamas released a video of one of the hostages on Monday 16 October. Mia Schem, a 21 year-old French-Israeli woman was pictured with her injured arm being treated, asking to be returned to her family. Her family are pleading for her life. "I saw that she was in stable condition but I am very worried about her”, her mother Keren Schem told reporters. “I'm begging the world to bring my baby back home. She only went to a party, to a festival party, to have some fun, and now she is in Gaza.” [2]
The urgent need for a ceasefire, humanitarian access and peace talks
As last week’s Arise weekly blog established, Israel (like any nation) can legitimately use limited force where necessary to protect innocent citizens and enforce the law (detain criminals etc.), and thus defend itself from extremists. As Paul tells us, “rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from the fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended. For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment to the wrongdoer” (Roms 13: 3 – 4). But such use of force must be limited, proportionate, not escalate the situation, and should avoid harm to innocent civilians as much as possible. As God also instructs his followers in Deuteronomy, steps must be taken “so that innocent blood will not be shed in your land” (Deut 19: 10). Shutting off supplies of electricity, fuel, food, goods and water to innocent Palestinians, the widespread use of airstrikes which are clearly hitting large numbers of innocent civilians, and the restrictions to humanitarian access, all clearly go far beyond a limited and proportionate response just affecting extremists.
The time has now come for an immediate ceasefire from all parties. Humanitarian access must be allowed to help the wounded people of Gaza. In addition flows of electricity, fuel, food, goods and water supplies must be restarted. All hostages must be immediately released. Immediate efforts should be made by all parties and the international community to call for this, and to de-escalate tensions in the wider region to prevent this tragic conflict growing and spreading out of control. An Israeli ground offensive should be called off, and instead a more proportionate response should be adopted, using good intelligence to target, strike and if possible arrest and detain members of Hamas, and border forces strengthened to prevent further rocket attacks or incursions into Israel.
However, as was pointed out in last week’s weekly blog, even a limited, proportionate response will be futile against an extremist movement that has much popular support in Gaza and is deeply embedded and entrenched amongst the civilian population, unless it is also accompanied by the rapid re-starting of negotiations for a permanent peace. There is no other choice either morally or practically. At the moment Israel’s brutal bombardment of Gaza is driving more and more Palestinians into the arms of Hamas. There is no military solution for either side that will end the cycle of violence and lead to a lasting peace. There is no way Hamas can be isolated, contained and shut down through the limited and proportionate use of force, unless there is also a significant parallel track to rebuild progress towards peace with the Palestinian people, and gradually begin to peel their support away from Hamas.
The Arise Manifesto contains many lessons on how these steps towards peace can be begun. A first crucial step would be to address some of the legitimate concerns of many Palestinians. Israeli settlements in the West Bank, widely seen as illegal by the international community, must be ended. The high handedness with which Israel controls access to the West Bank and Gaza and regularly disrupts or temporarily blocks goods, electricity, water, fuel, food, finances and people moving into and out of the areas often goes way beyond legitimate security concerns and makes life very difficult for ordinary Palestinians. This too should be stopped. So too must the restrictions Israel imposes on where ordinary Palestinians can live, build, work and travel, and the harassment of ordinary Palestinians. All of these actions stoke resentment, anger and desperation in the Palestinian population, driving their support towards more extreme groups like Hamas. Stopping them would begin to send different signals of a desire for peace with the wider Palestinian population, and begin the process of peeling that support away from the extremists. It could be done in ways that don’t compromise on ensuring Israel’s security from extremists is maintained.
Following this good start, both sides should come back to the negotiating table to discuss their grievances and agree a peaceful way forward. This should include a wider process within the Palestinian community to ensure the talks include representatives from different sections of the community, which together have the trust of the community and can carry the majority with them. International mediators could help with this, as could the presence of UN peacekeepers to maintain a neutral peace, if both sides agree. Alongside this there should be a wider programme of rebuilding and significant financial investment and economic development backed by the international community. This would build good jobs and public services to strengthen the desire for peace and stability and diminish the incentives to return to conflict. A significant part of this should be ensuring fighters from Hamas and other extremists groups should be rapidly demobilised, disarmed and reintegrated, and jobs should be found for them, so they too have more to lose than to gain by taking up arms again. There should also be a process of truth telling and reconciliation, similar to other such processes that have been successful in countries like South Africa and Rwanda. This means telling the truth about the violence that has been committed; confessing that it was wrong; asking for forgiveness; turning away and rejecting the use of violence in the future; and receiving forgiveness and amnesty from prosecution for those crimes. Public information campaigns and corresponding programmes should be taught in schools to stress respect for both communities, and unity between them to further help current and future generations to come together. These and other similar approaches have been shown to work over and over again in ending violence and rebuilding communities and nations around the world (Arise Manifesto, pg 89 – 90, 129 – 136). Of course the final details of any eventual peace deal, political settlement and normalisation of relations, will be for the Israeli and Palestinian negotiators to decide.
The road to peace will be a long one from here. But there is no end to the cycle of violence if retaliation is the only response, and generation after generation on both sides will continue to suffer. There must also be renewed efforts by both sides to reach out for peace and begin to turn the views of the majority on both side towards peace, isolating the extremists. As impossible and as far off as that might seem at the moment, all of the lessons of the Bible and recent history would indicate that even in these darkest of days it is the patient, prayerful and persistent attempts to reach out, find common ground, and work towards peace, that ultimately holds the only possible way to end this tragic conflict. It is the right thing to do and it is the only option.
Find out more
Find out more about how God is at work in the world, and the role we all have to play in that work, in the Arise Manifesto. This report is Arise’s big picture, researched, Biblical, holistic and practical vision for a better world. It looks at what the Bible says, and what we can learn from the best data and the world’s leading experts on the five major areas of evangelism, discipleship, social justice, development and the environment. It then draws these lessons together into a practical road map for the changes we need to see in our world, which the Arise movement campaigns to achieve.
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[1] Israel pulverizes Gaza after Hamas attack as it collects its dead, Reuters, (10 Oct 2023), https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/hamas-threatens-kill-captives-if-israel-strikes-civilians-2023-10-09/
[2] Family of Franco-Israeli woman held in Gaza begs for her return, Reuters, (17 Oct 2023), https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/hamas-releases-hostage-video-franco-israeli-woman-2023-10-16/