We are told that the high intensity phase of Israel’s war in Gaza is coming to an end. As world leaders contemplate new wars and a compliant media gets busy with freshly minted threats, there are fewer stories on Gaza. Let us not be lulled into believing that, for those besieged in Gaza, the worst is over. And let us continue to call for an end to their plight.
Back in November, 2023, Major General Giora Eiland, former head of Israel’s National Security Council wrote in an article titled ‘Let’s Not be Intimidated by the World’ Influential Israeli national security leader makes the case for genocide in Gaza – Mondoweiss ,”The way to win the war faster and at a lower cost for us requires a system collapse on the other side and not the mere killing of more Hamas fighters. The international community warns us of a humanitarian disaster in Gaza and of severe epidemics. We must not shy away from this, as difficult as that may be. After all, severe epidemics in the south of the Gaza Strip will bring victory closer and reduce casualties among IDF soldiers. And no, this is not about cruelty for cruelty’s sake since we don’t support the suffering of the other side as an end but as a means.”
At the time, Gideon Levy denounced Eiland’s proposal as ‘Evil in Plain Sight’, writing ‘Eiland didn’t detail which plagues he recommends – pestilence, boils or cholera, maybe a cocktail of smallpox and AIDS; perhaps also starvation for two million people. A promise of Israeli victory at rock bottom prices. “And no, it’s not cruelty for its own sake,” he stressed, as though anyone thought otherwise. In fact, it’s rare kindness and humaneness, which would only save human lives.’
‘Eiland, in the role of Mother Teresa, an officer and a gentleman in the world’s most moral army, made a Nazi proposal and no storm broke out. Anyone who attributes genocide to Israel is anti-Semitic, after all. Just imagine a European general proposing to starve a nation, or to kill it with an epidemic – the Jews, for instance. Imagine spreading a plague because it would promote the war effort,’ Levy continued.
In October, 2023, Tally Gotliv, Member of the Israeli Knesset argued that hunger and thirst among Palestinians in Gaza would help Israel’s war efforts, enabling the recruitment of collaborators for intelligence purposes.
At the end of November, 2023, a whole seven months ago, WHO was already warning that disease could be a bigger killer than bombs in Gaza. At a U.N. briefing in Geneva, WHO spokesperson Dr Margaret Harris said “Eventually we will see more people dying from disease than we are even seeing from the bombardment if we are not able to put back (together) this health system.” “Everybody everywhere has dire health needs now because they’re starving, because they lack clean water, and (they’re) crowded together,” Harris added.
By the end of December, 2023, Professor Devi Sridhar, chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh, was warning that “..unless something changes, the world faces the prospect of almost a quarter of Gaza’s 2 million population – close to half- a million human beings – dying within a year.” In an opinion piece, she wrote “We are likely to see more children dying from preventable disease than from bullets and bombs. While the Israeli government has spoken about safe zones for families to flee to, these aren’t anywhere near what we would consider safe public health zones. They don’t have clean water, functional sanitation and toilets, enough food, or trained medical staff with medicine and equipment. These are the basic needs that any human, especially babies and children, need to stay healthy and alive.”
Fast forward to March this year and Alex de Waal, renowned expert on famine and humanitarian crises, was saying “It is too late to avert a humanitarian disaster that is going to kill thousands, if not tens of thousands, of people. That’s the bottom line.” The New Humanitarian | Thousands will now die of starvation and disease in Gaza: Alex de Waal. De Waal has worked on food insecurity and famine for decades. When asked “How does the political failure to respond to the warnings in Gaza compare to what you have seen in other contexts?”, he replied “…Gaza is really taking indifference to humanitarian norms to a level that I don’t think any of us ever expected, where the countries that considered themselves to be the champions of international humanitarianism are refusing to live by their own principles.”
Every new warning and every new expert report brings to mind an article I read last year. It has haunted me ever since and has terrified me more than anything I read over the past devastating nine months. The article is ‘The Fate of the Palestinians’ by Dan Lieberman. Lieberman is a writer I always read with trepidation and respect. I fear the bad news he is about to give me but I have enormous respect for his knowledge, his research, and his integrity. Deep down I know he is probably right.
Dan Lieberman describes life of the Palestinian population in Gaza after Israel has liquidated a major part of them. Inside what he terms ‘The Gaza Plantation’ he says security and safety will not exist, medical assistance will be sketchy, work, income, and ability to provide food, shelter, and clothing will be constrained. Subsistence diets and marginal living will be the norm.
He writes “Gazans will be separated from agricultural lands and the sea. Growing food, grazing animals, and fishing will be impossible. Israel will control the food supply, entrance of all raw materials, and imports of all goods. Communication with the outside world will be limited and electronic communication will be controlled. Capital for loans and investments will be nonexistent. Outside of home industries, the Israeli military will parcel all work. If Israel gets its way, Gaza will be a collection of individuals, without a central government, the inhabitants relying on one another for support ─ a slave labor camp, the Gaza plantation.”
“In this gigantic plantation, where a huge population cramps into an area that cannot contain it, labor will be plentiful and jobs will be scarce. Gazans will work for low wages and receive a marginal life. With every aspect of their lives controlled by an outside force, they will not be able to control their destiny; population increase will be regulated and population decrease will be ruthlessly managed.”
Back in December, 2023, I thought the fate of the Palestinians as portrayed in the article was shocking and improbable. Six months later, with Gaza in ruins and those who have not died by bombs dying from disease and starvation, the future scenario painted by Dan Lieberman sounds plausible. I hope the day will not come when we describe this article as prescient.
As Israel continues to drive Palestinians into smaller and smaller, uninhabitable areas, and as it continues to obstruct the entry of aid into the blockaded strip, tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza will die from famine and disease. Let us remember that their hunger, thirst and disease are man-made. Let us remember that their deaths could have been averted by Israel, the US and their allies, if they wanted to. Let us remember that public health experts and aid organisations have been sounding the alarm for eight long months. And let us continue to speak up for the besieged Palestinians in Gaza.
Sawsan Madina
Sawsan Madina is former Head of SBS Television