Category: Columns

Columns

MESA Board Statement on Palestine and Israel

Posted on | Middle East Studies Association

The Board of Directors of the Middle East Studies Association of North America is acutely concerned with and heartbroken by the loss of Israeli and Palestinian lives over the last week. There can be no justification for the targeting of civilians. Many of our members have been directly affected and we join them in grieving. We also join all those who are committed to a political solution that offers safety, dignity, and equal rights for Palestinians and Israelis.

Columns

Urgent Action: Palestinian Human Rights Organisations Call on Third States to Urgently Intervene to Protect the Palestinian People Against Genocide

Posted on | Al-Haq

Al-Haq, Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) call on Third States to urgently intervene to protect the Palestinian people against genocide. Between Saturday 7 October and 13 October at 10:00 p.m., the Palestinian Ministry of Health reported the killing of at least 1,900 Palestinians and the injury of 7,699 in Gaza. Tonight, Israel has closed bypass roads throughout the West Bank. Since Saturday 7 October violent attacks have escalated across the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, with the Israeli military and settlers killing 51 Palestinians, including 16 killed today, and injuring more than 950. The situation has drastically deteriorated, with Israel ordering the evacuation of 1.1 million Palestinians from the densely populated northern Gaza towards the south of the Strip. The forced displacement of Palestinians in Gaza was preceded by genocidal statements by senior Israeli political and military figures in the previous days.

Columns

Our Shared Horror

Posted on | Janina Dill | EJIL:Talk!

Since Hamas’ fighters entered Israeli territory less than a week ago at least 1,200 people in Israel and 1,100 in Gaza have been killed, more than 100 have been taken hostage, thousands have been wounded, more than 2 million are cut off from food, fuel and clean water, millions more have suffered trauma. Hamas has wiped out whole families. Israel’s armed forces are reacting by wiping out whole families. While some questions await answers, these facts are not contested. They have polarized a discourse that was always harsh. Beyond unqualified affirmations of Israel’s right to defend itself, some politicians, commentators, and scholars now endorse indiscriminate harming of Palestinians as a response to Hamas’ terrorism. Other politicians, civil society organizations, and scholars cast this terrorism as justified resistance to Israel’s occupation. The logic of collective punishment characterizes not only the actions of Hamas and the Israeli government, but also many statements justifying them. Anything goes when you defend yourself against terrorists? Anything goes when you resist occupiers?

Columns

‘Get out of there now’

Posted on | Amjad Iraqi | London Review of Books

Palestinians and Israelis have grown accustomed to wars in the south in recent years. But the war that began in the early hours of Saturday, 7 October is nothing like the others. In a startling assault, scores or hundreds of Hamas operatives, under a hail of rockets, crossed the Israel-Gaza separation barrier into Israeli towns near the blockaded strip: some seem to have broken through weak points in the metal fences, others went by boat along the Mediterranean coast, some flew paramotors over the walls. A Hamas unit targeted the Erez Crossing, the only civilian checkpoint between Gaza and Israel, seizing it from army control for several hours. By sunrise, Palestinian gunmen were roaming the streets of Sderot, Nir Oz and other kibbutzim, breaking into civilian homes, fighting with security forces and firing in all directions. An overnight desert rave, inexplicably organised in the border region, was also attacked.

Columns

Statement by the Humanitarian Coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Lynn Hastings, on the hostilities between Palestinian armed groups in the Gaza Strip and Israel

Posted on | United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)

Palestinian armed groups infiltrated Israel on 7 October, killing and capturing hundreds of Israeli civilians and members of the Israeli forces while indiscriminately firing thousands of rockets into Israel.

On 8 October, the Government of Israel declared war, launching intensive air strikes into the densely populated Gaza Strip over the past three days.  Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed and over two thousand now injured. The magnitude of the ongoing hostilities has led to grave humanitarian consequences. Homes, schools, medical facilities, and other infrastructure have been damaged and destroyed.