HUMANITARIAN CRISIS DEEPENS AS ISRAEL AND HAMAS WAR EXPANDS TO SOUTH GAZA

Until a two-state solution that is acceptable to both parties is reached, the Israel-Palestine conflict will persist.

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WAR EXPANDS SOUTH

As intense fighting spreads to Southern Gaza, the people of Gaza, having being told to evacuate, find themselves in deeper crisis, as there is no safe place to go. The truce collapsed on 1 December 2023, with both sides blaming each other for it. Israeli military launches operations in Khan Younis, Gaza’s second largest city, declaring it as a combat zone, calling it “the most intense day since the beginning of the ground operation”, besides continuing strikes on northern Gaza. Hamas too is responding with rocket fire on the border cities of Israel to register its existence. Caught in the crossfire, it’s distressing news for hostages and civilians of one of the most populated regions of the world, blockaded in a landmass, left with no safe zones.

Although most rational voices condemned the brutal, barbaric, terror attack by Hamas on 7 October 2023, and felt Israeli’s actions against Hamas was justified, but the scale, cost and methodology of the Israeli response, causing 14 times more Palestinian civilian casualties (approximately over 16,000 in comparison to over 1,200 Israelis killed so far) and large-scale forced displacement of people have invited global criticism including from its closest ally, the United States, for violation of international humanitarian law. The violence and casualties in the West Bank are complicating the situation further.