Announcement That Death Toll Surpassed 50,000 Didn't Faze Anyone, Not Even in Gaza - Middle East News - Haaretz.com
On Sunday, the Gaza Strip's Hamas-run Health Ministry announced that the number of Gazans killed since the war began had surpassed 50,000. But for the international media, this was just another press statement, even though in the past, such numbers would have caused shock. And for Gazans, this milestone changed nothing.
It didn't change the Arab and Islamic countries' agenda, or that of the broader international community. And certainly in Israel – which is busy with more important issues, like firing the attorney general, passing the budget and making another deal with the ultra-Orthodox – nobody will be shocked.
In the Israeli narrative, most of the dead are "terrorists" who deserve to die. And if some women and children and elderly people are killed in the process, that's just collateral damage. This is dehumanization of the Palestinians at its finest.
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Even Gazans aren't preoccupied by the number of dead these days. They're busy with questions of day-to-day survival: Will Israeli attacks become as widespread as they were before the cease-fire? Will all of Gaza be reoccupied? And who will die today or tomorrow?
Survival in Gaza is very temporary these days. If death doesn't come from an airstrike or artillery fire, it can come from disease or hunger or cold – babies are especially vulnerable.
Even the effort to search for bodies under the rubble has disappeared. And previous demands that Israel let in heavy engineering equipment for humanitarian purposes and expand the entry of humanitarian aid and tents, as called for in the cease-fire agreement, have been replaced by demands that it stop the attacks.
Hamas also understands that its daily appeals for Arab and other international intervention are falling on deaf ears. Reading through its press statements shows constantly recycled talking points that exert no influence. Yet Hamas still insists, at least declaratively, that it will free no more Israeli hostages without a deal to end the war.
This position was bolstered by Defense Minister Israel Katz's announcement on Sunday that the security cabinet has approved an administration to facilitate the "voluntary passage" to third countries for any Gazans who so choose. This once again made it clear that Israel's government has no real intention of furthering any plan that would end with a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in the near term.
People displaced by conflict from Beit Lahia riding in a tricycle cart with belongings arrive in Gaza City Saturday.Credit: Bashar Taleb / AFP
And considering all the time needed for the process – setting up the administration, securing consent from the relevant parties and finding countries willing to absorb the Palestinians – any talk about the second and third stages of the cease-fire agreement looks pointless. A country planning a move this dramatic, whose likes the Palestinians haven't seen since 1948, can't allow a vacuum in Gaza, nor can it allow any other power – and certainly not Hamas or the Palestinian Authority – to run Gaza and thwart the plan.
This voluntary emigration administration – or to call it by its true name, the administration to encourage forcible transfer – can't operate if Israel doesn't control everything in Gaza, including the civilians it seeks to expel. Those civilians are paying the price of the war to this day, even though many have no connection to Hamas. But they want to live like human beings, not like sheep that can be slaughtered or sold at the shepherd's whim.
And even if Katz's announcement was solely a public relations stunt, or an effort to pressure Hamas to free more hostages, it will distance any chance of reaching an agreement. It therefore places everyone in Gaza, Palestinians and Israeli hostages alike, in the same old trap.
Though the Palestinians' national principles reject any population transfer plan, Gazans are once again talking about this issue. But even those who are privately thinking about leaving understand that what Israel is proposing, with encouragement from U.S. President Donald Trump, is unfeasible and offers them no salvation.
And even those who would be willing to leave under these conditions scoff at the destinations Israel and America are considering, including Sudan, Somalia and Somaliland. This is further proof of the depth of both governments' racism and colonialist approach.
Even for people living in the destroyed Gaza Strip, those destinations are considered a graveyard, not a place to live. And if they're going to die anyway, Gazans would rather do so in Gaza – even if the number of deaths reaches 60,000.