The Gaza killing fields must stop

UN Secretary-General António Guterres could not have been clearer in his assessment of global events that are reaping misery and suffering on millions of people and threatening to plunge the world into “an unimagineable” powder keg.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine continues unabated. It is a war that has ground to a stalemate and that sees large swathes of Ukrainian territory under Russian military control as civilians die and communities are shattered.

In Sudan, warring factions are using sexual violence, rape and torture as tools of coercion against civilian populations, while people struggle to find food and safe shelter.

In the Middle East, the carnage perpetrated by Israel in Gaza persists, now overshadowed by the looming threat of all-out war between Israel and militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon. Meanwhile, Israeli hostages taken by Hamas in October last year remain captive.

In Haiti, a country is being held hostage by criminal gangs and in Myanmar, Yemen and the Democratic Republic of Congo ongoing conflicts just keep claiming lives, displacing people and causing untold suffering.

These challenges and others like climate change and nuclear posturing are solvable but in Guterres’s words, it requires mechanisms of international problem-solving to actually solve problems. And to get there, the UN chief identified the three major drivers of unsustainability that must be confronted – impunity, inequality and uncertainty.

Perhaps, his assessment on impunity rings loudest at the moment.

“Today, a growing number of governments and others feel entitled to a ‘get out of jail free’ card.  They can trample international law.  They can violate the United Nations Charter. They can turn a blind eye to international human rights conventions or the decisions of international courts. They can thumb their nose at international humanitarian law. They can invade another country, lay waste to whole societies, or utterly disregard the welfare of their own people. And nothing will happen. We see this age of impunity everywhere — in the Middle East, in the heart of Europe, in the Horn of Africa, and beyond,” Guterres told the opening of the 79th session of the General Assembly in New York last week.

Nowhere is impunity clearly on show as it is in the Middle East, where Israel continues to do as it pleases in Gaza, the West Bank and now teasing an invasion of Lebanon that risks drawing the region into war.

Israel knows there is a solution that will allow its citizens to return safely to their homes in the north of the country – all it needs to do is stop the aggression in Gaza.

The terror attacks Hamas perpetrated on 7 October last year inside Israel and the taking of hostages can never be justified. The unconditional and immediate release of all hostages is a must. But neither can the collective punishment of Palestinians be justified.

Guterres described the scale of the killing and destruction in Gaza as something “unlike anything” he has seen in his years as secretary-general. More than 200 UN staff have been killed alongside thousands of innocent Palestinians – including women, children and the elderly.

At the same time, Israel continues to pursue a policy of land-grabs from Palestinian communities in the West Bank, eroding the prospect of a viable Palestinian state ever seeing the light of day.

Guterres is right when he says that the international community must mobilise for an immediate ceasefire, the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages, and the beginning of an irreversible process towards a two-State solution.

The key to this solution lies with the United States. If it continues with its unconditional support of Israel, any moral posturing on Gaza and the Palestinian plight by the US is as credible as a prostitute preaching virginity.

Benjamin Netanyahu has shown time and time again that he has no regard for what the US says but he will have to stop and listen if the tap of military support is closed shut. Similarly, Iran must stop its funding and arming of militant organisations like Hamas and Hezbollah.

The only way Israel can ensure its own long-term safety and security is through a negotiated solution that sees Palestinians freed from oppression and living in their own viable State.