By Usman Khan
Recent attacks of Israel on Palestine have proved once again that Israel is terror state and it is sustaining itself on the blood of Palestinians. Earlier on May 16th, deadly airstrikes and bombings by Israeli forces turned homes of Palestinians to rubble. Israel said it had attacked a militant tunnel system which collapsed, bringing residential buildings down with it. It is happening because the long, outstanding and unresolved conflict between the two sides, that has been left to embitter. The heart of Middle East has become an open bloodletting wound for Muslims due to the immense violent hostilities by Israeli through rocket-firings and airstrikes that caused death of hundreds and thousands of Palestinians till now.
Albeit, the conflict has been dropped out of international captions in recent years but does not mean that the problem has been ended. The problem is still there, and the hatred, bitterness of years, generations of trouble, and killing of innocent Palestinians is going unabated till yet.
For more than a century, Jews and Arabs have fought to be the owners and rulers of the land between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea. Israel has inflicted a series of death casualties on the Palestinians since it became independent in 1948. The conspiracy brewed when 100-years ago the Britain took control of the area known as Palestine when the Ottoman Empire was defeated in WW1. At that time the land was inhabited by a Jewish minority and Arab majority. The Britain played a key role, in establishing a “national home” in Palestine for Jewish people, the Jews arriving there grew, with many fleeing from persecution in Europe, after the Holocaust of WWII as Jews termed, it was their ancestral home.
In 1947, the UN voted for Palestine to be split into separate Jewish and Arab states, with Jerusalem becoming an international city. In 1948, Jewish leaders declared the creation of the state of Israel as the only Jews state. Many Palestinians objected and a war followed. Troops from neighboring Arab countries invaded. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were forced out of their homes in what they call Al Nakba, or the “Catastrophe”. By the time the fighting ended in a ceasefire, Israel took control of most of the territory. Jordan occupied land which became known as the West Bank, and Egypt occupied Gaza. Jerusalem was divided between Israeli forces in the West, and Jordanian forces in the East. There was never a real peace agreement, each side blamed the other which resulted in more wars and fighting in the decades which are still going on. In the war of 1967, Israel occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank, as well as most of the Syrian Golan Heights, and Gaza and the Egyptian Sinai peninsula.
Most Palestinian refugees and their descendants live in Gaza and the West Bank, as well as in bordering Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. Neither they nor their descendants have been allowed by Israel to return to their homes. Israel says this would overwhelm the country and threaten its existence as a Jewish state. Israeli forces seized East Jerusalem, during the Six Day War in 1967. Israel claims the whole of Jerusalem as its capital, while the Palestinians claim East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state. The US is one of a handful of countries along with Britain to recognize Israel’s claim at that time, to the whole of the city. In the past 50 years Israel has built illegal settlement in these areas which are obstacle in peace process.
Recent aggression by Israel in Gaza has been worst since 2014. It came after weeks of rising Israeli-Palestinian tension in East Jerusalem which culminated in clashes at a holy site revered by both Muslims and Jews. The fighting between Israel and Hamas was triggered on by days of Israeli police aggression at a holy hilltop compound in East Jerusalem. On the one side Israeli PM said that military operation against Hamas will continue “with full force”, which depicts the war mania mindset of Israel towards Muslims of Palestine. whereas on the other side, Hamas which is the freedom fighter group that rules Gaza also fired rockets after warning Israel to withdraw from the site. However, the retaliatory air strikes by Hamas are also below the mark of humanity like Israels. Although, there are a number of issues which Israel and the Palestinians cannot agree on but one cannot deny that the war of land is just at the cost of blood of innocents. In an online meeting of the UN Security Council Secretary-General has urged all parties to end the “bloody violence.”
The site is well-regarded by both Muslims, who call it the Haram al-Sharif (Noble Sanctuary), and Jews, for whom it is known as the Temple Mount. Hamas demanded Israel to remove police from there and the nearby predominantly Arab district of Sheikh Jarrah, where Palestinian families face eviction by Jewish settlers. Since the start of Holy month of Ramadan from mid-April 2021, tensions escalated after the clashes between police and people of Palestine. The threatened eviction of some Palestinian families in East Jerusalem has also caused rising. The city has deep religious and national significance to both sides. Israel in effect annexed East Jerusalem in 1980 and considers the entire city its capital; though this is not duly accepted by the vast majority of other countries. Palestinians claim the eastern half of Jerusalem as the capital of a hoped-for state of their own.
There are a number of questions that are to be answered, albeit no one knows what should happen to Palestinian refugees, whether Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank will stay or will be removed, whether the two sides should share Jerusalem, and perhaps most mind boggling and tricky of all – whether a Palestinian state should be created alongside Israel. Peace talks have been taking place on and off for more than 25 years, but so far the conflict remain unresolved.
The role of Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the UN for the solution of this issue is insufficient, disappointing. Only issuing press statements and lip service in solidarity of the plight of Palestine Muslims is not enough at all to end the atrocities of Israelis troops. The question remains that is the blood of Palestinians cheaper than water? It is a need of hour for Muslim nations to unite against the brutality of Israel. It is also litmus case for the collective conscience of international and European communities to work out it, for the durable and viable world peace. Another wise they will be considered as silent spectators of this gory incident.