A “tragic mishap” is how the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described Monday’s double strike on Al Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis that killed at least 20 people, including five journalists. Coming just over a fortnight since an Al Jazeera crew were killed by an Israeli strike in a clearly designated media tent in Gaza city, such descriptions are not only devoid of any responsibility towards the victims, but apparently exasperating Israel’s backers, too.
"I'm not happy about it," US President Donald Trump told reporters in the Oval Office when he was informed of Monday’s attack. "I don't want to see it. At the same time, we have to end that ... nightmare," he added, referring to the war in Gaza. The Organisation of Islamic Co-Operation has been meeting in Saudi Arabia this week, repeating the call to end this “nightmare”.
Ending the conflict is also a priority for a large section of a visibly angry and frustrated Israeli public. Members of the Hostages and Missing Families Forum held another a day of action yesterday, staging demonstrations and blocking main roads to demand a halt to the war and the return of Israelis still being held captive in Gaza. It would appear that their patience with Israel’s leadership is also at an end.
Polling this month from the aChord Centre, a research lab at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, found that most of the country’s Jewish citizens believe there are no innocents in Gaza. Results of another poll released around the same time by the Israeli Democracy Institute found most Jewish Israeli respondents remained untroubled by reports of famine in the Palestinian enclave. However, for a state whose supporters often boast it is a democracy, its leadership is proving particularly unresponsive to public calls for an end to the war. These calls have been sharpened by the planned mobilisation of 60,000 military reservists, a step that will have profound social and economic repercussions in a relatively small country.
It is important to note that many critics of the direction the country has taken over the past 22 months are hardly radicals or peaceniks. Among their number are many former military and intelligence officials – security-minded people who recognise that plans for annexation in Gaza as well as the permanent occupation and settlement of the West Bank will leave the country more isolated than ever.
These voices have been joined by many Israeli civilians who, particularly when confronted by protests and animosity when travelling abroad, are well aware that their leadership’s futile and aimless war is dragging the country into further isolation. Speaking to The National, former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert summed up many of his fellow citizens’ feelings: “We don’t have now any objective that’s worth the cost of continuing the fighting and losing the hostages and having Israeli soldiers killed, and many non-involved Palestinians killed.”
Meanwhile, the cynicism of attacks such as Monday’s double strike on Al Nasser Hospital will only strengthen the determination of those working day and night in Gaza itself and in newsrooms across the region to keep this manmade humanitarian catastrophe at the top of the global agenda. Israel’s current leadership may believe it can weather such scrutiny but insisting that the war on Gaza ends on its terms alone may do more damage to Israel’s cohesion in the long run than anything its enemies could conceive.
