The depth of destruction in Gaza slowly unfolds, but for the people of the impoverished strip, more agony lies ahead.
Palestinians in the Gaza strip were left to pick up the pieces once more after a deadly Israeli offensive lasting 22 days finally came to an end, almost in ironic sync with the inauguration of Barack Obama as the new US President.
An Israeli unilateral ceasefire, the product of much diplomatic effort by Western leaders and regional powers, was later followed by a week-long Hamas ceasefire, tentatively ending a conflict that made the lives of 1.5 million in the Gaza Strip a living hell.
Reflecting on the devastation
As Israeli troops and tanks gradually left the impoverished strip of land, the full scale of the devastation resulting from daily air strikes and Israeli artillery assaults started to unfold.
With bulldozers slowly ploughing through the debris of battle, it was the unfortunate population of Gaza, of whom almost two-thirds remain registered with the UN as refugees that were once again the victims of decades of bitterness and colonial legacies.
Relative peace was ended, when Hamas refused to renew an edgy six-month ceasefire with the Israeli government towards the end of 2008. As persistent rocket-fire ensued, Israeli launched the latest offensive under the banner of protecting their civilians.
With further destruction to an already embattled landscape, and historic and deep-rooted animosity between Hamas and Israel, the future for Gaza remains bleak.
Israeli left the Gaza Strip in 2005, but ubiquitous rocket-fire into southern Israel has meant that deadly Israeli retaliatory air strikes have been common. In one of the most densely populated areas in the world, often it is civilian bloodshed and heartache that ensues, than any real diminishment of Hamas’s ability to launch rocket fire.
Humanitarian crisis
As Israeli eased its operations, much needed food and medical supplies began to trickle thorough the border crossings. Figures indicate that over a third of the population have been without water since the offensive began, with many without any power.
In addition to the rubble dotting the landscape, thousands of people remain homeless. According to estimates from Gaza, over 22,000 buildings have been damaged or destroyed amounting to billions in reparation.
What chance for peace?
The concept of peace for two sides so contrasting in ideology is a difficult undertaking. Hamas, who have also been at deadly logger-heads with their arch-rivals Fatah, refuse to recognise Israel and remain committed at seeing the return of all Palestinian lands from their “occupiers”.
Maintaining a short-term truce appears a difficult enough task, let alone lasting peace between both sides. For Israel, the dilemma is obvious, how do you appease patriotic ranks in government to negotiate with an enemy, who remains intent on seeing your collapse?
As much as the Hamas movement does not encapsulate the views of all Palestinians, particularly in the Gaza strip, where an already mentally-scarred nation suffers more agony, it is hard not to alienate the greater population away from seeking peaceful ties.
With each dying civilian, the gulf to peace only increases. Israel seeks to ensure security which it has every right to enjoy, but what sympathy can be granted if hundreds of other civilians perish in the quest of protecting their own. One can blame Hamas for endangering their own population, but try telling that to the people of Gaza who have lost their homes and lack basic commodities.
Yet a key constraint remains to any peace. Until Palestinians can find peace with each other there is no chance of any peace with the Jewish state. However, a unity government appears a distant possibility for now with any elections in the short-term highly unlikely.
International reaction
Most Western powers, including some regional governments, remained supportive of Israel’s security concerns and motives for launching the offensives against a regime that many still deem as a terrorist organisation.
However, broad dismay at the humanitarian catastrophe that enveloped was difficult to veil. Israel’s heavy handed tactics, resulting in the death of 1,300 Palestinians, was hard to justify as much as the continued nuisance of rocket-fire from Palestinian territory had placed enormous pressure on the Israeli government to react.
Israeli unilateral ceasefire comes on the back of a firm commitment by leading powers to take more action to prevent arms-smuggling from Egypt into the hands of militants. However, Hamas has so far remained defiant in its continued pursuit of arms and the key question remains as to who will police the southern border of Gaza with Egypt.
Even the more favoured and pro-Western Fatah movement led by Mahmoud Abbas that currently control the Western bank, were not wholeheartedly sympathetic to the consequences of perceived Hamas provocation that spurred the onslaught of Israeli anger.
The great differences between Arab neighbours were in open view at the recent Arab summit, further highlighting the complexities in resolving the Palestinian question. Even Arab countries fail to address the current issues with any sense of unity.
US presidential card
It is hard to see the timing of the disproportionate Israeli onslaught as coincidental. Within the final weeks of President George W. Bush’s controversial tenure at the helm, Israel hit back at a more ferocious rate to greatly-weaken the military threat posed by Hamas under the umbrella of the strong support offered by the current Bush administration.
The controversial Israeli offensive meant that even the fading days of Bush’s rule, were clouded in debate. Intriguingly, the Israeli pull-out started just days before Obama’s inauguration as president.
It remains to be seen whether the new U.S. president, would afford the Israeli government the same underlying backing but certainly ahead of their own elections, Israeli leaders would want to build a solid “start” with the new US regime.
What remains certain, is that Obama will inherit as many challenges and obstacles to Middle Eastern peace as his predecessors, who have all desperately tried to foster the prospect of a viable two-state solution.
As long as any two sides remain worlds apart in viewpoints and persist with the same kind of deep-rooted hatred for one-another, a dozen more US presidents, would continue to inherit the same instruments of instability and terror.
Propaganda war
For both the Israeli government and Hamas, the propaganda war bore as much significance as the deadly war itself.
Both sides have toyed with statistics and used international sentiment to their advantage. Regardless, of the terms of peace or length of confrontation, both sides would always declare a popular victory against the other.
It remains to be seen, how Israelis would react to any perceived further aggression by Hamas. Likewise it is unclear how Hamas would react if they felt that the terms of their own indefinite ceasefire was breached.
In truth arms-smuggling in Gaza is next to impossible to stop and rocket-fire, however varying in intensity and frequency, will continue on Israel.
In many ways, there is a feeling of a temporary halt to the fighting, in light of the dire humanitarian situation and the immense pressure to ease the suffering of the people. All the seeds for a future conflict remain very in much in position.
Gaza fenced in
The long-term Israeli economic embargo on the Gaza strip aimed at punishing the Islamist regime and weaken their resolve will only ever inflict further pain on ordinary civilians.
With people limited in their movement and stuck between a much-maligned Hamas and an unwavering “neighbour”, the people of Gaza are in more ways than one trapped within their own lands.
If Israeli seeks to build ties, then it must be a lot more attentive to civilian damage and suffering in their response to any aggression, and ease any economic blockades thereafter.
The ordinary people of Gaza can only be distanced, when they witness their neighbourhood in rubbles, their hospitals full of wounded and their social infrastructure in tatters. Israeli must entice the Palestinian people away from extremism and not enflame passions and hatred further.
Israeli elections
In Israel, ahead of crucial elections on February 10th, the popularity of the offensives raised the prospects of key individuals at the heart of the recent military offensive to revel at the polls.
However, in spite of certain ministries gaining in popularity, opinion polls indicate a win for right-wing opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu. Somewhat ironically, it was Netanyahu who opposed Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 after almost four decades of occupation, after insisting that Palestinian hardliners would assume any power vacuum that would ensue from any pullout.
The long-term strategy to deal with their Gaza problem remains very much to be seen.