Rafah: A Point of No Return

By Mona Ali Khalil

The catastrophe in Rafah has begun.

In the 131 terrible days since the horrible Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023, we have watched 1.8 million Palestinian civilians pushed from the north of Gaza to the south and even further south until they reached Rafah at the very end of the strip. Adults and children alike have been bombed and shot relentlessly in every way — every day — including on the way.

Thirty-thousand Palestinians have been killed, including more than 12,000 children as well as hundreds of doctors, nurses, medics and journalists — nearly 70,000 more wounded and thousands more still lying under the rubble. We have witnessed tens of thousands of Gaza’s homes as well as hospitals, schools, universities, mosques and churches destroyed. We have seen men stripped naked and paraded — many executed — and some dumped in mass graves.

On Oct. 7, we condemned the Hamas attack in southern Israel and the loss of hundreds of Israeli and other civilians killed that day. We condemned the taking of 240 Israeli and other hostages and continue to demand their immediate and unconditional release.

We must condemn all of Israel’s crimes too.
We must mourn the tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians killed too.

Despite warnings from its American and European allies and from the International Criminal Court itself, Israeli forces have begun their assault on Rafah, and their leaders seem hellbent on a ground operation to forcibly evacuate the nearly two million Palestinians sheltering there.

More than two million Palestinians have nowhere safe to go. Facing another Nakba — Arabic for the 1948 catastrophe — most Palestinian refugees (already displaced many times over) refuse to leave Gaza, fearing that they will be denied the right of return, which is an inalienable right enjoyed by all refugees, including Palestinian refugees, under international law.

Thousands of them will be crushed by Israel’s bloody assault on Rafah. Images of shredded bodies — the dead among the living — as well as hundreds of thousands who might soon starve to death are in plain sight for the world to see. They are holding on to dear life, but how long can they endure famine and disease accelerated by the defunding of UNRWA, a four-month inhumane siege of no food, water or medical supplies, and 14 years of a brutal blockade.

Whole families have been wiped out — plausible acts of genocide underway — so say a United States federal court in California and the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

Even if one sets aside the rulings of these courts, Israel still stands charged with a litany of war crimes, from collective punishment to disproportionate attacks on Gaza’s civilian population, an ignominious addendum to an already long list of grave violations of the Geneva Conventions in Gaza and the West Bank — what both the US and the UN consider occupied Palestinian territory.

When is it time to say that the right of self-defense is not a license to kill?
When is it time to stop an Israeli war machine gone mad?
When is it time for the Biden administration to demand a Ceasefire Now!!!

They can’t say they didn’t know.
It is on every screen and in every newspaper.
It is in the chants of the millions of people of every faith in the US and around the world marching for a “Ceasefire Now.”

Israel’s military campaign is by most accounts failing; it is not achieving any of its three stated objectives: freeing hostages, destroying Hamas or restoring security. Even the 100 Israeli hostages who have returned home so far were released as a result of international diplomacy, not Israeli military operations.

Most of the world stood with Israel on Oct. 7. It could have won a major victory — militarily, politically and morally — had it responded to the Hamas attack in a manner consistent with international humanitarian law. It could have been more efficient in rescuing Israeli civilians than it has been in punishing Palestinian civilians. It could have exercised its right to self-defense without violating the rules of proportionality and distinction. It could have called for the surrender and prosecution of Hamas and its leaders in the International Criminal Court.

Israel could have — and it still can — accept an offer of mutual recognition and peaceful co-existence from the Arab states. It’s a plan that has enjoyed the support of the Arab and the Muslim world, but that may be lost if Israel’s bombing and blockade continue.

Instead, Israel has mired itself in an unwinnable quagmire; inspired more militant extremists on both sides; and destroyed Israel’s credibility around the world. Without regard to the warnings of its friends and the threats of its foes, the most extreme right wing regime in Israel’s history is determined to “press on” with a ground offensive in Rafah, risking its peace treaties with its Egyptian and Jordanian neighbors as well as the Abraham Accords with its Bahraini, Emirati and Moroccan friends. It is possibly even jeopardizing the unconditional military, financial and diplomatic largess of the US, its closest ally.

The Arab states and the Palestinian Authority, with American support, are offering Israel a path to peace. It is at a point of no return. Israel’s current regime is waging a seemingly endless war against the whole of Gaza. Israel needs new leadership to pursue a just and comprehensive peace with the whole Arab world.

Four months and 75 years of war is enough.
It is time for a Ceasefire Now!!!