MANY Malaysians were seen on the social media expressing their heartfelt sadness over what has been happening in Palestine after the attacks by the Israeli forces against the Palestinians while they were performing their prayers at the Al Aqsa Mosque. 

Since then, the situation has become worst as more innocent Palestinians have become victims of destruction due to airstrikes by both the Israeli forces and Hamas. While there is a full fledge conflict between the Israeli forces and Hamas, the victims of this are the innocent people in Palestine who are at the centre of the conflict.

While some are using Hamas as a scapegoat in saying that they are the ones killing their own people and the Israeli forces are just retaliating, we should not forget that the situation in Palestine did not escalate only a week ago, the plight and struggles of the Palestinians go way back. 

Although the UN Security Council Resolution 242 of November 22, 1967, required Israel to withdraw from Arab lands that it had occupied during the war of June 1967, Israel did not abide by it.

Today, the West Bank is nominally controlled by the Palestinian authority but Israeli troops still enforce security restrictions on Palestinian movement and activities there. Israeli settlers have built an ever-expanding community in the West Bank that effectively denies the land to Palestinians.

As for Gaza, Israel finally left the territory in 2005 but they have been in and out of the area a number of times. In 2008, Israel sent soldiers into Gaza and during this time, an estimated 1,300 people, many of them civilians, were killed before a ceasefire was declared; 13 Israeli soldiers also died.

There have been other incursions over the years, including in 2012 and 2014, with civilian deaths in the thousands resulting.

Generally, human rights violations by the Israeli forces in the occupied Palestinian territories have included home demolitions and the forced eviction of Palestinian families, punitive arrests, unfair trials, ill-treatment and torture of detainees, and the use of excessive or lethal force to subdue nonviolent demonstrations as well as the use of restrictive legal means. 

Furthermore, this is not the first time that Palestinians are under attack during the holy month of Ramadan, because back in 2014, around 2,200 Palestinians died while more than 10,000 others were injured after air strikes were launched by the Israeli authorities into Gaza. The destruction was so bad that more than 10,000 homes in Gaza were completely destroyed. It left Gaza completely unliveable at that time according to the UN.

In 2018, the Israeli forces killed 190 Palestinians and wounded around 28,000 protestors who participated in the Great Return protests along the Gaza border two days before the start of the holy month.

On the eve of Ramadan in 2019, Israeli warplanes pounded the Gaza strip where a total of 20 Palestinians were killed including two pregnant women and two babies with more than 130 homes completely destroyed.

Israel military attacks on Gaza at either the before the start of Ramadan or even during Ramadan almost every year represents a continuation of the unnecessary cruelty of the Israeli government inflicts upon a Palestinian population that has been denied all sorts of rights since their land was taken away from them. 

While all the attention is focussed on the recent attacks, even before all that the Israeli government has denied Covid-19 vaccine access for millions of Palestinians living in Gaza and the West Bank.

In February 2021, Israel authorities blocked a vital first shipment of 2,000 doses of the Sputnik V vaccine that were intended for medical workers from entering the blockaded Gaza strip. More disappointingly are some Israeli lawmakers even going to the extent of saying that the Israeli government should only allow vaccines into Gaza in return for concession from Hamas. This indeed embarrassing because withholding vaccines from people who really need them is an inhumane act because we are talking about the lives of people during a pandemic. 

While the Israeli forces eventually allowed for the vaccine to be administered for medical frontliners, not a single dose of vaccine was administered to the Palestinian people living in the region of Gaza and West Bank. While nearly 450,000 Jews living in the area were vaccinated, nearly three millions Palestinians have been deprived of vaccines.

The vaccine disputes between Israel and Palestine have given birth to a new field of competition between the two sides. And to defend their actions, the Israeli administration emphasises that the management of the healthcare sector in the West Bank and Gaza is the responsibility of the Palestinian side as stated in the Oslo 1 Accord that was signed with the Palestinian wing in 1993. In fact, the Israeli Health Minister Yuli Edelstein claimed that the Oslo Accord did not place on them any new obligation in this regard. 

The international community strongly opposes this view by the Israeli administration as the UN Human Rights Council has declared that the state of Israel is responsible for vaccinating the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank against the Covid-19 pandemic.

In referring to the Fourth Geneva Convention, the UN Human Rights Council emphasised that Israel’s attitude was morally and legally unacceptable. Even the World Health Organisation made a similar statement in voicing out their dissent to the attitude of the Israeli administration.

While Oslo 1 Accord does state that healthcare sector should be managed by the Palestinian side, another section of the accord states that in the cases of epidemics and infectious diseases both parties should share responsibility. 

While many Malaysians have come out in support of the Palestinian plight, there should be more consistency in voicing the displeasures and bringing about constant awareness over what is happening in Israel.

The Malaysian government should also come out even stronger in condemning the acts of the Israeli forces against the innocent people of Palestine. The fact that the Foreign Affairs Ministry came out late in addressing the situation at the Al-Aqsa Mosque showed their commitment towards the issue because we use to be a very strong voice in condemning Israel for the atrocities.

For the general public, I would urge everyone to keep providing awareness about the situation in Gaza and the West Bank, as well as in general the plight of the Palestinian people because like every other year, once the situations dies down, we are no longer interested and get on with our lives. As we approach the first day of Hari Raya Aidilfitri, let’s keep the people of Palestine in our thoughts and prayers. – May 12, 2021.

* Aaron Denison reads The Malaysian Insight.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.