Gaza Under Siege: Salma al-Deeb Warns of Unprecedented Destruction and Humanitarian Catastrophe

Watan-The Palestinian-British writer Salma al-Deeb warned in an article on the Arab Democracy Organization’s website “DAWN,” founded by the late Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018, of a difficult humanitarian crisis in Gaza due to the Israeli atrocities and massacres that go beyond all rules of engagement. She emphasized that there are destructive consequences awaiting the region if it is left to fight alone.

Salma al-Deeb stated in her article, as reported by “Watan”: “Palestinian life in Gaza is being destroyed, and it is being sent back to the past with the aim of seizing its future, properties, and committing atrocities outside all the rules of engagement we know.”

She added that “Israeli bombardment of Gaza can be compared in terms of scale to the most destructive wars in modern history. It is also difficult to know where it will end, and to what extent its consequences will be devastating.”

Gaza, the “Perfume Distributor”

Salma al-Deeb also discussed the origins of the Gaza Strip, dating back to the fifteenth century BC, described by the Greek philosopher Plutarch (circa 46-119 AD) as the “Perfume Distributor” due to its strategic location on the trade route of incense from Yemen and the Indian Ocean.

Before this war, Gaza City was the largest Palestinian city, with a population of over 600,000 people, complete with schools, universities, hospitals, companies, restaurants, cultural centers, libraries, orchards, olive farms, and refugee camps, according to Salma’s writings.

The writer confirms what media reports mention, that “the city has been destroyed by the Israeli army, where Israeli soldiers wander around what remains of the buildings, and they spread news on social media about new properties on the seaside for Israelis.”

The article poses a question about what other armies can learn from the United States enabling comprehensive Israeli bombardment on Gaza, using white phosphorus, “dumb” unguided bombs, and “bunker-buster” bombs weighing 2,000 pounds on densely populated residential areas.

Destruction Unprecedented for the Largest Palestinian City

Salma al-Deeb explained that the occupation dropped 29,000 bombs on Gaza in just over two months. This is equivalent to nearly eight times the ammunition dropped by the United States on Iraq during its entire destructive war from 2004 to 2010.

In terms of numbers, the writer mentioned that 22,000 Palestinians were killed in the brutal war, along with numerous missing individuals under the rubble. However, a single number cannot convey the painful individual tragedies.

In the besieged sector, there are over 50,000 civilian casualties without access to treatment, and approximately 50,000 pregnant women who have nowhere to place their children, according to the writer.

War Following Exhausting 17-Year Siege

Salma al-Deeb continued in her article:

• After the residents of Gaza endured a debilitating 17-year land, sea, and air blockade, they are now facing a situation that is not just a humanitarian crisis but a widespread humanitarian catastrophe.
• This is a man-made political disaster, collective torture of the people. It is genocide, as mentioned by Craig Mokhiber, Senior Human Rights Official at the United Nations, in his heartfelt resignation speech.
• Wiping out a group of people entirely or partially. At the very least, this entails an extremely high risk of transforming into genocide, which imposes responsibilities on the 153 countries that signed the 1948 Genocide Convention to work towards preventing it.
• Most Gaza residents, an astounding 1.9 million people, have now become internally displaced, with many confined to a small area near Rafah, close to the border with Egypt.

“Rafah is not a refuge at all”

The writer affirmed in her article that the Rafah area, where hundreds of thousands of locals gather in the south of the Gaza Strip, is not a refuge at all.

She explained that children and grandchildren of refugees, forced to leave their homes, are scrambling to get flour in the hungry, thirsty, and crowded streets.

Salma al-Deeb added in her article, with an angry and frustrated tone towards “Israeli audacity”: “In all of this, the bombing of the displaced continues, and the Israeli government demands more weapons. More! We need more! Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demands more!”

The writer recalled the internal situation of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the internal disagreements in the United States regarding the war, as well as South Africa’s lawsuit against the occupation in the International Court of Justice. She affirmed that this is not a coincidence because the people of South Africa understand the apartheid system more than any other people.

There is a similarity between the apartheid system and the suppression that ruled South Africa until the early 1990s and the current suppression system in Israel, which grants privileges to Israeli Jews at the expense of Palestinians today. They also understand that any discrimination based on race or religion has no future and must be eradicated from its source if the justice system established in the last century has any hope of survival.

According to Israeli commentators, their leader is a dead man walking. Once the war stops, the legal cases against Netanyahu on corruption charges will proceed, in addition to the final investigation into the security failures that led to the Hamas attack during his tenure.

In such circumstances, there is no significant personal incentive to halt one of the most intense aerial bombardment campaigns in history. Killing Palestinians is currently a winning political ticket in Israel. Since October 7th, opinion polls show that the Israeli public has become more hardline than ever, with less than 25 percent supporting negotiations with the Palestinians.

In mid-October, Josh Bell, a senior official at the U.S. State Department, resigned in protest against the “expansive and accelerating” transfer of U.S. weapons to Israel, describing it as “short-sighted, destructive, unfair, and inconsistent with the values we openly endorse.”

His concerns were not limited to the lack of justice for Palestinians but extended to broader implications for U.S. foreign policy. International lawyers are dusting off agreements rarely relied upon since their drafting in the aftermath of World War II, such as the Genocide Convention, which includes commitments not only to punish and prevent acts of genocide but also complicity in them. Lawyers are also considering provisions that seem to belong to past eras, reminiscent of Stalingrad, which defines famine as a war crime.