Thoughts on Israeli, Gaza, Lebanese Kids
By Emmanuel Onwubiko
It began with a ruthless and lawless invasion of a Jewish town by some well armed Hamas fighters on October 7th of last year just as the invading terrorists or are they freedom fighters, shot sporadically at partygoers in a musical concert made up essentially of school kids of Jewish origin. These armed Palestinian militants also penetrated the living homes of Jewish people deep inside of Israeli territories and slaughtered old men, women, children and the sick who couldn’t escape just as the invaders took with them over 200 captured Israelis even after leaving over two thousand casualties. The entire World was un shock over how the armed Palestinian militants penetrated the heavily fortified borders of Israel from the Gaza strip.
Soon enough, the Jewish Army announced a wide-ranging strategic approach to inflict what they called the heaviest revenge on the Palestinian militants who had on their own volition, invaded Israeli territories and left tales of tears, blood, sweat and general state of mourning by the Jewish nation. The attack on the soul of Israeli nation became even more devastating when it became increasingly apparent that children were actually the major casualties of these brutal, insane, but relentless attacks by the Hamaz fighters. The attack marked the first time in over half a century that external forces had successfully invaded the Jewish state just as the invaders left trails of heavy devastating destruction on both humanity and the infrastructures of Israel. The attack was a massive blow to the usually well known tight security and intelligence capacities of the Israeli nation. It was a big challenge politically and militarily. But the Hamaz fighters may not have bargained what their foolishness would bring to a large chunk of their civilian population including innocent children who would eventually become the heaviest lovers when the reprisals were initiated by the globally dreaded Israeli Armed forces.
An online edition of the British Broadcasting Corporation disclosed everything we needed to know about the counter strategies of the Israelis Defence Forces to respond to the uncalled and irrational attacks of defenceless Jewish civilians including foreign citizens visiting Israel who were caught up in that mindless October 2923 attacks of the Hamaz fighters.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has laid out his vision for a post-war Gaza.
Under his plan Israel would control security indefinitely, and Palestinians with no links to groups hostile to Israel would run the territory.
The US, Israel’s major ally, wants the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority (PA) to govern Gaza after the war.
But the short document – which Mr Netanyahu presented to ministers last night – makes no mention of the PA.
He has previously ruled out a post-war role for the internationally backed body.
He envisages a “demilitarised” Gaza; Israel would be responsible for removing all military capability beyond that necessary for public order.
There would be a “Southern Closure” on the territory’s border with Egypt to prevent smuggling both under- and overground.
And “de-radicalisation” programmes would be promoted in all religious, educational and welfare institutions. The document suggests Arab countries with experience of such programmes would be involved, though Mr Netanyahu has not specified which.
Why is the Gaza war happening?
Under the plan Israel would also maintain security control over the entire area west of Jordan from land, sea and air.
Mr Netanyahu has been under pressure – at home and internationally – to publish proposals for Gaza since he began his military operation. He is keen to restore a crumbling reputation as a leader who can keep Israel safe and will want to appeal to right wing hardliners in his coalition government.
A spokesman for Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the PA, said Mr Netanyahu’s plan was doomed to fail.
Nabil Abu Rudeineh said: “If the world is genuinely interested in having security and stability in the region, it must end Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land and recognise an independent Palestinian state.”
Mr Netanyahu repeated his rejection of any unilateral recognition by Western countries of a Palestinian state.
On Friday US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the US was opposed to any reoccupation of Gaza by Israel as well as any reduction in the size of the territory.
“Gaza… cannot be a platform for terrorism. There should be no Israeli reoccupation of Gaza. The size of Gaza territory should not be reduced,” he said at a G20 ministers meeting in Argentina.
Meanwhile negotiators trying to broker a temporary ceasefire and the release of Israeli hostages are expected to meet in Paris.
The US wants a deal in place before the Muslim holy month of Ramadan begins in just over a fortnight.
And, as the humanitarian situation worsens in Gaza, there is international pressure too for the war to end. The Hamas-run Ministry of Health reports that more than 29,500 people, mostly women and children, have been killed since the war began in October.
Israel’s military offensive was triggered by Hamas’s unprecedented attack on 7 October in which gunmen killed about 1,200 people – mainly civilians – and took 253 back to Gaza as hostages.
Overnight the head of the UN body responsible for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) warned that Gaza faces a “monumental disaster with grave implications for regional peace, security and human rights”.
In a letter to the president of the UN general assembly, Philippe Lazzarini said the agency “has reached breaking point, with Israel’s repeated calls to dismantle Unrwa and the freezing of funding by donors at a time of unprecedented humanitarian needs in Gaza”.
Some of Unrwa’s biggest donors suspended funding for the agency last month after Unrwa sacked several of its staff amid allegations by Israel that they had participated in the October attacks.
Mr Netanyahu aims to close the agency as part of his post-war plan and replace it with – as yet unspecified – international aid organisations.
And he has insisted that he will continue his war until Israel has dismantled Hamas and Islamic Jihad – the second largest armed group in Gaza – and all Israeli hostages are returned.
The BBC reported aroynd February of 2024 thus: “At the end of 2023, Mr Netanyahu warned the war could go on for “many more months”.
Meanwhile the US has described Israel’s expansion of settlements in the occupied West Bank as inconsistent with international law.
“Our administration maintains a firm opposition to settlement expansion, and in our judgment this only weakens, doesn’t strengthen Israel’s security,” Mr Blinken said.
It overturns a move made in 2019 by the Trump administration, which was welcomed by Israel, when then Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that Washington no longer viewed settlements as breaching international law.
In the light of the above disclosures, the Cable News Network based in the USA did a clinical job of analysing the entire scenarios of war between the Hamaz fighters and the Israeli Defence forces.
Gaza and Jerusalem as reported by CNN, are as follows:
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that the country was “at war” on Saturday, after Palestinian militants in Gaza fired a deadly barrage of rockets and sent gunmen into Israeli territory in a major escalation of the long running conflict between the two sides.
The Israeli military said about 2,200 rockets were launched from the Gaza Strip into Israel, while armed terror groups infiltrated into Israel by land, sea and air in paragliders. Multiple explosions were heard over Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and in southern Israel – some blasts likely the interceptions of incoming rockets – while air raids sent Israelis pouring into underground shelters.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Hamas had taken “hostages and prisoners of war” but did not give a figure. At least 200 Israelis had been killed and 1,452 have been wounded, according to Israel’s emergency rescue service and health ministry.
Israel responded by launching strikes on what it called Hamas targets in Gaza. The Palestine Tower, a high-rise building which hosts residential apartments and media offices in Gaza City, was hit by an explosion and collapsed, video showed.
The Palestinian health ministry said that 232 Palestinians had been killed and 1,697 injured, but did not say where the deaths occurred or whether the toll included Hamas militants or civilians in Gaza.
Netanyahu has said operations are already under way to “clear communities that have been infiltrated by terrorists” and that he had also issued a call-up of reservists.
He also vowed retribution against Hamas, the Palestinian militant movement that runs Gaza, in a televised speech: “What happened today has never been seen in Israel, we will take mighty vengeance for this black day,” Netanyahu said.
“I tell Hamas, you are responsible for the wellbeing of captives, Israel will settle the score with anyone who harms them,” Netanyahu said, adding that Israel would turn Hamas-associated locations “into islands of ruins.”
“Residents of Gaza: Leave now because we will operate forcefully everywhere,” he said.
A fresh round of rockets was fired by Gaza militants on Saturday evening, making direct hits on multiple locations inside Israel, including in Tel Aviv, according to Israeli authorities.
In a Telegram post, the armed wing of Hamas — the militant group designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, European Union and Israel — said it had fired an additional 150 rockets in response to the bombing of the residential tower.
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‘The entire system failed’
The surprise assault on Saturday was unprecedented in recent history in its scale and scope, falling on the 50th anniversary of the 1973 War in which Arab states blitzed Israel on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar.
IDF spokesman Lt Col Richard Hecht said in a briefing that Israeli forces “are fighting on the ground as we speak,” listing multiple locations where fighting was taking place, including several villages, army bases and border crossings.
Hecht declined to answer repeated questions from journalists about whether the IDF had missed intelligence that the attack was coming.
A former IDF international spokesperson, Jonathan Conricus, described the massive surprise attack as a “Pearl Harbor type of moment” for the country.
“The entire system failed. It’s not just one component. It’s the entire defense architecture that evidently failed to provide the necessary defense for Israeli civilians,” he said.
Dubbing the operation “Al-Aqsa Storm,” Hamas military commander Muhammad Al-Deif said in a recorded message that the group had “targeted the enemy positions, airports and military positions with 5,000 rockets” and that the assault on Israel was a response to attacks on women, the desecration of the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem and the ongoing siege of Gaza.
“If you have a gun, get it out. This is the time to use it – get out with trucks, cars, axes, today the best and most honorable history starts,” Al-Deif added.
The attacks by Hamas follow one of the deadliest periods in the Israeli-occupied West Bank in nearly two decades. The violence has been driven by frequent Israeli military raids in Palestinian towns and cities, which Israel has said are a necessary response to a rising number of attacks by Palestinian militants on Israelis.
They also come at a moment of deep division in Israel, months after the government pushed through a contentious plan to reduce the power of the country’s courts, sparking a social and political crisis. The move this summer also struck a nerve with the military, prompting many reservists – the backbone of Israel’s army – to warn they would not come if called up, to protest the changes to the judicial system. An IDF spokesperson said Saturday that he did not know of any reservists refusing to be called up in the face of the latest attacks.
Israel responds to air, sea and ground assault
It is rare for Palestinian militants to be able to make it into Israel from Gaza which is sealed off and heavily watched by Israel’s military.
As the day unfolded, the IDF said it was fighting in 22 locations, later adding that its operations has seen “ground and aerial forces thwarted hundreds of terrorists in the area surrounding the Gaza Strip and southern Israel.”
Another IDF spokesman, Brigadier General Daniel Hagari, said there were hostage situations in two locations – Ofakim and Beeri.
It is not clear how many people Hamas has taken captive, however video verified by CNN showed the moment some were seized.
In one of the videos, geolocated by CNN to the neighborhood of Shejaiya in Gaza, a barefoot woman is pulled from the trunk of a Jeep by a gunman and then forced into the backseat of the car. Her face is bleeding, and her wrists appear to be cable-tied behind her back. The jeep also appears to have an Israel Defense Forces license plate, suggesting it may have been stolen and brought into Gaza.
A second video, which appears to show Hamas militants taking multiple Israelis captive, was geolocated by CNN to Be’eri in southern Israel, which is a village close to Gaza.
Residents of Kibbutz Beeri and Kibbutz Nir Oz, two Israeli communities, told the country’s Channel 12 television station that assailants from Gaza were trying to break into their homes. They have repeatedly pleaded on television for assistance from the IDF.
One resident of Kibbutz Nir Oz told the broadcaster over the phone that his family, including two children ages 7 and 9, have barricaded themselves in a safe room while militants fired at the door.
Channel 12 also reported that infiltrators had taken hostages in Netiv HaAsara. Israeli authorities did not immediately confirm any details about those reports.
The IDF warned Israelis who live near Gaza to stay in their homes or head to shelters.
Zaki Heller, spokesperson for Israel’s Magen David Adom, urged people to donate blood and said a special blood donation drive is being organized in Tel Aviv for Saturday morning “due to an urgent need.”
Social media footage obtained by CNN showed the aftermath of a rocket strike in Ashkelon, a coastal city in southern Israel, where multiple cars could be seen burning next to an apartment complex, a thick plume of black smoke billowing into the air.
Gaza is one of the most densely packed places in the world, an isolated coastal enclave of almost 2 million people crammed into 140 square miles.
Governed by Hamas, the territory is largely cut off from the rest of the world by an Israeli blockade of Gaza’s land, air and sea dating back to 2007. Egypt controls Gaza’s southern border crossing, Rafah.
Israel has placed heavy restrictions on the freedom of civilian movement and controls the importation of basic goods into the narrow coastal strip.
Video shared by Hamas’ armed wing on Saturday showed a group of fighters storming Erez Crossing post, the main border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Israel.
The video, which is heavily edited, showed several dead bodies on the ground with sounds of gunfire. It also shows what appears to be two men being dragged away with hands on heads by the fighters.
Hamas also claimed it captured Israeli vehicles from southern Israeli cities near the Gaza border. The IDF declined to comment when asked by CNN.
The world reacts
Amid the unprecedented assault, US President Joe Biden said his administration’s support of Israel’s security is “rock solid and unwavering.”
“You know, when I spoke with Prime Minister Netanyahu this morning, I told him the United States stands with the people of Israel in the face of these terrorists assaults. Israel has the right to defend itself and its people full stop,” he said at the White House.
Stephanie Hallett, the top American diplomat in Israel, wrote on social media: “I condemn the indiscriminate rocket fire by Hamas terrorists against Israeli civilians. I am in contact with Israeli officials, and fully support Israel’s right to defend itself from such terrorist attacks.”
In Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called for the parties involved to “act with restraint in light of the events in Israel this morning and to stay away from impulsive steps that will escalate tensions,” while Egypt’s Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said he is in “intensive” communication with international officials to stop the ongoing escalation.
Many European leaders have taken to social media to denounce the violence.
European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen said on X, formerly known as Twitter, that she “unequivocally” condemned the violence. “It is terrorism in its most despicable form. Israel has the right to defend itself against such heinous attacks.”
French President Emmanuel Macron expressed his “full solidarity with the victims,” while German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that “Germany condemns these Hamas attacks and stands by Israel.”
However, what pains us in HURIWA is the fact that the children of Palestinians, the Israelis and now the LEBANESE are the greatest numbers of the actual victims of these wars of ego, pride and superiority contests between the Israelis aided hy the Western military might and Hamaz fighters aided by Iran and Hezbollah of Lebanon. Stopping these needless killings of children is key if the international community gathered under the United Nations are to be considered as humane and conscientious.
Psychologists are of the frightening opinion that wars are not good for the growth of children just as these psychological scholars have listed out over one dozen consequences of wars on children but for the purposes of our reflection, we will list out just 4 or fewer of these devastating psychological pains and pangs on the lives of our children when there is a state of war.
These consequences include but not limited to the state of Anxiety, loneliness and insecurity.
Psychologists argued that many children living in conflict zones have lost their homes through shelling, have been displaced from their neighborhoods, and have had to leave their friends and family. Such loss and disruption can lead to high rates of depression and anxiety in war-affected children.
The importance of family, and the nurture and support that it provides to children, means that being separated from parents can be one of the most significant war ordeals of all, particularly for younger children.
“[The children] are always stressed. Constant anxiety. We notice that Syrian children, through our work with them, they are not like other children. They’re always stressed. Any unfamiliar noise, if a chair moves, or if a door bangs shut, they have a reaction. This is the result of their fear – of the sound of planes, of rockets, of war,” explained Ahmed, a recreational coordinator in Idlib, Syria.
In Yemen, repeated attacks on schools and civilians have led children to live in constant fear and suffer from profound negative emotions that have left them feeling worried for their safety and the safety of everyone around them.
“Seeing the destruction and rubble left by the war in the region, especially remains of a school that a child used to attend, has contributed to the deterioration of children’s psychosocial well-being. Children are beginning to exhibit signs of chronic anxiety, fear and insecurity,” said a school principal from Taiz, Yemen.
This is therefore a call for an end to the constant bombardment of these nations of Israel, Palestinian homelands and Lebanon. Enough of these torture and suffering of these innocent children of Israel, Lebanon and Gaza.
Emmanuel Onwubiko is head of the HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA).
