AhlulBayt News Agency - Two years have passed since Israeli regime’s brutal and destructive war on besieged Gaza with Palestinians slamming slow reconstruction and lack of war crimes prosecutions.
July 8 marks the two-year anniversary of the brutal Israeli war on besieged Palestinian territory of Gaza with a population numbering 1.4 million making it is one of the most densely populated areas in the world. The population density of the Gaza Strip is 5,045.5 people per square kilometer.
A coalition of some international NGOs have called on the Israeli regime to lift its inhuman blockade of the impoverished Gaza Strip, while Amnesty International said it was “indefensible" that no criminal cases had been brought for war crimes committed by the Israeli regime.
The July-August 2014 Israeli war on Gaza killed more than 2,200 Palestinians, mostly civilians including women and 551 children. 73 Israeli regime troops were also killed in Palestinian revenge and self defense attacks. The brutal Israeli war on Gaza also destroyed or damaged thousands of homes in Gaza. More than 120,000 homes were at least partly damaged, while around 20,000 were left totally uninhabitable in the war, according to the UN.
The region’s unemployment rate of 45 per cent is one of the highest in the world.
Reconstruction has been painfully slow due to the Israeli imposed siege on the Palestinian territory, with the United Nations taking over a year to rebuild its first destroyed home.
The Israeli regime has maintained its illegal blockade on the territory, limiting the entry of many goods essential for construction.
US, UK Complicit in Israeli crimes
John Hilary, Executive Director at War on Want, a London-based human rights group says, Israel's attacks on Palestinians in Gaza are war crimes, made possible only through the continued financial, military and diplomatic support its government receives from Western states such as the UK.
Hillary says "The UK government remains complicit in Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian people. In 2014, the year of Israel’s massacre in Gaza, the UK government licensed over £11.6 million worth of military equipment and arms components for export to Israel, with full knowledge of what those arms are used for.”
He noted that by continuing the arms trade with Israel, the UK government is giving material support to Israel’s aggression against the Palestinian people.
The United States is also complicit in Israel’s war crimes in the Gaza Strip as it supplied the majority of military equipment used in the onslaught.
For the past decades, the US has been transferring annual aid of about $3 billion to Israel. In recent years the aid has been solely for military purposes.
In addition, the US has been funding many of Israel’s military projects such as the Iron Dome, a system designed to intercept incoming short-range missiles. Israel has received over $700 million in American funds for the missile system since 2011.
ICC Biased, Pro-Israeli
In June 2015, Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki submitted files on Israeli war crimes in the West Bank and Gaza to the International Criminal Court (ICC).
As expected , the ICC in November issued a pro-Israeli report on Preliminary Examination Activities casting doubts on the neutrality of its approach.
For instance, the office of the ICC prosecutor seems to provide a one-sided account of the events leading up to the latest major conflict in Gaza. It is stated: “In response to increasing rocket attacks, in 2007, Israel declared that Hamas had turned Gaza into “hostile territory” and took sanctions against Hamas, imposing restrictions on the passage of certain goods to Gaza and the movement of people to and from Gaza.”
The Palestinian Return Center (PRC) says the first problem here is the prosecutor’s decision to begin by stating, “In response to increasing rocket attacks”. While this is the official Israeli position, it cannot be considered a fair or a neutral account. It is ignoring the fact that violence erupting from Gaza is caused by decades of Israeli breaches of international law and colonial policies.
Resistance only option
With such a biased international justice system, continued resistance appears to be the only option left on the table to liberate Palestinians from Israeli atrocities, state sponsored terrorism and rights violations, which all escalated in recent days.
As long as the United States has leverage on the UN and other international bodies such as the ICC, nothing will change for Palestinians and only resistance can change the status quo.
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