Seek a political solution to the Gaza calamity

The complete destruction of Hamas promised by Israel is a very difficult goal to realise. It will require a particularly intense military campaign with no guarantee of results but casualties.

Thousands of people are dead and more than a million others displaced amid considerable destruction, risking humanitarian disaster.

Such is the reality in Gaza Strip. The ravaging war has hit a territory that has been under blockade for over a decade, where 60 per cent of the population live below the poverty line and water and power supplies are rare.

And the massive Israeli military offensive gains momentum daily, three weeks after the massacres—the worst in decades in their scale and barbarity—perpetrated by Hamas on October 7. But the way Israel is exercising its right to defend its citizens is threatening the very principles that distinguish it from terrorism.

The bombing and displacement of thousands in the conflict will definitely not distinguish Palestinian civilians from militants because Israel and its allies are already lamenting and accusing Hamas of blending with the ordinary Gazan population. How can underground military infrastructure be destructed without simultaneously destroying hundreds of homes?

A trap is inexorably closing in on Israel. The shock created by the Jewish state’s inability to protect its citizens, Tel Aviv’s raison d’être, has led the authorities to recklessly push a maximalist objective of annihilating the radical Hamas. But such show of force is bound to multiply the risk of Israel going too far, which will weaken its position, including with the newfound Arab ‘friends’, states with which it had just established official relations.

Israel is not alone in this dilemma. The credibility of its Western allies, who have consistently portrayed themselves as uncompromising defenders of international law in Ukraine, is in peril. US President Joe Biden was compelled to urgently tour the Middle East, a sign of Washington’s concern on the possibility of escalated regional conflict.

But Biden’s October 18 visit got off to a bad start. Even before his arrival, a planned meeting with the leaders of Israel’s Arab neighbours was cut short. That followed a devastating explosion on October 17 in a refugee camp, for which the Palestinian militants and the Israeli army have traded blame.

No doubt, Biden was counting on the trip to deter Israel’s next possible reaction, Tel Aviv having already warned of the perils of a possible reoccupation of Gaza, and invited the Benjamin Netanyahu regime to respect the “laws of war”. But he knows from experience that this exhortation is meaningless in Gaza, where the same laws, just like humanitarian law, are constantly flouted.

Given the rising death toll, it is imperative to emphasize that the desire for vengeance is not the right goal of war and that the race toward the abyss should be halted. Politically.

- Mr Onyango is an advocate of the High Court of Kenya. [email protected].