Hussein Hoballah, Montreal
In a recent address to the House of Commons, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made comments regarding the worsening situation in the Middle East and called on Hamas to release the Israeli hostages right away. Trudeau also called on Israel to allow access of humanitarian aid to Gaza - a strip agonised by barbaric aggression and complete besiegement now that eleven days have passed since the war broke out. Though the PM found that it’s “imperative that this happens,” he seemed only concerned about the Israeli captives, overlooking -alongside other heads of state - thousands of Palestinians jailed by the Israeli occupation.
Months ago, the Commission of Detainees’ Affairs, a governmental organisation, alongside the non-governmental organisations of the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club, the Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association – Addameer, and Jerusalem’s Wadi Hilweh Information Centre, issued a report that shows the number of Palestinian detainees is currently 4,900, including 31 females, 160 underage children, and over a 1,000 administrative detainees, including 6 children and two women. Many among those have been detained for long. Some pregnant women have even given birth to their children in prison.
While addressing the MPs, Trudeau said, "Over a week ago, Canadians awoke to horrifying images coming out of Israel, after the terrorist organisation Hamas launched an attack of unspeakable brutality," adding, “Canada fully supports Israel's right to defend itself in accordance with international law and in Gaza, as elsewhere. International law, including humanitarian law, must be upheld by all. Even wars have rules."
At this point, we’d like to ask Canada’s PM what he thinks when Israel bombs residential buildings, killing entire families, and when Israel stops aid, electricity and water from reaching residents and hospitals. Is this how Israel defends itself? By brutal civilian-killing acts? Does our PM accept this?
Navi Pillay, Chair of the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, confirms in a report made (on Oct 16th) by the commission that “the damage and casualties caused by Israeli attacks.. constitute a war crime,” warning that “the prevention of entry of food and medical supplies into Gaza is a violation of international humanitarian law.”
Furthermore, it has been confirmed that the occupation forces have perpetrated 371 massacres, bombarding houses with families that hadn’t been warned at all, and thus wiping dozens of families off official civil records.
Jawad Al-Agha, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Public Works and Housing in the Gaza Strip, has confirmed that numerous neighbourhoods in the strip have been completely destroyed now that 10,500 residential units have been reduced to rubble.
We cannot forget that even before this mad war began, the Gazans had lived in an open-air prison for decades. None had openly condemned the abhorrent situation, and no action had been made by the international community to relieve their pain the way Israelis are cared for today!
How could one be prejudiced when examining what’s going on in the Middle East? Would Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant’s depiction of Palestinians as “human animals” mean they mustn’t be defended? Mustn’t Israeli terror be condemned by our PM? Mustn’t the racist pronouncements made by an Israeli minister be utterly condemned by Trudeau, his ministers and the Conservatives?
Besieged by the Israeli occupation, “Gaza is being strangled,” confirms UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini, who mentioned a couple of days ago that “there is not one drop of water, not one grain of wheat, not a litre of fuel that has been allowed into the Gaza Strip for the last eight days,” noting that “it seems that the world has lost its humanity.”
Lazzarini also warned that “the number of people seeking shelter in our schools and other UNRWA facilities in the south is absolutely overwhelming, and we do not have any more the capacity to deal with them.”
Well, though Trudeau’s request that humanitarian aid be allowed into Gaza is a good step, he hasn’t condemned those besieging, starving and killing the Gazans.
Eventually, we still remember well when the Lebanese resistance conducted an unannounced military operation on July 12th, 2006, captivating two Israeli soldiers to exchange them with those captivated in Israel’s prisons. Back then, Israel launched a savage, destructive war against Lebanon. For 33 days, civilians, houses of worship, infrastructure, hospitals, bridges and roads were targeted.
However, when a team of our community representatives met Jason Kenney (former Parliamentary Secretary of former PM Stephen Harper) to report to him that tragedies that had befallen Lebanon, Kenney chose to plainly stand by Israel no matter how severe its crimes were, and no matter whether they violated all human values and the international law.
As a community, we ask of Prime Minister Trudeau to avoid committing the Conservatives’ mistake. Therefore, we ask him to show a brave stance and refuse to see unarmed civilians getting besieged, targeted, displaced, starved and killed.
Photo credit : Aljazeera