September 29, 2024 Essay: Humanitarian Crises Facing the Palestinians
As the war in Gaza approaches its first anniversary, the nation of Israel continues to confront significant threats to its security while the Palestinian people are suffering through three humanitarian crises.
The scale of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is difficult to capture. Before the war, 2.2 million persons lived in the 140 square miles that is Gaza—an area roughly the size of Las Vegas. Of these 2.2 million persons, just under half were children. More than 1.3 million Gazans, including some 600,000 children, have been displaced. Clean water, food, medical supplies and medical services, and housing are all now inadequate to meet the needs of the civilian population. In addition, health crises are multiplying due to the lack of proper sanitation, the conditions in which persons are forced to live, and the inability to secure adequate food. Responding to the humanitarian crisis has been made difficult by the fact that Hamas operates within the civilian population and infrastructure which often results in Israeli military actions that exacerbate the humanitarian crisis. Israel has also not prioritized provision of aid to the civilian population. Its stringent inspection requirements of humanitarian aid, the limited access points for such aid, and attacks on aid convoys transiting the West Bank, have all made it extraordinarily difficult for international relief organizations to assist the people of Gaza.
A second humanitarian crisis impacting the Palestinians is the treatment of Palestinians in detention. Israeli Defense Forces established a detention center at its Sde Teiman base, near Be’er-Sheva in the southern Israeli desert, to hold captured militants as well as civilians they had taken into investigative custody. These civilians, ranging in age from teenagers to persons in their seventies, are held at this facility until they are either released or transferred to Israeli prisons. Numerous reports, including a whistleblower report from an Israeli doctor, have revealed harsh and abusive conditions that have led to the deaths of some of the civilian detainees. In Israel itself, civilian prisons are now overpopulated largely due to the influx of Palestinian detainees. The National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, boasts of having worsened the conditions for Palestinians in custody. In response to criticism of these conditions, Ben-Gvir replied, “Everything published about the abominable conditions of Palestinians in Israeli jails was true.” It has to be noted that not all the Palestinians in Israeli prisons have been convicted of crimes. Some are administrative detainees who have neither been charged with a crime nor granted a trial. They and their lawyers are prevented from seeing evidence against them. The conditions of Palestinian detainees in the military and civilian systems have contributed to a rise in militancy among the Palestinians.
A third humanitarian crisis facing the Palestinians is the worsening conditions in the West Bank. While Palestinians there have long had to deal with attacks from Israelis living in West Bank settlements, the scope and the violence of those attacks has increased dramatically since the October 7th assault on Israel by Hamas. In addition, Israeli and Palestinian human rights organizations report that under Israeli Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, who also holds a portfolio in the Defense Ministry, land seizures, building permits for Israeli settlers, and illegal settlements have all increased. Smotrich has declared publicly, “We will continue to fight the dangerous idea of a Palestinian state.”
Israel has the right to defend itself against terrorist organizations including Hamas and Hezbollah. The United States rightly supports Israel in its efforts to defend itself against these organizations both of which have shown a callous indifference to civilian suffering and death—both among Israelis and within their own populations. Yet, we also have an obligation to hold the Israeli government to account when it violates fundamental human rights. To do otherwise, is to contribute to the crises impacting the Palestinians that serve to further destabilize an already volatile region.
— Fr. Mark Hallinan, S.J., Associate Pastor