Now on its 11th day, the war between Israel and Palestine is turning out to be an extremely lopsided one.
Hamas, the military arm of Palestine, launched an unprecedented attack on Israel on Saturday, October 7 with thousands of rockets fired into Israel from the Gaza Strip, killing 1,300 Israelis.
Hamas fighters also took a number of civilians hostage, not just Israelis but also those from other nationalities, including Filipinos.
Israel has responded with the most intensive air strikes of its 75-year conflict with the Palestinians.
Gaza authorities say 1,800 people have been killed; the United Nations says 400,000 people have been affected by Israeli air strikes on Gaza.
Israel has started a ground attack on Gaza with the Israel Defense Forces backed by 300,000 reservists supported by tanks and heavy artillery.
It has obtained “rock-solid” support from the United States, which is likely to take its side should the war escalate and involve other state actors.
Israel considers Hamas a terrorist organization that represents a clear and present danger to it and therefore must be completely obliterated.
And because the group is embedded among the population in the Gaza Strip, then Israel has said it has no choice but to do everything possible to root out Hamas members and supporters and use lethal force against them.
But Palestinian ambassador to the Philippines Saleh Mohammad takes a different view of the bloody conflict: ‘Israel’s actions have gone far beyond self-defense…There has to be a reaction from the world to [tell] Israel that what [they] are doing… has gone far away, far beyond [their] right to defend [themselves].
The Palestinian envoy has been quoted in news reports as saying the main cause of the war is Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories.
Hamas emerged, he explained, because of the absence of any hope of an independent state and a peaceful future for the Palestinian people: “You cannot just oppress people and keep them under your feet and expect that they will keep their mouth shut and they will not move.”
This raises the question: Which side is terrorist?
It is true that Hamas committed terrorism when its fighters targeted innocent Israeli civilians when they launched their attack.
But Israel also committed terrorism when it launched airstrikes that killed and wounded many innocent Palestinians and displaced them from their homes.
Be that as it may, the urgent task now is how to stop the fighting and avert a serious humanitarian crisis through peace talks possibly brokered by other countries.
The world should not stand idly by while more lives are lost as the two sides lunge at each other’s throats with all the resources at their command, with thousands of innocent civilians ending up as collateral damage.
The war must end—and soon— in a region where peace has remained elusive for far too long.