By PETER YOUNG

The horrors happening in Gaza know no bounds. In what is still fundamentally a rules-based global order, despite the US president’s apparent efforts recently to dismantle it, there seems to be a general disbelief that the man-made humanitarian crisis in this small Palestinian territory can be taking place before the eyes of the world.

In the words of the BBC, everybody there is hungry. The harrowing scenes of malnourished people, particularly children, starving and even dying are captured on film and shown widely on TV screens. There is also evidence of people being killed trying to access food at aid distribution points. People ask how this can be allowed to happen in an interdependent civilised world.

Inevitably, there are differing views about who is responsible, who should be held accountable and what can be done about it. The old adage that a picture is worth a thousand words seems never to have been so applicable. Quite simply, the evidence of the shocking events is staggering. Some of the scenes are so horrifying that, reportedly, many people cannot bear to watch the heart-wrenching TV footage. But they urge their leaders to take meaningful action to alleviate the overwhelming suffering.

The UN – with its secretary general calling the situation a “moral crisis that challenges the global conscience” – and its aid agencies like the World Food Programme (WFP) and UNWRA (UN Relief & Works Agency), together with bodies like Medecins sans Frontieres, are weighing in with their own warnings about catastrophic levels of malnutrition. The WFP is saying that the crisis has reached a “new and astonishing level of desperation” and it warns that up to 500,000 people in Gaza are expected to face “catastrophic hunger” by September, barely two months away. It also claims that about 70,000 children and 17,000 mothers need urgent treatment now for acute malnutrition.

At first sight, it appears that, in accordance with international law, Israel as the occupying power has responsibility to protect the civilian population from hunger and starvation. Its armed forces, the IDF, invaded the Gaza Strip following the horrific atrocities, including the murders of some 1,200 Israelis, committed by Hamas on October 7, 2023. Since Israel controls entry of all supplies into Gaza, many commentators maintain that it must bear full responsibility for the massive shortages of food and other aid.

To the man in the street, that conclusion should anyway follow logically from the recent diatribe by British foreign secretary, David Lammy, who, using inflammatory language, said he was “sickened and appalled” by the “grotesque targeting of starving Palestinians”. He insisted that the continuing catastrophe was all the fault of Israel, and of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu personally.

Voters in the UK might reasonably assume that Lammy, in his official position, is privy to information that is not in the public domain. Further, they might be reinforced in the view that governments know more than others after reading the recent joint statement by 27 countries, including Britain, France, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, demanding that Israel should lift alleged restrictions on aid and allow the humanitarian non-governmental organisations to do their work. Thus, without information from all sources it is hard for individual commentators to offer valid comment.

But there are nonetheless a number of pointers about where responsibility lies. It is also worth noting that Lammy’s extreme reaction might be partly motivated by inherent opposition to Israel within the ruling Labour government. With that in mind, it is interesting to see that, according to the most recent reports in the UK, more than 200 Labour MPs have written to prime minister Starmer urging recognition of a Palestinian state.

Alarmingly, with so much conflicting information it is hard for unofficial observers to know what to believe. According to most recent Israeli reports, drone footage from Gaza showed around 950 UN food trucks rotting on the Gaza side of the main crossing for the UN agencies concerned to pick up and distribute. Delving a little into the recent history, it is clear that at some point UNWRA suspended its operations after repeated theft of its aid supplies by Hamas which allegedly profited by reselling it in order to help fund its attacks on Israel. There have also been reports of UNWRA working hand in glove with jihadis, and this led to the US and Israel setting up an alternative aid distribution scheme called the Gaza Humanitarian Fund.

There have also been nasty, highly charged and inflammatory accusations that Israel has lured people to aid distribution sites in order to shoot them. But such a grotesquely absurd notion has been dismissed as being anyway inherently implausible because it must be obvious to all that Israel would have absolutely nothing to gain from such terrible action, and a tremendous amount to lose in the propaganda war.

At the time of writing over the weekend, Israel is now allowing a “limited” amount of aid back into Gaza after nearly three months of allegedly preventing it. New corridors have been opened up for such aid to be delivered by the UN and other international NGOs. Israel is also allowing airdrops of aid by Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, though these are considered by traditional aid suppliers to be limited, restricted and potentially dangerous, even if better than nothing.

None of the above can justify Israeli actions in allowing – or at least contributing to – starvation in Gaza, but perhaps there is a need to explain better some of the difficult circumstances; for example, the plain fact that, rather than protecting its own people, Hamas as a terrorist organisation is focused on perpetuating the conflict for its own ends.

The controversy over these terrible humanitarian issues should not, of course, divert attention from the broader and more complex challenges raised by the Gaza crisis as a whole, not least arranging a ceasefire and, later, the possible creation of a Palestinian state. There is general agreement that it remains incumbent on Western governments to bring some sense of balance and proportion to this intractable problem.

I have written further about the issue in a separate piece in today’s column.

Attitudes toward Israel changing

It could be concluded from a study of the current humanitarian crisis in Gaza (see separate article on this page) that Israel might be running out of friends. Allies, who supported it after the horrors of the murderous Hamas attacks on Israel in October, 2023 resulting in the deaths of 1,200 mainly Israeli citizens and the taking of 251 hostages, are said now to condemn Israel’s conduct in Gaza. Even its most important ally, President Trump, is said to be losing patience with Prime Minister Netanyahu after his recent bombing of Damascus.

The recent joint statement by the foreign ministers of 27 Western countries (see above), criticising in strong terms the nature and extent of civilian suffering and failure of the aid programme, can have left no one in any doubt about the seriousness of the situation and the change of attitude by so many countries. “The suffering of civilians in Gaza has reached new depths”, the statement concluded.

It seems that even though, at the beginning, many people sympathised with Netanyahu’s aim to annihilate Hamas as a terrorist group, the wanton destruction of entire towns in a manner that has been disproportionate to the threat and risk to the Israelis has caused considerable concern and opposition. Netanyahu and his former defence minister are subject to arrest warrants by the International Criminal Court for the war crime of starvation as a weapon of war. They are also subject to a legal process at the International Court of Justice which has issued an advisory opinion that found Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories to be unlawful.

Whatever the mitigating circumstances about Hamas’s actions as a terrorist organization that have prompted strong Israeli action – including videos of Hamas rounding up recipients of US and other aid and controlling, intimidating or torturing their own people – the evidence also suggests that large numbers of Palestinians have been killed while seeking aid or denied essential humanitarian assistance.

Nevertheless, a point that seems to have been overlooked or deliberately ignored is that the source of the figures being used throughout the conflict for dead and wounded Palestinians is said to be the local Ministry of Health which is part of Hamas as the de facto governing body. With the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) occupying Gaza for nearly two years and seeking out and destroying Hamas as an organisation, some people find it hard to believe that any part of the Hamas government is in a position to produce accurate figures of this sort – even if they rely on information coming from hospital morgues.

Observers are now saying that in practice it will be impossible for Israel to destroy Hamas completely because, as soon as one terrorist is eliminated, another will come forward. But it is hard to believe that Israel’s military occupation has not been more effective in severely limiting Hamas’s activities – for, although it has a population of over two million, the Gaza Strip is only about 25 miles long and some seven miles wide, similar in size to New Providence. There now appears to be evidence that Hamas has been willfully disrupting aid supplies destined for Palestinians and that as a terrorist body it has mounted a campaign of tyranny over its own people.

Most in the West consider that the only way forward in the Arab/Israel dispute is a two-state solution. But Israel currently does not support the idea, and Hamas refuses to recognise Israel. So France’s announcement that it will recognise a Palestinian state in September looks to be primarily about grandstanding. As for Britain, prime minister Starmer is faced with a demand from his own backbenchers to do likewise. But, in the published view of a recent British ambassador to Washington, this may not be the right time for the UK to play this card since it will be seen as rewarding terrorism and not necessarily improve the chances of a long-term peace settlement in the Middle East.

Trouble in South-East Asia

It is probably a fair bet that people who follow developments in the current major conflicts around the world like the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East will not even be aware of a smouldering border dispute between Thailand and Cambodia. Indeed, why should they show interest in a remote, but armed, controversy like this when it is impossible to keep up with the numerous current world conflicts even if, for whatever reason, they were minded to do so. But, since the purpose of this column is to throw light on and explain international developments, it might be worth mentioning this, not least because of the indirect China connection.

Under ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, relations between its member states have remained generally peaceful over the years. There is a long-running war in Myanmar but this is considered an internecine conflict, and it may be significant that the country has been embroiled in armed conflict since 1948 when it gained independence from Britain.

A little research shows that the dispute between Thailand and Cambodia, which share a long border, dates back to colonial days when frontiers in the region were drawn up following the French occupation of Cambodia. There have been sporadic skirmishes over the years, but new fighting broke out last week after Thailand claimed that Cambodia’s military deployed drones to conduct surveillance of Thai troops near the border.

It has been reported that more than thirty soldiers and civilians have been killed and many nationals from both countries displaced. But, with the help of the Malaysian government, peace talks are now taking place. The two sides have agreed to an “immediate and unconditional” ceasefire in an effort to resolve these deadly border clashes.

The main threats to the security of ASEAN nations are apparently natural disasters, terrorism, sea piracy, transnational crimes and climate change. But, reportedly, the countries involved are also worried about maritime disputes in the South China Sea. It is also self-evident that there are concerns about the broader US-China rivalry that could lead to them, at some point, having to take sides.