Public Health Policy Reviews 9:
Israel, Gaza, and the Public Health Impact of US Foreign Policy in the Middle East – Part 1.
Palestinian families inspect the ruins of Aklouk Tower, destroyed in Israeli Defense Force (IDF) airstrikes in Gaza City on October 8th, 2023. Image courtesy of Wikipedia Commons.
NOTE: Nazia Saeed, a Human Resources professional living in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, contributed significant research and writing for parts of this article.
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At the end of 2019, one of the main contributors to Public Health Policy Reviews wrote and self-published his debut fiction novel, J-Villains.
J-Villains is the story of a small group of immigrant college graduate-level exchange students studying journalism at Columbia University in Manhattan, New York, in 2016 and 2017. The narrative of J-Villains features a young Muslim from Iraqi Kurdistan and a young Jewish former Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) member from Israel.
Digital advertisement for a literary presentation of J-Villains at Writers & Books in Rochester, New York, on May 11th, 2024.
Back in 2019, there was no way to know that many of the cultural themes and political issues addressed in the narrative of J-Villains would eventually dominate the international news cycle five years later.
The horrific attack in Israel by Hamas militants on an open-air music festival on Saturday, October 7th, 2023, was such a shock to the international community that most Western European and North American countries afforded Israel and the IDF license to do whatever they deemed necessary to destroy the terrorist organization.
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IDF soldiers as they were preparing for the ground invasion of Gaza on October 29th, 2023. Image courtesy of Wikipedia Commons.
However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the IDF have since directed an infinitely more terrifying military bombardment on the citizens of Gaza that has now killed tens of thousands more Palestinian civilians than Hamas murdered on October 7th.
Prime Minister Netanyahu’s stated reason for the IDF’s current offensive, which began on October 27th, was to “root out” Hamas terrorists from Gaza’s government, civilian infrastructure, and social life. However, the military campaign has led to the deaths of over 34,500 Palestinian civilians as of the posting date of this blog post.
Some international organizations like the UN Human Rights, UN Women, and Save the Children International estimate that up to seventy percent (70%) of those confirmed killed in Gaza have been women and children. Forced mass migration of Palestinian civilians to the southern regions of Gaza has created an international humanitarian disaster.
Hundreds of thousands of children, women, and non-combatant men continue to face death from indiscriminate Israeli bombing raids, sniper attacks from IDF soldiers, starvation, and disease.
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Israeli soldiers at a military staging area right before the ground invasion of the Gaza Strip in October 2023. Image courtesy of Wikipedia Commons.
The Gaza Strip is a densely populated enclave on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea and has long been a focal point of Middle Eastern conflict and Palestinian suffering.
The IDF is currently planning an all-out assault on Rafah, the southern region of the Gaza Strip, where most of the Palestinian refugees fled after Israel initiated the invasion in October. In addition, Israeli militants in illegal Jewish settler communities have intensified terrorist attacks on Palestinian civilians in the West Bank. The ongoing conflicts in Gaza and the West Bank are inflicting immense suffering on the civilian Palestinian population.
In this article and over the upcoming week, we will delve into the harrowing reality of how Israeli military actions have devastated the lives of innocent children, civilians, and vital civilian institutions in the Gaza Strip. What concerns us most as public health advocates are the indiscriminate bombing and IDF sniper attacks on children, women, non-combatant men, hospitals, schools, and civilian infrastructure.
Beyond the statistics and reports of infrastructure damage lie the human stories of pain, loss, and resilience.
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The Human Cost
An image of a wounded Palestinian infant at the overcrowded emergency ward of Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City following an Israeli airstrike on October 11th, 2023. Image courtesy of Wikipedia Commons.
Children and women are the primary victims of Israel’s invasion of Gaza.
The children in Gaza and their mothers who survived the invasion are being physically maimed and emotionally scarred by the unrelenting violence and mass displacement. The United Nations estimates that the IDF has killed two mothers for every hour of the war since October.
According to Oxfam International, the daily death rate in Gaza for civilians, children, and women has exceeded the daily death toll of any other major military conflict in the 21st century. Couple these morbid statistics with the 1,200 people killed and 240 children, women, and men taken hostage by Hamas on October 7th - and the situation in Gaza, the West Bank, and Israel is particularly dire.
Evidence of Hamas’ brutal use of rape as a weapon of war against adolescent and teenage girls in Israel on October 7th magnifies the horrifically historical rate at which children are being slaughtered and assaulted in the current conflict.
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Arab American voters in Michigan protested President Joe Biden’s campaign visit to the state in February 2024. The image is courtesy of the Al Jazeera YouTube page.
Families of the residents in Gaza in the US, Western Europe, and abroad are also suffering throughout the conflict.
Israeli families of hostage victims, Palestinians across the planet, international Muslims, and Arab Americans are mourning the loss of loved ones and expressing incandescent anger at politicians in the US, Canada, and Western Europe for their impotence in reining in the orgy of violence by the IDF.
No one knows what the long-term impacts of the unprecedented attacks on children and teenagers by the IDF will be. Children in Gaza, already amongst the poorest and least educated young people on earth, have had any semblance of innocence before October 2023, shattered by the harsh realities of war.
The psychological trauma inflicted on an entire generation of Palestinian children will have long-term consequences for the future of Gaza and the Middle East. When the attacks by Israel eventually subside, Palestinian families will struggle to rebuild their lives amidst the rubble.
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Wounded Palestinians received treatment on the floor at the overcrowded emergency ward of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on October 11th, 2023. Image courtesy of Wikipedia Commons.
Generations of children and young people in Israel are constantly taught to normalize the rampant death and violence inflicted upon Palestinian children or suffer in silence from the emotional toll of genocide and decades of militarism imposed by Israel’s leaders and US foreign policy.
But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the IDF, and the fifty-eight percent (58%) of Israeli citizens who support the attacks in Gaza want to make the prospects for Palestinians rebuilding the region after the end of the war impossible.
Amid the geopolitical tensions the armed conflict between Hamas and the IDF has created for “Western democracies” – the civilian infrastructure of Gaza – including hospitals and schools, has also suffered from utter devastation. The deliberate targeting of civilian institutions and building structures violates international law and principles of human rights, perpetuating the cycle of violence and suffering.
If the root causes of the Palestinian conflict remain unaddressed, the people of Gaza will continue to endure untold hardships and injustices.