Local

Understanding Israel-Palestine history: 25,000 civilians killed in Palestine

By Kelcey Norris Mahoning Matters

Updated January 30, 2024 12:15 PM

Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect

According to the United Nations, 25,000 civilians in the Gaza Strip have been killed by Israeli bombs and gunfire.

This number does not take into account those lives lost in the rubble and destruction in Gaza.

Over 62,000 Palestinians have also been injured by Israel Defense Services, according to the UN.

WFP's Ayman explains the situation in #Gaza today is unlike any other war he has witnessed in his city.

Still, he’s on the ground every day, ensuring that assistance reaches families. pic.twitter.com/XWCSYsDvDK
— World Food Programme (@WFP) January 21, 2024

The UN said Israel claimed killing 25,000 people was a defense against Hamas-led massacres in Israel that left 1,200 people dead.

“Israel’s military operations have spread mass destruction and killed civilians on a scale unprecedented during my time as Secretary-General,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres.

Guterres continued by saying the mass killing is “heartbreaking and utterly unacceptable” and urged the UN to “do all we can to prevent conflict from igniting across the region.”

Additionally, over a million people are displaced within Gaza and 335 people have been killed while displaced by Israeli soldiers.

But now, countries and international organizations are stepping in to stop Israel and charge the nation with criminal actions against Palestine.

The International Court of Justice ordered Israel to “take all measures within its power to prevent acts of genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip,” according to NBC and the Institute for Middle East Understanding.

Meet Suhad Hadi

The ICJ did not call for a ceasefire, which Suhad Hadi, president of the Arab-American Community Center of Youngstown, said needs to happen.

The ICJ did call for greater restraint on Israel and the killings/bombings. The ICJ also gave legitimacy to the accusation of genocide made by South Africa with the intention for further investigation and action to follow.

Hadi is a first-generation Palestinian-American whose parents were born in Palestine.

Her father was a refugee at 10 years old during the 1948 Nakba, and both her parents were later displaced again during the 6-Day war in 1967.

She shared her perspective with Mahoning Matters on what led up to the mass killing and displacement of Palestinians in Gaza.

“Nobody’s justifying 1,200 deaths,” said Hadi,” but when people look at the flip side of it, if somebody blocked you from getting the food you needed, the water you needed, didn’t let you travel outside your borders, didn’t let you travel six miles into the Mediterranean, didn’t let you cross the border didn’t let you fly, didn’t let you leave, and you only have what was in front of you everyday for 17 years... I think people would also resist.”

75 years: Understanding the context of conflict

According to Hadi, the conflict didn’t begin on Oct. 7; it’s been 75 years of escalating conflict and oppression.

Hadi’s main message to the global community is to learn and understand the background and 75 years of military occupation and apartheid that led up to the recent escalation.

Apartheid is a severe form of oppression and systematic control of one group by another based on race and ethnicity, and it’s prohibited by international law.

In 2021, Human Rights Watch said Israeli authorities “are committing the crime of apartheid against Palestinians,” according to the UN.

The Human Rights Watch also found the Israeli government has committed” grave abuses against Palestinians in the occupied territory” in Gaza and the West Bank.

Hadi’s further adds to her message to the community: learn the background and 75 years of history that’s led up to today, but also understand the role of Zionism in the movement.

“We held a Q&A session at our Arab American Community Center in Youngstown late in October after this started for people to learn about Palestine,” said Hadi. “I encourage people to reach out. A lot of people don’t know Palestinians; people are surprised when they find out I’m Palestinian. I encourage taking advantage of these forums, or go to a protest and talk to someone.”

Zionism vs. Judaism

Hadi first wants to stress the difference between Zionism and Judaism.

She also wants to emphasize being critical of Israel’s political actions as a country is not anti-Semitic.

Zionism is a political movement backed by the Israeli government government and supported by many Western governments including the U.S.

“We have heard many politicians state that “you do not have to be Jewish to be Zionist, validating the political backing of a movement, not the religion,” said Hadi.

Zionism is the desire to “establish the Jewish people a publicly and legally assured home in Palestine,” according to writings from Theodor Herzl, founder of the movement in 1896.

“If you read the Zionist manifesto, the goal is to cleanse the land of its indigenous people and openly stating that they cannot have a land with the Arabs...They have to start fresh, a pure race, pure Jewish, and they didn’t want the Palestinians there,” said Hadi.

It’s the belief that all Jewish people have a right to live in the “Biblical homeland,” according to the Jewish Virtual Library.

The land Zionists want all Jewish people to live in is where Palestinians have lived for centuries, and families have established homes for generations. Hadi said this was well before the immigration of Jews after WWII and the subsequent military, Israeli occupation after the Nakba of 1948.

“The one thing my parents instilled in us was the understanding of the difference between Judaism and Zionism. And they always made that clear, when we were here and when we visited Palestine. Don’t be mad at the Jewish people or their religion; instead be critical of the Zionist movement. That was one thing, even while we sat at a checkpoint, even while we sat in the airport, they made that very clear,” said Hadi. “A lot of countries fed into this movement, including the United States, Britain, Canada, France, allowing [Israel] to come into a greater power. And eventually the Western powers provided Israel and this Zionist movement with military arsenal.”

Some Jewish people do not support the political Zionist movement and are calling for a ceasefire, groups like Breaking the Silence and the Jewish Voice for Peace.

Palestinians’ “made refugees in their homeland”

With the support of other countries, Israeli military forces moved in 1948.

“In 1948, the Zionist movement felt it was now time; they felt they had the strength...the support to take over land,” said Hadi.

Israeli military forces displaced 750,000 Palestinians as part of the Zionist movement in 1948 in what is known as the Palestinian Nakba, or “catastrophe.”

“Now my father was 10 years old in the 1948 Nakba. His village, along with over 200 other villages were destroyed and 750,000 people were displaced. The Zionist movement and the occupying forces relocated Palestinians to Gaza in a purposely created move making it one large refugee camp for a people displaced in their own homeland. When Palestinian people were taken out of these villages in 1948, if they escaped, and if they weren’t killed and murdered, they were sent to the Gaza Strip area, or they crossed the borders over into Jordan, and other neighboring countries. These people were made refugees in their own homeland,” said Hadi, an intentionally-created refugee area.

Hadi said her father told her and her eight siblings stories of being in the refugee camp.

“It’s like somebody’s telling you about the World War and what they experienced, or they’re telling you about Vietnam, you hear the stories but cannot comprehend the brevity of it. But here we are in 2024, and now those stories have come to life for us, because what we’re seeing happen in Gaza now, if I think back, it is relative to the stories my father shared with me about the Nakba. Now I’m horrified knowing that this is what my dad lived through at 10 years old, what these kids are struggling with today.”

After the displacement, the occupation continued with the Six Day War in 1967, which resulted in Israel’s “control of the entirety of Jerusalem, the Sinai Peninsula, Golan Heights and the Gaza Strip.”

According to Amnesty International, “more than 70 years later, Israel still denies Palestinian refugees their right to return to their land.” There are over 5 million refugees who live in Palestine and are now displaced in other countries such as Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (the West Bank and Gaza).

“The denial of the right to statehood for the Palestinian people would indefinitely prolong a conflict that has become a major threat to global peace and security, exacerbate polarization and embolden extremists everywhere,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said.

According to the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, Israel has officially occupied Palestine since 1967. Citizens in Palestine either stayed under Israeli occupation or fled their new homes in Gaza.

“That’s the war that my parents had to leave in, and they came to the United States,” said Hadi. “At this point, my father’s gone through his second event where he has been made a refugee. I’m first generation Palestinian, and I have eight siblings. Seven of us are first generation here, two born overseas in Palestine. We’ve always grown up with the vision that we have the right to return [to Palestine]. People have their land, their houses; my parents have a home there, and like many who immigrated, they hold their keys, they hold their land deeds in hopes that they’ll go back.”

According to Hadi, the right of Palestinians to come home after the war was never honored. Instead, Israel encouraged Jewish people from around the world including the U.S. and Europe to go to the “new homeland.”

“I’m over 50 years old, and there has been no return for those Palestinians. People travel back, they return [temporarily] but don’t get to claim everything that was theirs. Then more land was taken, and now we have the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. What people don’t realize is that was an intentional separation of the Palestinian people as a way to isolate the two groups and have them separate from each other. This allows for manipulation of one people divided in an effort to control the agenda of occupation and land theft. The separation was intended to weaken the Palestinian people, make them more vulnerable and compliant in the face of military occupation and land theft, however this did not happen.”

“Occupation breeds resistance”

Uprisings, also known as “intifadas,” happened in two waves in 1987 and 2000; there were peaceful demonstrations and civil disobedience at first, but tensions escalated.

“Every time there has been a retaliation by the Palestinians, 1. they have become further dehumanized as terrorists and 2. people don’t see the event that preceded it, that triggered the retaliation,” said Hadi. “They talk about Oct. 7, but forget about the 17 years that precede when Gaza was under complete blockade, and that eventually people will resist. There’s a lot of people with PTSD in the area; there’s a lot of poverty; there’s a lack of food, resources and employment. A lot of the Gazans from the younger population, are saying ‘We’re literally living to die. If we can’t have access to these things, what are we living for?’ So you fight to regain your dignity, your humanity and to sustain life. I just don’t know why people can’t reflect back on the last 17 years and they keep focusing on Oct. 7. Nobody justifies 1200 people dead in Israel. But there are 17 years of people, you know, going through similar things, and nobody wants to acknowledge that piece of it.”

Israel controlled how much food was coming into the city.

The occupation is at every level, not just military.

“They’ve had the Palestinians on a caloric diet, where they received a level of nutrition, but never beyond what Israel allowed and wanted them to have. So they even regulated how much food went into the Gaza Strip, how much access to food they had,” said Hadi. “A phrase that we hear often is occupation breeds resistance. The more you militarily occupy people, the more you restrict them, the more you take away from them, the basic human needs and necessities of life, the more you’re going to see a resistance from that population. I believe that was what we witnessed on Oct. 7: the last straw on the camel’s back of 17 years of a siege and blockade obstructing the basic human requirements for life. I want to say, and I believe the Palestinians were just fed up with the occupation.”

Since Oct. 7, over 25,000 citizens have been killed by Israel, and over 1.2 have been displaced in Gaza.

“Now you have the 2.3 million population confined to half of what the Gaza Strip was in relocating them to South Gaza. And if you want to think of the size of the Gaza Strip, it’s compared to the size of Detroit, Michigan,” said Hadi. “The death toll is over 30,000. At this point, you’ll hear numbers like 25,000 and 27,000, not taking into account the lives that are lost and not found under the rubble. So over 30,000, and unfortunately, half of those deaths are children. I don’t even know how people justify that as collateral damage. I don’t know how people justify that one of the most sophisticated militaries in the world, in order to find Hamas, needs to carpet bomb and kill 15,000 children. It’s illogical, it is reckless and by international law, a blatant crime. It is uncalled for and should be punished.”

What needs to happen now?

“The [only way to get to] meaningful, substantial peace in the region is a permanent ceasefire and an end to the occupation,” said Hadi. “People need to be granted the right to return, [Israel has to] honor the land deed. But we have to start first with the permanent ceasefire and the end to the occupation, and giving back the sense of human decency to the Palestinians and stop dehumanizing them. I think that’s the only way we are going to find a peaceful resolution. That’s in the hands of the powers that be, the political powers that are funding the Zionist movement but it is also in our voices and we must continue to speak against the Zionist occupation for a free Palestine.”