Will the war on Gaza cause the exodus of Gazans to Europe?

What will our region, and even the world, look like after the occupying state ends its war in Gaza? The statistics available from the narrow enclave surrounded by 2.3 million Palestinians – 70% of whom are refugees from previous wars – are truly astonishing. During the first thirty-six days of the Israeli assault, under the guise of self-defense, more than 11,000 people were killed, thousands more were lost under the rubble, and 24,000 were injured. About 4,500 children were killed, 40% of homes and towers were destroyed or damaged, and 30,000 tons of explosives were piled up on barren, uninhabitable land. At least 50 journalists were killed, compared to 63 killed during the 20-year war in Vietnam. There is a long list of unimaginable and widespread tragedies. More than one million residents of Gaza have been displaced. There is no water, food, medicine, fuel, or safe area. This is truly a Palestinian tragedy.

Israel has rejected calls for a ceasefire and failed to implement a humanitarian truce to allow adequate aid to reach Gaza. According to Israeli officials, international pressure on the country to stop the war will increase during the next two or three weeks. Many people around the world responded and came out to demand an end to the war. Western officials do not want to listen.

In the opinion of many, this war is no longer to destroy the armed Hamas movement, but rather a war to eliminate it completely. Appeals from UN agencies, the International Committee of the Red Cross, Human Rights Watch and other NGOs were ignored. Israel is not only looking to avenge the massacres committed on October 7, but also wants to implement a game-changing strategy aimed at bringing down the foundations of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The goal is to return to the 1948 Nakba and start again from there.

The far-right partners of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are speaking openly about the need to restore the occupation of the Gaza Strip, forcibly transfer its residents and facilitate the construction of new Jewish settlements. They also say that what is happening in Gaza is a prototype of what will happen in the West Bank. Israeli analysts say that Netanyahu is too weak to restrain his extremist coalition partners. The religious Zionist movement is blackmailing Netanyahu as he tries to save his political career and cement his legacy.

Arab leaders have been crystal clear regarding the war crimes, genocide and ethnic cleansing committed by the invading Israeli army. They also explicitly pointed out the selectivity followed by the West in implementing international law. The United States blocked efforts by the UN Security Council to adopt a ceasefire resolution; this does not mean that Israel, which has a disastrous record at the United Nations, will respect it in any way.

So, in reality, no one knows how the war in Gaza will end. However, it will end at some point. Then the international community will have a chance to evaluate what the Israeli war machine has done. There will be tens of thousands of deaths and the number of injured and wounded will be horrific. Levels of destruction would be similar to those seen in German and Japanese cities after World War II. The humanitarian catastrophe will turn into a global nightmare for many years to come.

Netanyahu and his allies are using the Hamas attack on October 7 as a tool to wage a war of annihilation. There is no proportionality, restraint or respect for international humanitarian law and the rules of war. For the Israeli political authority, all residents of Gaza participate in the crime, including civilians. When Netanyahu speaks and repeats Talmudic verses, it suggests that they are allegations of mass murder, and people feel what their soldiers are doing. When American politicians say this is a religious war, people are disgusted and afraid of the repercussions of what Israel and its fanatical allies want to allow, which could lead to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians.

We have experienced more than we can handle in our bodies. So, the question arises: what will the next day look like? The Gaza war was a test of the new world order more than thirty years old, which George H.W. Bush announced after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In that period, the United States emerged as the world's sole superpower, promising something different from the Cold War years.

However, the world suffered during its rule. The United States targeted Arab and Islamic countries in a series of wars - most of the reasons behind which were false. Hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians were killed and the security situation in the Middle East worsened. Its policies have sparked religious and ethnic conflicts, encouraged extremists, and left the region in a state of division and devastation. Its legacy and its decades-long mistreatment of Palestinians are difficult to describe. The United States allowed Netanyahu to implement his destructive plans to suppress any remaining hope for a two-state solution. The impunity achieved by Netanyahu has become anathema to Palestinians and Israelis alike.

The region and the world cannot continue to operate as usual after the horrific war on Gaza and its consequences. The West says it will work on a two-state solution and create a Palestinian state immediately after the war ends. This is a false and incorrect confession, and whoever says this is either a fraud or a naive person, or both. The Israeli political community strongly opposes this proposal and its ideology. The two-state option is long gone.

The rules-based order, which the West has given us for so long, faces a big problem. How can the West talk about human rights and international law, while ignoring voices demanding impartial investigations into Israel's actions in Gaza? Will the United States and its allies allow the International Criminal Court to issue arrest warrants against Israelis and others suspected of committing war crimes, or supporting and facilitating such crimes, regardless of their political or material motives?

Will the Western world be able to hear the testimonies of tens of thousands of Gazans in an international court? Will an injured Palestinian child who lost his entire family in Israeli raids be allowed to testify in the US Congress?

The answer may, and in the vast majority of cases, be no. Consequently, the current multipolar world order will cease to exist.

It will take a multipolar world to save the impotent United Nations and the entire legal and humanitarian structures of the post-World War II era. This means that the Global South must participate in running the world. It also means that Russia and China must be active members of the new world order. But more importantly, Middle Eastern countries such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Iran must contribute to the safety and stability of the region.

It is unfortunate that China and Russia have limited themselves to empty rhetoric about the difficult situation in Palestine instead of providing more support. We have not yet witnessed the arrival of Russian and Chinese aid convoys to the people of Gaza. These two countries are missing a rare opportunity to confront Western pro-Israel rhetoric and Western bias toward it by supporting Arab and Islamic positions, as discussed at the Riyadh summit on Saturday, in addition to directing calls from millions in the West opposing those policies. – War and combating genocide.

The conflicts in Gaza have become a call to confront all unseemly injustices, from globalization to the corrupt Western political elites controlled by Zionism. This popular momentum must not be ignored or marginalized. Accordingly, its development should no longer be an individual call, but rather a collective call to establish a new world order in which justice and accountability apply to all.

The alternative appears depressing: a world in which no one enjoys law abiding by Israel's record and with long-standing impunity. This scenario should never be allowed to happen. The area must be considered toxic.

Source: Aqlam Horrra