Cease-fire Now

After the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack that killed more than a thousand people in Israel and took about 200 hostages, Israel responded with understandable and justifiable rage, taking military action in self-defense. No justification for Hamas’s action is possible.

Today Israeli bombs fall on all of Gaza. The Hamas terrorists came from Gaza, but Gaza is more than Hamas, and Gaza civilians must be protected under international and humanitarian law.

The Gaza Strip is tiny— 25 miles long and from three and a half to seven and a half miles wide. The total land area of the Gaza Strip is 141 square miles, less than the 170 square mile land area of Ramsey County. Two million people live in Gaza. Almost half of them are children. If you forced the entire population of Hennepin County to move into Ramsey County, the county would still be less densely populated than Gaza.

Israel warned residents in northern Gaza to move to the southern part of Gaza. Even those civilians who managed to move from northern to southern Gaza after Israeli warnings are not safe. A Minnesota nursing professor and his wife are mourning the deaths of five relatives in southern Gaza. 

[Star Tribune] “Abumousa’s five relatives were killed by consecutive rockets that hit the family’s home in the Khan Younis refugee camp about noon Sunday. They included Abumousa’s sister-in-law Heba, 42, her sister-in-law’s two sons, ages 8 and 18, another 6-year-old nephew, and a 43-year-old cousin. At least eight others in the home were injured.  …

“The cousin who died, Hani Madhoun, had fled northern Gaza and was staying at the house. He was downstairs when the first bomb hit and had rushed upstairs to check on the injured when he was killed by a second bomb.

“Adwan, 54, said he’s angered by the bombing because it was in the south, where Israel had instructed Gazans to flee to avoid additional attacks.

“’It’s like a fish tank, and you’re just shooting through, knowing, more probable than not, you’re going to harm civilians, and that is a war crime,’ he said.” 

A cease-fire will save civilian lives. Minnesota Jewish and Muslim leaders, a growing number of Congressional representatives, thousands of marchers led by Jewish Voices for Peace at the U.S. Capitol, and the U.N. Secretary Generalhave all called for a cease-fire. 

Israel’s goal eliminating Hamas terrorism is legitimate. But both “rules of war” and common humanity set limits on the tactics that may be used. Congressman Jamie Raskin’s powerful statement describes the anguishing choices:

“Israel has the indisputable right under international law to engage in military self-defense against this explosion of mass terrorist violence. It may act to stop and repel the violence, completely secure its borders and people, and disarm and neutralize Hamas, a terrorist organization which has openly targeted Israel for “obliteration” since 1988 when, as a new terror group fusing Nazi and Islamist ideas, it published its Covenant advocating Jihad against the Jewish people and destruction of the Jewish state. …

“A just war undertaken in self-defense must be prosecuted justly, according to international and humanitarian law, the central purpose of which is the protection of civilian life from military violence. The more than two million Palestinians essentially trapped in miserable and vulnerable conditions in the densely packed Gaza Strip, nearly half of them children, have a right to be kept safe from the terrorist violence of Hamas and from the Israeli military campaign launched in response to it. The Palestinian people are not responsible for the criminal actions of Hamas terrorists …

“Under international law, innocent civilians may never be targeted in a military campaign, … and state armies and militaries must take great precautions to keep civilians safe during the course of battle.”

Not all Palestinians are Hamas. Not all Gazans are Hamas. Far from it. Yasmine Mohamed wrote eloquently about her Gaza born and raised father’s long opposition to Hamas, and about the continuing need to distinguish between Hamas from Gaza. 

“To throw all Gazans in the same bucket as Hamas is a grave insult — one that people on both sides of the political spectrum are committing.

“Many people on the left, for example, conflate Hamas with all Palestinians and then deem them all the oppressed — the minority group, the victims, the besieged. Hamas is happy with this misguided and confused perspective because it allows the group to hide under the umbrella of “oppression” to justify its violence. It would rather, of course, be seen as freedom fighters than terrorists.

“Among the hard right, many people are conflating Palestinians with Hamas to justify the flattening of Gaza. While cutting power and water to civilians violates international law, cutting water and electricity to terrorists is justified, according to that line of thinking.

“The truth is, Hamas is not Gaza, and Gaza is not Hamas. Gaza is an area of land with people who are trying to do the best that they can to survive under abysmal circumstances.”

Along with her parents, brother, sister-in-law, and nieces, 26-year-old journalist Jamileh Tawfiq moved to southern Gaza after Israeli warnings to evacuate. The UN compound where they landed is dirty and overcrowded. Food is rationed, water is difficult to find and running out. 

And they are still not safe. Tawfiq is a journalist, committed to her reporting, but even if she wanted to leave, there’s no way out. 

[The Guardian] “The Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate says 17 media workers have been killed in Gaza since the airstrikes began, with 20 more injured. The Committee to Protect Journalists says 21 have died in total as of Friday morning, with three Israeli reporters dead and a Reuters journalist killed in southern Lebanon. …

“’The explosions are relentless,’ she says, explaining that she was trying to continue her work as a television news anchor but limited internet and frequent attacks made her work difficult.

“’No one knows what is going to happen next. It feels as if they are trying to control our fates; they even made us leave our homes, not knowing if we can ever return. We’re trying to stay alive, but we don’t have hope any more.

“’We are destroyed from the inside, and even if this ends, I don’t think life will ever be normal again. That’s one of the reasons I want to keep reporting – I want people to understand.’”

The effort to understand requires facing painful and difficult facts, about the long history of Israel and Palestine, about the difference between Hamas and Gaza, and about the demands of justice and humanity.