Sayed Waqar Ahmad Shah is the ambassador for the Center for Global & Strategic Studies (CGSS), Islamabad, and the director of PPS.
Netanyahu’s Goal
A ceasefire is the only way to protect civilians and stop Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s use of their lives as a card for blackmail. Netanyahu once again admits that he is waging a diplomatic battle with the world to obtain more time to achieve the goals of the war. He continues to issue threats to invade Rafah without presenting a realistic plan to protect civilians and secure their basic humanitarian needs.
Whether this is to gain leverage in the negotiations to release the hostages or achieve his goals in the war of extermination, the ultimate result and his primary objective revolve around prolonging the conflict to maintain power and evade post-war scrutiny. All of his policies are racist colonialism par excellence, which he seeks to achieve at the expense of Palestinian civilians, their lives, their pain, and the future of their existence in their homeland.
Netanyahu is using the lives and souls of more than two million Palestinians, along with their children and women, as a bargaining chip and political blackmail in his attempts to absorb international and American pressures calling for an end to the war. He has continued to beat the drums of war in Rafah.
International Community’s Failure
Despite the calls for protecting civilians and ensuring their access to their needs, Netanyahu’s war has continued at an alarming pace. He has escalated the bombing of homes over the heads of their residents and committed massacres that can only be classified as genocide. Palestinians have been displaced gradually over the years, and now, they’re being displaced in one big operation. Around 2 million Palestinian citizens have been internally displaced after the destruction of their homes and their land. Palestine is now akin to an unlivable land.
Practically, Netanyahu initiated the bombing in Rafah despite international appeals, expressions of concern, and warnings regarding the worsening humanitarian catastrophe and the resulting tragedy from its invasion. The weak stance adopted by the international community in the face of the large-scale humanitarian catastrophe only represents the international inability to protect civilians whom Netanyahu may kill or has already killed.
The crisis in Gaza calls for a courageous and humanitarian international stance, through a binding resolution in the UN Security Council, to impose a ceasefire immediately. This is the only way to ensure the protection of civilians and the entry of aid to them in a sustainable manner. What is required is to liberate two million Palestinian civilians from the clutches of Netanyahu’s personal agenda.
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