Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert often describes the crisis with Gaza as a “real war.” Indeed, the situation in the desert strip of land that is home to about 1.4 million Palestinians is war-like in many aspects. For weeks now Israel has been conducting land incursions and air strikes against targets throughout the beseged 360 sq km enclave which it has declared as “hostile entity” last September.

And more recently, it has decided to escalate its attacks on Gaza and tighten its blockade in retaliation against the sporadic firing of missiles on its southern-most towns. By the end of last weekend, more than 30 Palestinians were killed and hundreds injured as a result of the ongoing campaign.

But what is happening in Gaza is not war, no matter what the Israeli leadership is saying. How could it be when one of the most advanced armies in the world launches air and land strikes against a helpless enclave with no regular army, no functioning government and no access to humanitarian assistance?

Cut off from the rest of the world ever since a Hamas-led takeover against the Palestine National Authority last June, Gaza is not a sovereign country. And even though Israel has unilaterally withdrawn from the strip two years ago, technically that land is part of the occupied Palestinian territories. Israel’s responsibility as an occupier under the Geneva Conventions and international law cannot be sidelined or suspended. And regardless of its declared policy and underlining casus belli Israel’s actions in Gaza and the West Bank are nothing less than war crimes committed by an occupying power.

And yet, such stark violations of international law have failed to provoke the United Nations and its Security Council into taking a stand. The UN secretary-general’s reaction has been muted and shy. Ban-Ki Moon’s call on Israel to show restraint when the organization’s relief agencies were issuing warnings of an impending humanitarian catastrophe is a blatant insult to everything that the UN stands for.

What is happening in Gaza goes beyond collective punishment. It is state terrorism that is both deliberate and calculated and, worse of all, it is actually condoned by Washington. To call it war adds to the irony. Gaza’s rudely manufactured missiles cannot be equated with Israel’s potent missiles and firepower. The casualty tally on both sides is inequitable by any standard. And regardless of the poor judgment that Islamist forces that are firing the missiles from Gaza are showing, nothing can justify Israel’s brutal response.

Gaza today symbolizes the failure by Arab and international communities in dealing with the most recent conflagration in Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Israel’s military option, pretending to be at war, will not solve the issue. Neither will an invasion and subsequent reoccupation of the beleaguered strip. The fact of the matter is that Gaza has become a political enigma for all parties. Its conquest will not solve the crux of the problem and leaving it as it is will not address the worries and concerns of the PNA and its Israeli partner in the peace negotiations.

It is another irony that, on the face of it, the short-term interests of the PNA and Israel with regard to Gaza do intersect. Since its expulsion from the strip last summer, the PNA has floundered in deciding on an adequate response. Revival of the peace process in Annapolis last November was supposed to undercut the Hamas position and weaken its stand. But as the negotiations fumbled, it became clear that Hamas’ hold on power in Gaza will not weaken any soon. To make things worse for Mahmoud Abbas’ PNA, Israel’s dithering and its refusal to halt its settlement activities stirred trouble in the West Bank, where the Fatah-backed Palestinian government continued to exercise symbolic control.

Gaza has become a gadfly for both the PNA and Israel. It is such meeting of short-term interests between the two opposites that has spelled doom for Gazans. Abbas finds himself in such a position that while he objects to Israel’s excessive use of force in Gaza, he cannot but hope that the Israeli operation will soon break the back of Hamas. Such duplicity of policies has never confronted a Palestinian leader before. But it does today, and it puts Abbas in an awkward position.

On the Israeli side, the war on Gaza serves a number of goals. It puts on hold any negotiations with the PNA while giving the troubled Ehud Olmert government a valuable lifeline. Already Israel is calling on helpless Abbas to honor his security commitments. But he has no authority over Gaza, thus his conundrum. So the peace negotiations are on hiatus while Israel settles scores with militants not only in Gaza but in the West Bank as well.

Such suspension of negotiations plays into Israel’s hands; it can continue to expand its illegal settlements in Jerusalem and in the West Bank while claiming to be busy fighting Palestinian militants. Such a policy underlines its reluctance to engage the Palestinians in meaningful negotiations aimed at reaching a just and lasting peace.

On the other hand, Hamas and other militant groups have adopted a myopic strategy that seems to be hurting them and innocent civilians in the enclave more than any one else.

With such tepid world reaction and hardened Israeli stance, the Gazans are sitting ducks before a ruthless military machinery that can deal powerful blows to them on a sustained basis. In the absence of pragmatic Arab and world response, it is up to the Palestinians to find a way out of this mess to mend fences and restore unity. No matter how difficult such a task is, the only path remaining before both the PNA and Hamas is to come together and close ranks. Waiting for outside intervention is useless and the residents of Gaza can only expect the worse in the coming days and weeks.

— Osama Al-Sharif is a veteran journalist and publisher based in Amman.