Editor’s note: This is the first of two articles on the Israel-Hamas War.
The University of Texas System, in a recently issued memorandum, has suspended all university-related travel to Israel, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank until further notice. This is due to an escalating conflict and humanitarian crisis in the region.
In the same memorandum, the UT System also considered suspending travel to Jordan and Lebanon, with special approval being required for any university travel to those countries.
The decision was made after careful consideration by the UT System and by the International Oversight Committee, a UT System-affiliated department that oversees international travel made on behalf of UTRGV.
Edith Galy, an associate professor of international business and entrepreneurship and chair of the IOC, explained the committee’s decision to suspend travel to Israel, Gaza and the West Bank.
“We follow the UT System guidance, we get reports every single day of what is happening,” Galy said. “We also get reports from On Call [International], which is our travel insurance service.
“There’s war. That is a grave, grave concern. So, if there’s a war, of course, there’s going to be a travel ban. UT System is very concerned with everybody’s health. They’re very conservative. So not only the country … where war outbreaks or breaks out, [but] also all of the neighboring countries may be included in [the ban].”
This decision was made due to the ongoing conflict and humanitarian crisis in the region. There was already significant tension, which was exasperated when groups of Israeli settlers accompanied by Israeli police officers stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem.
Nicholas Kiersey, a political science professor at UTRGV, explained why the storming of the Al-Aqsa Mosque was a significant factor in the buildup to the crisis.
“[The storming of the mosque] was really seen as an egregious affront to the dignity of the Palestinian people,” Kiersey said. “It seems very clear that the events are connected–the storming of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the subsequent decision by Hamas to launch a very significant attack on Israel.”
Hamas is a Palestinian Islamic political party that has an armed wing of the same name, according to the Associated Press. Kiersey elaborated further.
“Palestinian people do not have a lot of political institutions, especially in Gaza, that they can turn to, to represent them because Israel will not allow them to have elections,” he said. “Hamas is an institution that does exist. It is a paramilitary organization as well as a theocratic ideological group. Hamas is by no means a perfect angel. In this conflict, it’s obviously like many other paramilitaries in these situations where a very small minority group with no power are fighting for autonomy and independence are often left forced to do awful things in order to get the world’s attention to their struggle and plight.”
On Oct. 7, the armed wing of Hamas launched an attack on southern Israel, which killed 1,403 Israelis, injured 4,629 and resulted in 203 people being taken hostage by the group, according to the Israeli army.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was warned ahead of time by Egyptian, American and its own intelligence that an attack was going to take place. However, it took over eight hours for the Israeli military to respond to the attack, according to the New York Times.
“Many people across the political spectrum have remarked on how significant the failure of the Israeli intelligence system was,” Kiersey said. “This was a major significant failure of Israeli intelligence. They did not see this coming. Thousands of Hamas operatives were involved in this very complex operation that involves simultaneous use of airpower, drones [and] infantry … They literally stormed security buildings in the actual state of Israel, you know, and so, the media has focused on the aspect of the controversy that is to do with the 250 young people that were dancing at a rave.”
In response, Israel immediately ordered a complete isolation of the Gaza Strip, cutting off all access to food, water, fuel, electricity and the internet.
They also immediately began a relentless bombing campaign, dropping 6,000 bombs on Gaza in a six-day span, more than it dropped during its 50-day invasion of the Gaza Strip in 2014.
This conflict has exasperated an already dire humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip. Almost 2 million people reside in the Gaza Strip, all in an area smaller than the City of Brownsville. Over 95% of its population has no access to clean water, and its population relies almost entirely on foreign aid for basic services. Due to the low life expectancy, half of the population of the Gaza Strip is under the age of 15.
“[Gaza]’s one of the most densely populated areas on planet earth,” Kiersey said. “All these people squished into a very small place with very few resources, very high unemployment, little or no access to clean running water. These people are refugees from the 1948 War [and] from subsequent conflicts in the region. They are descendants of people who have property, used to have property in Israel. They are no longer allowed to live there. They have no right of return, even though international law is supposed to offer refugees the right of return after a conflict has ended.”
The death toll in Gaza has been extensive. As of Oct. 19, over 3,785 Palestinians have been killed in the days since Oct. 7, including 1,524 children, and 12,493 have been injured, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
Hospitals, schools, residential buildings and United Nations facilities have not been spared, with hundreds of civilians killed Tuesday in an attack on the Al-Ahli Arabi Baptist Hospital in Gaza City.
Generators across the Gaza Strip are running out of fuel due to the blockade. These generators, typically found in hospitals and aid centers, are among the last places in the Gaza Strip with working electricity since Israel cut the power.
The Rider asked Kiersey about the humanitarian impact on civilians in Gaza.
“How do you even begin to answer that question?” he replied. “They’re having their lives destroyed; they’re being butchered. Two million people are being asked to relocate to the south and to leave Gaza. Right? They’re literally telling people … to leave this place. So that was so that Israel can literally bulldoze it, bomb it, carpet bomb it, shell it, attack it, blow it up, destroy it. They’re doing everything short of dropping a nuclear bomb on Northern Gaza right now. And as soon as they’re finished doing that, they’re going to ask everyone in the south to move north so that they can blow up the bottom part of Gaza. And after that, there’ll be no more Gaza. It’ll be destroyed.”
Israel agreed to allow aid to enter the Gaza Strip after increasing international pressure. Before this, the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, which is one of the only ways in and out of the Gaza Strip, had been the target of Israeli airstrikes. Trucks have been lining up for several days waiting to deliver vital aid to Gaza, and now they are being allowed to deliver it.
“The aim is to get over 100 trucks of aid distributed per day,” Dr. Richard Brennan, the World Health Organization’s Regional Emergency Director for the Eastern Mediterranean Region, said in recent comments to CNN. He admitted that it was going to be “an absolute marathon” to get the aid to those in need.
There are concerns that this conflict will spill over into neighboring countries, particularly Lebanon, where Israel and Lebanese militia Hezbollah have been increasingly exchanging rocket fire. Israeli artillery strikes struck a group of foreign journalists representing several agencies covering the conflict, killing Reuters photojournalist Issam Abdallah while he was providing the agency with a livestream of the exchanges.
Rocket fire also hit the headquarters of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, the UNFIL said in a statement. The UNFIL is a multinational UN peacekeeping force that has been in Southern Lebanon since the 1978 Israeli invasion of Lebanon to ensure a full Israeli withdrawal. The UNFIL has maintained its presence in Lebanon to varying degrees ever since.
“Our headquarters in Naqoura was hit with a rocket and we are working to verify from where,” the statement said. “We remind all the parties involved that attacks against civilians or UN personnel are violations of international law that may amount to war crimes.”
UTRGV is concerned about developments along Israel’s borders with Lebanon and Jordan, and the IOC elevated the status of the two countries, with special approval from the university now required for travel to Lebanon and Jordan.
The Rider asked Kiersey about the potential for regional spillover.
“My understanding is that Israeli Air Force has already started attacking Hezbollah targets in Lebanon,” he said. “They just, they’ve been doing that for several days, but they announced it formally [Tuesday] morning. And this, I think, is a preemptive strike because Iran has warned in no uncertain terms that major attacks on the Gaza Strip will solicit a reaction from Iran. The United States has two carrier battle groups en route. And probably these are the major reasons, right now, why this war is not escalating into a full-blown regional conflict. We’re in a very dangerous and precarious situation right now. The whole region could be sucked into a conflict.”
Despite the political and humanitarian concerns, Israel is preparing for a massive ground assault on the Gaza Strip. Israel’s Economic Minister Nir Barkat told ABC News last Thursday that the Israeli military has a “green light” to begin its planned offensive on Gaza, drawing concern that this conflict will have no end in sight.
The newspaper asked Kiersey about potential solutions to the conflict.
“I don’t, unfortunately, see a solution,” he replied. “I think the United States is making a lot of mistakes here. The United States is making a lot of mistakes. It’s refusing to criticize Israel. And people are noticing.
“If there is a solution, it will require the United States making a very difficult decision to revisit its relationship with Israel, because the Israeli government has become more and more right wing over the decades. They now have an extremely right wing nationalist government, borderline fascist, I would argue, if not outright fascist, for what they’ve done now over the weekend.
“I have to be honest with you. I’m not optimistic. I am not optimistic.”
Those wishing to help civilians impacted by the conflict may consider donating to one of the following charities:
–United Nations Relief and Works Agency (https://www.unrwa.org/)
–International Committee of the Red Cross (https://www.icrc.org/en)
–Palestine Children’s Relief Fund (https://www.pcrf.net/)
–American Near East Refugee Aid (https://www.anera.org/)
–Medical Aid for Palestinians (https://www.map.org.uk/)
–World Food Programme (https://www.wfp.org/)
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