Israel must pause hostilities in Gaza to allow aid to reach its desperate civilian population

This weekend marked four weeks since the massacre, kidnapping and torture of Israeli civilians launched by Hamas fighters from Gaza. The veritable orgy of killing left more than 1,400 dead, the highest toll of Jewish people killed on any one day since the Holocaust.

The record since then has been one of ever more death, destruction and, with a few honourable exceptions, diplomatic failure. The overall death toll has now passed 10,000, with nearly half of these, according to Hamas medical sources, being Palestinian children. Just four of Israel’s 242 hostages have been freed by Hamas, with one captured Israeli soldier liberated by her comrades. After a massive military build-up on the border with Gaza, Israeli forces have encircled, and are reported to have begun entering, Gaza City.

The pictures that have been released show destruction already on a scale perhaps not seen since the obliteration of the ancient city of Raqqa during the Syrian civil war. Orders by Israel to Gazans to leave the north for the relative safety of the south have been nullified several times over, both by continuing rocket attacks on the south and by the sheer impossibility for many Gazans of moving anywhere at all.

The grim prospect now is of an all-out battle for Gaza City, where Israel’s efforts to drive Hamas fighters from their tunnels and bunkers have already caused the collapse of buildings on civilians who have no means of escape. Palestinians and Israelis exchange bitter recriminations about deliberate strikes on hospitals, ambulances and schools, and the riposte is that these protected buildings and vehicles are being used as cover for fighters. The truth is, and will remain, elusive, as it is with Israel’s claims of proportionality as it pursues its response to the 7 October attacks.

These are questions that will have to be left to the judgments of the inquiries and tribunals that will surely follow. But they do not alter the current reality of an ever-rising toll of – especially young – civilian lives, of growing deprivation and destruction on a scale that threatens the lives of many more, and of the lack of any escape route for the vast majority of Palestinians, who do not have the luxury of a foreign passport or a foreign sponsor to provide a lifeline.

In view of this dismal balance sheet, the mounting international calls for a ceasefire are understandable, but so is Israel’s resistance to a move it perceives as freezing the conflict where it stands and so thwarting its stated objective: the destruction of Hamas. They are dealing with a terrorist organisation whose avowed goal is the complete destruction of Israel.

Something less than a ceasefire, however – termed a “pause in hostilities” – which would allow safe passage of aid into Gaza via the Rafah crossing from Egypt, should be feasible, as should allowing more people to leave in the other direction. It would not be enough, of course, but it would be much better than nothing, especially if a pause were able to become pauses. It should be expedited as a matter of urgency.

That some – albeit limited – aid has been let into Gaza, and more than 1,000 people allowed to leave, has offered one of the very few glimmers of light to have penetrated the pervasive darkness of the past four weeks, and shown that diplomacy is not at a complete impasse. For the most part, however, it has not been US-led diplomacy – although the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, is back in the region for new rounds of talks, including in Jordan and Turkey, as well as a meeting with Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday) – but Gulf (in other words, regional) diplomacy, led by Qatar, and involving Egypt. Might such agreements have a better chance of success than those initiated from afar?

Another positive – so far, at least – is that, four weeks on, the conflict remains essentially limited to Israel’s war against Hamas. Although there have been sporadic disturbances in the occupied West Bank, strikes into Israel from southern Lebanon, and pro-Palestinian protests in cities across Europe, the big powers – Iran, Russia and Turkey – have taken a cautious approach in their words, but still more in their deeds. Of particular note was a much-anticipated rally speech on Friday by the leader of Iran-backed Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, in which his rhetorical belligerence on behalf of Hamas cloaked a warning about the dangers of escalation.

So far, it seems, the fear of a wider war has constrained other potential belligerents. But such are the hair-trigger tensions that one misstep, one overreaction, could envelop the whole region in flames. Nor is it likely that, even if a wider war can somehow be avoided this time, peace will prevail. The cycle of violence must be broken.