A TUSSLE OVER THE MOTHERLAND WITH A DISMAYED MOTHER IN GRIEF

“On 18^th November, the Israel army besieged and hunted the patients of the biggest hospital in Gaza al-Shifa. As per Al Jazeera, Israeli forces raided the medical compound, threatening critically conditioned patients to evacuate or be killed at their hands mercilessly. Along with patients were 39 premature babies out of which four died and the rest, seriously ill due to the lack of oxygen and electricity. “[i]Taken out of their incubators, their lives were mercilessly taken before even attaining any national identity. According to the Beirut-based representative of the Palestinian group Hamas, Osama Hamdan, “What unfolded at al-Shifa is another episode in a series of Israeli crimes’. [ii]Hundreds and thousands of amputated patients were forced to be executed without any transportation means in al-Rashid Street – which is a war crime and a crime against humanitarian rights. Currently, women and girls in the Gaza Strip are seeking refuge in overcrowded shelters that lack essential provisions. Due to the lack of basic amenities, their bodies are getting fragile and infected with diseases as a result of which affecting a host of pregnancy problems. On top of that, according to UN reports, even prior to the crisis, the situation in Gaza was different, with 97 percent of men and 98 percent of women fearing for their safety.[iii] This was followed by rapid levels of depression and hopelessness which culminated at its peak following the rampant slaughter of children and premature babies in the incubator. Since the onset of the current crisis, UN Women have been playing an important role in the coordination of the UN body’s humanitarian response on gender equality. The Women’s Peace Humanitarian Fund, which is in partnership with the United Nations, Member States and civil society to support women are also working toward the alleviation of suffering and giving support to the local Palestinians of the Gaza Strip and West Bank. [iv]However, according to several UN agencies like UNICEF, WHO, UNRWA, UNFPA, even though  men are the prime battle combatants in this fissure between two nationalities, women and children are targeted the most, taking 67%of the total brunt of the war. Dr. Dabney Evans, an associate professor in the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University claims that the ‘blockades might be preventing people from accessing care and this may overwhelm the hospital staff to take care of the severely injured lot and miss certain areas like prior or post pregnancy problems or traumatic stress that might cause harms to both the mother and child. [v]

The UN, however, through its social media posts, is much more inclined to the alleviation of the pregnant women and children which, according to successive reports, have appeared as the targeted population. ‘In Palestine Refugees: Mythology, Identity, and the Search for Peace(2003),Robert Bowker emphasises the influence of mythologies and collective memory on the identity and consciousness of Palestine refugees which anchor the present in the past.’ [vi]According to Zionist discourse, that viewed the Zionist as the virgin land, that needs to be fertilised however after the Israel conquest of 1947, the whole meaning got reversed as the Palestine motherland got raped and hence impure and contaminated. As a result, Palestine, which was both the virgin and mother, came to be synonymous with the bearing of sons which would fecundate the nation as well as protect the Palestinian blood through the paternal side. [vii]Hence, according to Massad, ‘The disqualification of the land as mother in her national reproductive role, in the Charter, does not deny the land, as mother, can produce children, but rather that, since the rape, it can no longer be relied upon to reproduce legitimate Palestinian children. ‘[viii]Their role thus becomes secondary and supportive in the narrative of nationalism’.[ix] Their roles thus become mere extensions of their sons and brothers and their ‘act of supporting the males in the house’ thus becomes an entrenched act of masculine nationality in tandem with historical shifts. According to the UN Beirut reports of 2021, starting from Hebron to women living in occupied East Jerusalem were recorded as the most vulnerable section not because of their fear and psychological conditions but rather, eroding women’s productive role and participation in the community by confining them to the home. [x] And with the 2023 reports, completely eliminating this very entrenched quality of the Palestines by committing mass genocide of the children and pregnant women by bombing hospitals.  Nadia – a 13 year old Arab Israeli woman born and raised in Jerusalem, remarks that “Social media is definitely doing more harm than good as each individual’s algorithm is feeding them more and more content to support what they believe in[xi] and hence are turning the viewers as zealous social – fanatics like the Hamas as in his book ‘How to Cure Fanatics, Amos Oz remarks how “very often the fanatic can only count up to one, two is too big a figure for him or her.”[xii]

The  Hamas with their extremist anti-Semitist ideals has thus solidified their fanatical image compared to Fatah’s negotiating image. The media has thus changed the wars’ three dimensional  perspective to a very warped and twisted two-dimensional space. According to Noa, a 27-year old Jewish woman from Israel  “That the most absurd phenomenon is the virtual war taking place in parallel with the actual war, where the winner appears to be the one with most child casualties.”[xiii] The Hamas, attack, on the other hand, on October 7^th  claimed more than 1400 lives, abducted more than 200 women and children and frequent rapes have been reported out of which one German-Israeli woman was paraded naked and unconscious through the streets by a group of men in the back of a pickup truck.[xiv] This again goes back to how women and children are getting raped or abducted or bombed to death on both sides as a tussle over the conquer of the dignity of the nation at its roots. The UN Secretary General, Antonio Gueterres has said that he is ‘shocked ‘by the misinterpretations that are taking  place in this ‘virtual war ’on the social media platforms. [xv]Since he remarked that the political unrest that has spread wildfire among the Palestines didn’t happen in “vacuum” rather was triggered equally by the Israeli push. He hence equally condemned the acts of Hamas as well as the gruesome response of the Israeli forces on the fellow Palestinians. Since the Oslo Accords, the grievances on both sides have been taken  a front seat  in the age of political warfare. Hence, within this tussle of ‘oppressor’ and ‘oppressed ‘the women are becoming the prime victims of a male antagonism of ‘saving the motherland ‘by cleaning the dirt while the mother in Gaza is grieving over her lost child and none is there to justify her

[i] ‘Panic as Gaza’s al-Shifa evacuate, Israel army denies ordering it to do so ’18 Nov, 2023 https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/18/israel-gives-gazas-al-shifa-hospital-one-hour-to-evacuate

[ii] Ibid, 18 Nov, 23

[iii] Press release:’ Women report reveals devastating impact of the crisis in Gaza on women and girls’, 20 Oct, 2023 https://www.unwomen.org/en/news-stories/press-release/2023/10/press-release-un-women-report-reveals-devastating-impact-of-the-crisis-in-gaza-on-women-and-girls#:~:text=Currently%2C%20women%20and%20girls%20are,women%20fearing%20for%20their%20safety

[iv] Ibid, 20 Oct, 2023

[v] Mary Kekatos, ‘Why Women, children are disproportionately impacted by the conflict in Gaza:Experts’. Nov 7,2023 https://abcnews.go.com/International/women-children-disproportionately-impacted-conflict-gaza-experts/story?id=104655493

[vi] Robert Bowker, ‘Palestinian Refugees :Mythology, Identity and Search for Peace ‘2011,p.233 cited in Mohammed S. Dajani Daoudi, ‘Palestinian Refugees ‘, in the book, ‘Israel – Palestine Conflict :Parallel Discourses,edited by Elizabeth G. Matthews, Routledge, London, 2011,p.38

[vii] Joseph Massad, ‘Conceiving the Masculine :Gender and Palestinian Nationalism’, Souce: Middle East Journal, Summer 1995,Vol.49,No.3,pp.472,url :https://www.jstor.org/stable/4328835,p.471

[viii] Massad, p.472

[ix] Ibid, 472

[x] ‘Social and economic situation of Palestinian Women and Girls’, Jul 2020-22,Pub. ESCWA Reports, UN Beirut, p. 13

[xi] Sarah Little, ‘Palestinian and Israeli Women Speak :Regaining Humanity at a Time of Violence ‘, Pub. Enheduanna, Middle East Program, Oct 30,2023 https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/palestinian-and-israeli-women-speak-regaining-humanity-time-violence

[xii] Amos Oz, How to Cure a Fanatic, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2006,p.51 cited in Menachem Klein, ‘Hamas in Power’. Souce:Middle East Journal, Summer 2007,Vol 61,No.3,Pub.Middle East Journal, p. 1,url.https://www.jstor.org/stable/4330419

[xiii] Little, 30 Oct, 2023

[xiv] Ibid

[xv] BBC News, https://youtu.be/vMURQJGUBqY?si=IJ98rxRDuwBrQW0Z

Atrayee Pal

Intern, Asia in Global Affairs

The originality of the content and the opinions expressed within the content are solely the author’s and do not reflect the opinions and beliefs of the website.