Israel needs Gaza circuit-breaker

The dismay of Western nations’ foreign ministers, including Penny Wong, at the horrifying scenes in Gaza being brought home on television screens each day is well founded. But their joint outrage will not alleviate the deepening humanitarian crisis unless those nations recognise that blame for the nightmare lies squarely with the Hamas terrorists’ pig-headed intransigence in refusing to release the 50 Jewish hostages still in captivity.

That intransigence, as the terrorists’ smug press release welcoming the foreign ministers’ statement made clear, is at the heart of the ongoing disaster ordinary Gazans face 21 months after Hamas killed 1200 Jews and captured 250 innocent people.

The grim reality is that unless and until all remaining hostages are released, there is unlikely to be substantial improvement in the agony of Gaza’s people.

As Israel repeatedly has made clear, “Release the hostages and the war can stop tomorrow,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says. But Hamas, in its murderous madness backed by Iran and helped by the nonchalance of supine Arab states, remains implacable.

It has been encouraged, regrettably, by what it describes as “international recognition of the wide-scale violations committed by the fascist occupation government against innocent civilians, including the deliberate starvation policy that has already claimed the lives of over 70 children and threatens a mass-death catastrophe due to famine”.

Such insufferable moralising by the depraved perpetrators of the October 7, 2023, pogrom and use of innocent Gazan civilians – not just Israeli hostages – as human shields is despicable. It underlines the urgent need for a circuit-breaker in the crisis that will bring relief to Gaza’s people.

Short of achieving a ceasefire that would lead to the immediate release of all hostages, Israel must do more to facilitate the efficient distribution of aid in a way that avoids the daily toll claimed by the dodgy Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry’s propaganda machine.

Israel announced in May it was planning to take full control of Gaza and has taken over large areas of the Strip. It must expedite doing so with the rest. With full control and effective action against Hamas, Israel would organise distribution of food and medical aid far better.

The Jewish state has fought courageously in a battle it did not start or deserve but it is in danger of losing the moral high ground unless global opinion recognises Hamas’s basic responsibility for the dystopian catastrophe unfolding.

Only release of the hostages will make the real difference Gaza’s desperate people deserve.