Why Humanitarian Hurt is Being Used as a Military Tactic in Gaza.

GDP - The Global Development Primer

War is raging in The Gaza Strip. As Israel prepares for a ground invasion, Hamas holds dozens of prisoners, and now with knowledge that U.S. citizens are in the mix, it all spells disaster for Gaza. The Gaza Strip, home to 2.3 million people under a heavy blockade on movement and basic resources, are now facing an unprecedented humanitarian crisis in this conflict.

The simple question is: "Why"? Why blockade water, energy, bread, and ice, when the worry is military rockets? Why restrict movement so strictly, when trade routes for weapons are clearly succeeding in getting weaponry into Gaza to use against Israel. It makes no sense as to why humanitarian hurt is being used a military tactic. To help us unpack this, we have Rida Abu Rass joining use from Kingston, Ontario, Canada.

Rida Abu Rass is a PhD candidate at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. He is a Palestinian citizen of Israel, born in Tayibe, in the ‘Triangle’ area near the West Bank, and raised in Jaffa and Tel Aviv. He is interested in the factors that facilitate and obstruct political mobilization among ethnopolitical movements, with an emphasis on the Palestinian community within Israel. Rida has also taught and written about the political history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, on Middle East politics, social movements, democratization and nationalism. Before coming to Queen’s, he worked as a data coordinator at B’Tselem, Israel’s leading human rights organization. In his spare time, he writes op-eds, and he blogs.

Follow Rida on X( Twitter): @ridaaburass

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