Carnage in Gaza

It surely is sad to see the baggage of hostilities the Israelis and the Palestinians have been carrying in the new millennium. The hostilities break out from time to time in bloody confrontation like the latest one in which civilian casualties mount. This time the hostilities escalated following the death of three Israeli students last month. The revenge murder of a Palestinian youth in Jerusalem only triggered further hostilities. This shows how the deep mistrust and antagonism have been souring relations between the two communities. What is still more unacceptable is the flaring of emotion from the individual level to the collective or mass hysteria to the administrative level. Caught in the web of the antagonistic relations, thanks to not so enviable a role played by the Western powers in the past, the Isaelis and the Palestinians -mostly the latter -are paying a heavy price. Every time in any conflict, it is the Palestinians who find themselves at the receiving end.     
This has not been any different this time as well. Who started the conflict or how is no longer important, now what counts most is the loss of lives mostly of the Palestinian civilians, a significant proportion of them being mere children. In the 13-day conflict until Sunday, 353 Palestinians were killed against two Israeli civilians and five soldiers from rockets fired by the Hamas. Now that the Israelis have started their ground operation and air strikes together, the number of casualties is mounting. At least 20 Palestinians were killed by Israeli shelling yesterday alone.  Caught in the conflict, the 1.8 million Palestinian civilians living in Gaza have nowhere to move as both Israel and Egypt have sealed their borders off. It is turning out to be a human tragedy of oversize proportion. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) is struggling to shelter Palestinians who have asked to move out of their homes to safe places. Already, 61, 500 Palestinians have sought refuge in the UNRWA's buildings, mostly schools.
It is this ground reality and the plight of the Palestinians that should be in focus now. After all, the bone of contention this time has been the killing of youths on both sides but that cannot be used as a pretext for a prolonged and larger confrontation exposing 1.8 million people's lives to danger and their property to destruction. At the end of the conflict, the cost will definitely outweigh any gain the two sides may have in their minds to reap. The sights of wounded or dead babies and children in their parents' arms are an unbearable sight. This carnage must stop in the interest of the Palestinians who have suffered too much already. Let the world leaders, particularly the ones backing Israel, come forward in an effort to bring about a ceasefire immediately. There is no point allowing this disgrace to civilisation to continue. Bangladesh has condemned the carnage and although peace-loving people everywhere are against the Israeli aggression, not all governments have made their strong feeling known against it. But they should, for it is the least they can do for the cause of humanity.