The situation in the Middle East is deteriorating and is expected to get worse, Director of the Gaza-based think tank PalThink for Strategic Studies, Omar Shaban, told N1 on Wednesday.
He explained that the escalation began on Tuesday evening and the background of it are the new developments that took place in Jerusalem in the past two weeks.
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“Palestinians were not allowed to go to the mosque in the last days of the holy months of Ramadan,” he explained.
“There are about 28 families who live in Jerusalem for the last 70 years. The Israelis are trying to take them out of their homes and give it to the settlers,” he said, arguing that this represents a violation of humanitarian and international law.
This prompted the Palestinians to protest against those violations and for their right to pray at the mosque, he explained.
Shaban noted that Jerusalem is not only important for Palestinians but also for all Muslim countries.
“Jerusalem, as an issue, is very significant for everybody. Hamas and other factions in Gaza were very angry and upset over the treatment by the Israeli soldiers and policemen against the Palestinian prayer in Jerusalem, so the situation got tense and an exchange of fire between Israel and Hamas started last evening,” he explained.
This resulted in several homemade rockets being launched from Gaza on Israel and Israel reacted by intensively shelling Gaza, he said.
This situation has been repeating for the past 15 years,” he said, noting that Gaza experienced several major wars, “in 2008, in 2009 for three weeks, in 2012 for 10 days, and 2014 for 51 days.”
This resulted in thousands of Palestinian civilian casualties and more than 10,000 homes destroyed, he added.
Throughout this time “we called for ending this cycle of violence by solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
The situation is deteriorating and is expected to deteriorate further, he warned. He noted that Eid, which will be celebrated on Thursday, will not affect Israeli activities as the holiday has not deterred Israel from continuing its airstrikes before.
“This has been the situation for the Palestinian people for the past 70 years,” he said.
But the Eid celebration is the least of all problems, he argued, noting that schools are closed and people are not working as they are forced to remain in their homes.
“There is no safe place in Gaza, because the Gaza strip is very small,” he said, explaining that this is an area of 362 m2 inhabited by two million people – which makes it one of the most populated areas in the world.
Young people under the age of 30 make up two-thirds of this population, he added.
More about the situation in Jerusalem can be heard in the full interview above.
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