India’s response to the festering crisis in Gaza has been inconsistent. On Thursday, New Delhi advocated — quite rightly so — for a more lasting ceasefire in Gaza, pointing out that intermittent pauses in the cycle of violence are not enough to address the deepening and the horrifying challenges pertaining to hunger and humanitarian aid there. Yet, only over a month ago, India had abstained from a vote in the United Nations General Assembly that demanded an immediate and durable ceasefire in that bloodsoaked stretch. It remains to be seen what New Delhi will do next on the Palestine question: India is among the 123 nations that would attend a high-level, three-day UN conference on the implementation of a resolution of the Palestine issue and a two-state solution that is set to begin today.

But New Delhi’s inconsistencies — the twin results of its strategic closeness to Israel as well as the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s domestic compulsions — are unlikely to deflect global attention from the humanitarian catastrophe that has now enveloped Gaza. According to the World Food Programme, a third of Gaza’s population is being denied food and assistance by Israel that has, over the years, claimed — falsely as it turns out — that Hamas has been stealing provisions supplied by the UN and global agencies. Now, two senior Israeli military officials have claimed that there is no proof to support Israel’s accusation, the principal rationale that Benjamin Netanyahu’s regime has relied upon to restrict food from entering Gaza, raising the prospects of mass starvation according to over 100 aid organisations and rights groups. Equally inhuman has been Israel’s war strategy of weaponising aid: there have been numerous incidents in which Palestinians have been fired upon and killed as they have attempted to search for food. These developments have, understandably, led to outrage, piling international pressure on Israel. The latter has responded by announcing a “tactical pause” in its genocidal violence and pledged to open aid corridors.
But like its other promises, these measures are likely to be temporary; worse, they are not adequate in addressing the hydra-headed crisis in Gaza. What is required is an immediate, permanent ceasefire in that part of the world. The global community must bring enough pressure on Israel and its permanent benefactor, the United States of America, to stop the conflict. Enough blood has been spilled in Gaza; and a complicit world has enough blood on its hands.