On Friday, August 5th, Israel launched another attack on Gaza Strip that lasted for 3 days until a cease-fire agreement on August 7th as part of Israel’s strategy of “mowing the grass” in Gaza Strip.
Israel initiated the attack on Gaza Strip and named the operation “Breaking Dawn”. It was an attempt to kill militants from the Islamic Jihadists in Gaza. The latter retaliated after? the attack, but more than 97 percent of Palestinian rockets were intercepted by the Israeli’s missile defence system ‘The Iron Dome’. Therefore, no casualties have been reported by Israel as opposed to 31 people killed in Gaza Strip including 6 children and hundreds injured.
The expression “Mowing The Grass” has been employed by Israelis and Israeli militants for over a decade now. It is a metaphor that describes the military operations that Israel launches on Gaza Strip on a seasonal basis. Such display of brute force has faced criticisms from international human rights groups, especially in relation to the difference in death toll between both parties.
What’s problematic about this phrase is that the grass/lawn requires to be constantly mowed; which suggests that Israel is still planning on conducting similar operation under the same pretext of limiting Hamas’ power. Another important factor that needs to be addressed is that when mowing the grass, one would cut down everything on their path. This would mean that in the process of trying to eliminate their enemies, killing children and women would simply be considered “accidents”.
Another important factor that needs to be taken into consideration when looking at this phrase is the discrepancy in power between Israel and Palestine. Israel is the only country in the Middle East that has nuclear weapons. It has advanced weapons of mass destruction, one of the strongest military powers in the region, and has the support of the USA and the EU. It also has the majority of land and is planning on occupying more by displacing Palestinian civilians from their houses or neighbourhoods in order to build its own settlements. Palestine, on the hand, is divided into Gaza Strip and West Bank. Gaza Strip is ruled by Hamas, the Islamic party, and West Bank is ruled by the secular party.
Hamas is a non-state party that does not have strong weapons but is capable of creating effective home-made ones. In spite of that, the weapons employed by Hamas are not to be equated with the Israeli ones especially since the latter has the “Iron Dome” that intercepts the Palestinian missiles.
It is important to know that Israel has recently finished building a wall surrounding all the Gazan borders. It is equipped with surveillance cameras as well as other advanced technologies to control the borders.
If we were to perceive this act of violence as “Israel has the right to protect itself”, we would notice how misleading it is. In the process of protecting itself, Israel launches missiles on Gaza Strip every now and then. This attack that lasted for three consecutive days is the strongest one since last year’s attack that started in May 2021 and lasted for 11 days resulting in the death of more than 253 people including 35 women and 66 children.
Unfortunately, no solution is looming ahead and this cycle of “Mowing The Grass” is expected to last as long as Israel and Hamas exist. The former used the latter as a reason to attack Gaza Strip. This was proven by Inbar and Shamir when they stated that “those who forlornly ask “When is this going to end?” and use the cliché term “cycle of violence” have psychological difficulties digesting the facts that there is no solution in sight and that the violent struggle against Hamas is not going to end anytime soon”.
This is not a political issue to be addressed. This is a humanitarian one where the more powerful party uses force to prove its power by “mowing the grass” every once in a while, without caring about any “casualties” as long as they reach their goal and “weaken the enemy”.
