The only path to peace in West Asia

Today marks three years since the attack on Israel by the Palestinian liberation and resistance organisation Hamas, and the retaliatory genocide launched by the Zionist military. While 1,318 Israeli soldiers were killed in the Hamas attack, statistics released by the Gaza Health Ministry reveal that at least 75,000 people — including those burned to ashes and those reduced to the living dead — have fallen victim to the Zionist army's rain of fire. Upwards of 90 percent of Gaza's structures — including homes, shops, schools, and hospitals — have already been leveled to the ground. Even after the Israel-Hamas ceasefire took effect on October 10, 2025 thanks to the relentless Qatar-mediated negotiations, the occupying forces' ruthless attacks in Gaza have persisted for nearly a year. The withdrawal of Israeli forces from half of Gaza, as stipulated in the agreement, has yet to materialise.

Also read: UN chief Guterres calls for permanent Gaza ceasefire

Humanitarian aid to Gaza — where over two million Palestinians are crammed together in dire conditions — remains severely disrupted. The latest warning from the World Health Organization (WHO) cautions that continuous delays in delivering life-saving medicines and health supplies to Gaza will lead to catastrophic consequences. The WHO highlights that Israel's constant obstruction of aid convoys is what continues to worsen the crisis in Gaza, where not a single fully functional hospital remains. Meanwhile, although news reports indicate that following the contractual withdrawal of all personnel from the UN agency engaged in humanitarian missions in Gaza, a multinational official body arrived to assume daily administrative and law-and-order duties, no concrete reports confirm that their deployment or services have systematically begun. At the same time, in the Israeli-controlled West Bank, military rampages, home demolitions, and arrests continue unabated. Furthermore, Israel's spree of total destruction — launched with the declared objective of eradicating Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon — also persists.

Also read: Potential US-Israel offensive: Iran starts military training for women

The attack on Iran launched by the United States and Israel — partly as another distraction from these mounting troubles — remains in complete uncertainty following the expiration of the temporary ceasefire. The mediation efforts conducted jointly by Pakistan, Turkey, and Qatar as of now offer little ground for optimism. US President Donald Trump has proclaimed a goal of total destruction of Iran while readying new naval fleets and military assets. Meanwhile, the prolonged shipping crisis in the Strait of Hormuz continues to severely cripple the economies of Asian nations, including India. To make matters worse, the recent Saudi-Houthi clashes have adversely impacted maritime transit through the Bab-el-Mandab Strait as well. The key point to note is that the primary obstacle to resolving this crisis — which has triggered global price spikes, industrial stagnation, and widespread hardship — is Trump's unpredictable turnarounds and insatiable ambitions. Even though Britain, France, Spain, and Canada have distanced themselves from the Yankee leader's stance, he remains unwilling to reconsider, leaving the world to suffer the consequences. It is utterly shameful that for leaders like Trump and Netanyahu, electoral victory in their own countries remains a higher priority than the peaceful survival of humanity.

Also read: Saudi Aramco chief warns oil stockpiles are ‘scarily thin’ as Hormuz crisis persists

In the recent United Nations General Assembly summit attended by heads of state, several world leaders emphatically underscored the devastation of war and the imperative need to reconsider the dangerous policies driving it. America’s invasion of Afghanistan, which began on October 7, 2001, finally came to an end twenty years later on August 30, 2021. It was tiny Qatar that spearheaded the diplomatic mediation to extricate Yankee forces from the grip of the Taliban. Following yearlong US-Taliban negotiations held in Doha, the Americans were forced to exit Afghanistan after sacrificing 2,456 soldiers. It is the very same Qatar, which paved the way for that exit, that also led the Israel-Hamas ceasefire talks. The ruler of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, issued a stark warning before world nations at the UN General Assembly: "There can be no talk of a just international order, as long as Palestine remains a blind spot within it. What has transpired in Gaza is genocide in every sense of the word and the stain of shame on the conscience of humanity as a whole." The collective conscience of the global populace underlines this very warning today.