Social Problems in the News Media - Term Paper Example

ID number: Social Problem in the News Media Problem Identification The recent social problem which ishighlighted at all the news media in the present days is the politically unstable and violent situation in Gaza. Gaza is a region which is situated on the eastern coast of Mediterranean Sea. It is the largest city of the State of Palestine. Egypt and Israel are the neighbouring countries of this region. Egypt is situated in the south west part whereas Israel is situated in the eastern part of this city. The conflict between Palestine and Israel was started in the mid 20th century for the right of governance in Gaza. In the past Gaza was controlled by the military of Egypt (1958-1967) and after that by Israel (1967-1994). In the year 1994 Israel transferred the governance on Gaza to the Palestinian authority. From the year 2007, the city was governed by a Palestinian group which is famous as Hamas. They claimed that they are the representative of Palestinian people and Palestinian National Authority and on behalf of them they started to govern this region. At that point of time the president of Palestine declared that the governance by the Hamas group was unauthorized and illegal. So he formed a new government without taking participation of any member of Hamas. In the year 2008, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan responded against Hamas and supported the president of Palestine, Mahmoud Abbas as the sole Palestinian Government. From this time the violation activities were started. Egypt and Israel stopped all the cross border activities with Gaza. Israel allowed for providing very limited quantity of medical aid to this region. So this blockade was very much harmful for the economy as well as for the local people of this city. They were getting very basic medicine like pain killers or x-ray films which were not sufficient to cure from the diseases and as a result many of them died without getting proper treatment (Guerrero 270-272). Hamas continued to create violence by gathering arms from Egypt through tunnel. A huge number of Christians were killed from this violence. The library of the Christian Youth Organization which was situated in Gaza city was attacked. Hamas with their military group fired Qassam rockets on Israel. According to records this can be said that almost 822 mortar bombs and 697 rockets were fired at the Israel towns in the year 2007-08. Israel also stopped to supply of fuel and entry of goods in that region. Again in the year 2014, Hamas attacked on Israel and they targeted the Israel civilian for firing rockets and hence they violated the international law. Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, the two major cities of Israel were affected from the conflict between Israel and Hamas. Hamas used Syrian and Iranian missiles for creating violence on these two cities. This group has planted a terrific atmosphere in Israel and the local people of Israel are living under the threat of rockets and missiles. Especially the towns which are situated at the border side of the country are mostly affected like Sderot. Now Israel is also ready to defend itself by the help of nuclear weapons. The government of Israel informed the U.S. that if they do not receive any kind of help from America then they will take their own decision to save the general people of the country and to control such kind of violent activities (Royce 166-170). Brief Description In the month of July, 2014 the violence between Hamas and Israel again took place under a new form and it was continued more than 2 weeks constantly and still the problem has not been resolved. The defence force of Israel has launched a firing attack program on Gaza in 7th July, 2014 to give response against the attack of militant firing rockets from Gaza. As a result the common people in Gaza were also affected from these violent activities. The military of Israel made a plan to hit more than 1, 480 targets at a time. Already approximate 170 Palestinians died from the attack of Israel military force. Hamas are also giving their feedback through continuous down the rockets on Israel. They used a new Syrian rocket which has a range of up to 100 miles (160 km) and the rocket is known as M-302. This particular rocket has more range than the previous rockets which can cover the maximum areas of Israel on a single attack. (The Economist) From the above bar graph this can be observed that number of Palestinians who were killed in Gaza by the security force of Israel is more than the number of Israelis killed in Israel by the Palestinians in the year 2014. In the year 2008, the maximum number of Palestinians was killed by the Israel security force. (The Economist) The above mentioned bar graph shows the number of rockets which were fired from Gaza on Israel. In the year 2008, the maximum number of firing rockets is observed than the other mentioned years. In the current year the number almost crossed 1000 in case of firing rockets on Israel. (The Economist) The above bar graph shows the very recent picture of violence on the same incident. Here seven day’s trend can be observed for the month of July, 2014. The red coloured bar shows the targets hit by the Israel force in Gaza and it is observed that on 9th July the target was maximum than the other days. Apart from that this is very much visible that on the other days also the target was very much significant. At the same time Gaza also started to fire rockets and it fired maximum number on 10th July just after that day when target was at maximum level by the forces of Israel. In 17th July, both Hamas and Israel will hold their cease fire activities for five hours because of delivering sufficient medicine to the affected and injured people at Gaza Strip. Israel military group has announced that from 10 a.m. in the morning to 3 p.m. in the afternoon they will hold the fire attacks and cease all the military operational activities. Local hospitals are facing some challenges during this incident. Shortage of sufficient water and medicine is one of those challenges. 1, 685 injured people are admitted in those hospitals and they are not getting medicines for the lack of supply. Hamas demanded to open all the cross border activities and release of those prisoners who were the member of Hamas. More than 1, 370 homes were destroyed in Gaza and more than 18, 000 people got displaced from their fixed address in the last 9 days of this month. More than 200 people were killed only in the month of July, 2014. All the newspapers, television channels and other electronic and print media around the world are focusing on this event and everybody in the world wants to stop this violence for saving the lives of innocent people. Even children are also affected and injured from this incident which is not at all acceptable from the humanitarian point of view. On 14th July, military of Israel attacked at the harbour part of Gaza city. Children were playing at the sea beach near the harbour and this was visible from a distance of 200 meters. Most of them got injured badly from this attack and four children were killed on the spot. The Israel government was deeply touched from this incident and the President of Israel has said that primary objective of this kind of attack is to stop the terrorist activities of Hamas but this is a tragic outcome of this strike that civilians are affected and getting injured from the attack activities. The military force of Israel announced that they will investigate the incident and will keep in mind for creating no such situation in future which will be harmful for the common people at their next attacks. But they also claimed that Hamas are generally hiding their military infrastructure among the civilian population which is very difficult to point out. For this reason civilian population of Gaza is affected by the attack of rockets and missiles (Kendall 25-30). Recommendation and Conclusion At the part of recommendation and conclusion this can be said that people of both the countries need to be much more concerned about their surroundings and have to point out if any person who is related to any kind of political party or any specific community. If they help the military group as well as government then chances of such kind of painful incidents can be reduced. Again Hamas are using the tunnel of Israel for the purpose of attack. So if the security group of Israel takes more initiative on the monitoring activities then they can prevent such kind of unauthorized steps. If the representatives of UN council and all the delegates of different countries of the world take participation for solving out the problems which are related to these regions then a positive impact can be observed. Works Cited Guerrero, Anna. Social Problems: Community, Policy, and Social Action. California: Pine Forge Press. 2010. Print. Kendall, Diana. Social Problems in a Diverse Society. New Jersey: Pearson Education. 2012. Print. Royce, Edward. Poverty and Power: The Problem of Structural Inequality. Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. 2008. Print. The Economist. Gaza, in numbers. July 14, 2014. Web. July 17, 2014. . Read More