An Israeli columnist has lambasted the Israeli rescue mission to Haiti, saying it was solely designed to divert attention from Israel’s shameful acts in nearby Gaza.

Akiva Eldar wrote that many people—Israelis and non-Israelis—realized that the “remarkable identification with the victims of the terrible tragedy in distant Haiti only underscores the indifference to the ongoing suffering of the people of Gaza.”

He added, “Only a little more than an hour’s drive from the offices of Israel’s major newspapers, 1.5 million people have been besieged on a desert island for two and a half years. Who cares that 80 per cent of the men, women and children living in such proximity to us have fallen under the poverty line? How many Israelis know that half of all Gazans are dependent on charity; that Operation Cast Lead created hundreds of amputees; and that raw sewage flows from the streets into the sea?”

Eldar said Israel would like to keep the nightmare in Gaza as far away from the Israelis themselves and the international community as possible.

“The Israeli newspaper reader knows about the baby pulled from the wreckage in Port-au-Prince. Few have heard about the infants who sleep in the ruins of their families’ homes in Gaza. The Israel Defense Forces prohibition of reporters entering the Gaza Strip is an excellent excuse for burying our heads in the sand of Tel Aviv’s beaches; on a good day, the sobring reports compiled by human rights organizations such as B'Tselem, Gisha - Legal Center for Freedom of Movement, and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel on the situation in Gaza are pushed to the newspapers’ back pages. To get an idea of what life is like in the world’s largest prison, one must forego ‘Big Brother’ and switch to one of the foreign networks.”

Eldar illustrated the hypocrisy of the Israeli government in trying to highlight the Haiti mission.