How many nonthreatening Palestinian men, women, children and infants will die from Israel’s latest aggression? How many more will be seriously injured or maimed? How many Strip residents will lose all their possessions — destroyed by IDF missiles? How many Gazan families will be homeless, their residences turned to rubble? Once again, the scourge of Zionist tyranny is on display.
Slow-motion genocide of unwanted Palestinians — especially Gazans — is indisputable proof that Zionism is tyranny by another name. Its pure evil is extremist, morally and legally indefensible, undemocratic, hateful, ruthless, racist, destructive, and hostile to what people yearning to breathe free most cherish. Contemptuous of legal, moral and ethical principles, its scourge threatens everyone and everything it touches.
In 2017, updated weeks earlier, B’Tselem minced no words about reality in Gaza, saying: The Strip “is the scene of a humanitarian disaster that has nothing to do with natural causes.” It’s “entirely man-made, a direct result of official Israeli policy.” Its ruling regimes “can choose to change this policy and considerably improve the lives of Gaza’s residents.” “It can also choose to continue this cruel, unjustifiable policy, which sentences…two million…Gaza(ns) to a life of abject poverty…inhuman conditions” and utter misery.
The Strip is unlivable for its long-suffering people. Its economy in free-fall, youth unemployment is around 70%. Its healthcare system virtually collapsed. About 96% of its drinking water is too contaminated for safe human consumption. Electricity is available for only a few hours daily.
Israeli regimes use deadly force on Strip residents at their discretion — while the world community of nations yawns and pretends not to notice — especially the debauched West. Hegemon USA finances, supports, encourages and partners with Israeli human rights abuses and other grievous rule of law breaches.
A small handful of nations stand tall by condemning Israeli state terror. They’re exceptions to the rule. Without nowhere in sight international community support with teeth, they’ll be no end to Israeli slow-motion genocide of long-suffering Palestinians, especially not in Gaza. Along with terrorizing its people, Israel controls its border crossings, airspace and offshore waters.
A virtual blockade exists — an act of war under international law. Based on FOIA-obtained documents by the Gisha Legal Center for Freedom of Movement, Israeli regimes employ a “deliberate reductive policy” in Gaza. Slow-motion genocide by another name, Israel restricts the caloric intake of Strip residents to a bare minimum amount needed to survive.
Since Friday, Israel has been terror-bombing Gazan residential areas, killing civilians in cold blood. Through Saturday, at least 24 Strip residents were killed — including 6 children — over 200 others wounded, many seriously, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. PM Yair Lapid turned truth on its head, falsely claiming that IDF terror-bombing is based on “concrete threats (sic)” — what don’t exist.
According to IDF spokesman, Ran Kochav, terror-bombing of Gaza will continue for at least a week, ceasefire ruled out. After Israel’s cold-blooded murder of senior Islamic Jihad (IJ) freedom fighter, Tayseer al-Jabari, on Friday, the IDF killed Khalid Mansour on Saturday, IJ’s southern Gaza military commander.
Like always before when Israeli regimes preemptively attack Palestinians, the Lapid regime invented a nonexistent threat to justify what’s indisputably unjustifiable, saying: IDF strikes on Gaza aim to “remove a concrete threat against Israeli civilians” — bald-faced Big Lie.
Israeli terror-bombing threatens to escalate into full-scale war for the 5th time since the Jewish state’s 2008-09 Cast Lead aggression. By open letter to the UN Security Council on Friday, the Al Haq human rights organization said the following: The Lapid regime preemptively attacked Gaza with “excessive force including missiles and artillery shells.” “Al-Haq warns that Israel’s aggressive attacks on the Gaza Strip disproportionally (affect) the civilian population.”
By any standard, the Lapid regime is guilty of war crimes. Its war minister, Gantz, “approved a draft order of up to 25,000 soldiers for operations in and around Gaza and (began) calling upon its reservists in preparation for the escalation of violence (against) Strip” residential areas.
“Al-Haq strongly condemns Israel’s aggressi(on) in occupied Gaza, as well as its continued illegal blockade and use of collective punishment against” its two million people. Days before preemptively attacking Gaza, the Lapid regime “closed all crossings into (the Strip), restricting movement of Palestinians, as well as inhibiting the flow of fuel to Gaza’s sole power plant, impacting the delivery of vital electricity resources.”
Al Haq’s call on Security Council members “to halt Israel’s indiscriminate and excessive attacks on Gaza, ensure the provision of vital humanitarian supplies and prevent further killings of the protected Palestinian population” fell on deaf ears. US, UK and French veto power assures no end to Western support for Israeli crimes of war, against humanity and other grievous human rights abuses.
Separately on Saturday, the Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) said the following: IDF terror-bombing of Strip residential areas continues. “PCHR fears that there will be more civilian casualties in an area considered among one of most densely populated areas in the world and where there is not any form of protection, including public and private shelters or even safe corridors.”
“PCHR brings to mind that in recent offensives on the Strip, civilians and civilian objects were always under IOF’s attacks as a way of exerting pressure on (freedom fighting) Palestinian armed groups.” “PCHR calls upon the international community to take immediate action to stop Israeli crimes and avoid any further deterioration of the humanitarian situation.” “PCHR emphasizes that these airstrikes violate the principles of necessity and proportionality while conducting directed attacks against densely populated areas and use of weapons based on collective punishment is a grave breach of the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and amount to war crimes.”
In the run-up to and after establishment of the Jewish state on stolen Palestinian land in May 1948, its ruling regimes operated with impunity. What began Friday against Gazans is the latest chapter of how the scourge of Zionist tyranny operates. Once again, two million Strip residents have no way to protect themselves from IDF terror-bombing. What the Lapid regime scheduled for a week — for political, not security, reasons — could go on much longer.
The late Palestinian American scholar, intellectual, activist, Edward Said, once called “serious public discussion” about Israeli crimes of war, against humanity and genocide against Palestinians the last taboo, adding: “Abortion, homosexuality, the death penalty, even the sacrosanct military budget can be discussed with some freedom.” “The extermination of native Americans can be admitted, the morality of Hiroshima attacked, the national flag publicly committed to the flames.” “But (decades-long Israeli) oppression and maltreatment of the Palestinians is virtually unmentionable, a narrative that has no permission to appear.”
While cracks in the wall of silence appeared after Said’s remarks, one-sided US/Western support for Israel remains rock-solid. It’s because of Zionist lobby power in the US. Operating as unregistered foreign agents, AIPAC and dozens of other Zionist groups exert enormous influence on all things Israel in the US. With rare dissenting voices, almost the entire Congress and US regimes — since Harry Truman became the first world leader to recognize Israel straightaway after its establishment — support all things Israel, including its wars of aggression. Their backing gives Israeli regimes virtual carte blanche to operate with impunity. It’s been this way for the past 74 years with nothing in prospect for changing things.