Daily Sabah – December 7, 2023
At least 23 killed in Israeli airstrikes on 2 Gaza refugee camps
At least 23 people were killed early Thursday when Israeli fighter jets targeted two houses in a refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip as well as a camp in the southern part of the enclave.
At least 17 Palestinians were killed and scores more injured in an Israeli airstrike on a house in the al-Maghazi refugee camp, as reported by the Palestinian news agency WAFA, citing local sources.
The agency also reported that at least six Palestinians were killed and others injured in an Israeli military airstrike on a house in the al-Shabora refugee camp in Rafah, southern Gaza.
Israel resumed its military offensive on the Gaza Strip last week after a seven-day humanitarian pause with the Palestinian resistance group Hamas.
At least 16,248 Palestinians have been killed and more than 43,616 others injured in relentless air and ground attacks on the enclave since the Oct. 7 Hamas incursion.
The Israeli death toll, in comparison, stood at 1,200, according to official figures.
Anadolu Agency - December 7, 2023
Censorship of Gaza on social media
While users who want to support Israel can do so easily, those who take a pro-Palestinian stance find their accounts banned, censored, or reduced in visibility
Murat Selvi
Recently, social media platforms, including Meta (formerly Facebook), have had a significant impact on public discourse and perceptions of the conflict. Unfortunately, Meta's handling of disinformation related to Gaza has raised concerns about its impact on truth, objectivity and the potential consequences for the people involved. The social media giant, which already has a bad reputation, has a murky history of failing to protect the information of its users, manipulating elections, spreading disinformation, and verifying false information. Israel's war in Gaza was a last clear indicator of Meta's biased attitude, far from objectivity.
The challenge of fighting disinformation
Meta is a major player in the social media landscape, acting as a news source, a storyteller and even a discourse generator and propaganda machine, where vast amounts of content can be shared, including user-generated posts, articles, and videos.
The platform faced a serious test in the context of the Gaza conflict, where it failed to prevent the spread of misinformation, propaganda and biased narratives. Worse, there are concerns that it is deliberately taking sides, spreading misinformation, and hiding the truth in violation of objectivity, freedom of expression and even its own community rules.
Meta, owned by Mark Zuckerberg, includes the most important platforms of the digital age, such as Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Horizon. Zuckerberg is a Jew who openly declares his support for Israel and considers Hamas a terrorist organization. Zuckerberg's attempt to use the power of social media to impose this view on millions of people is unacceptable.
While users who want to support Israel can do so easily, those who take a pro-Palestinian stance find their accounts banned, censored, or reduced in visibility. Some have even been declared terrorists. This situation has been expressed by many users and organizations that monitor freedom of expression. While Meta made it easy to share fabricated content produced to justify Israel's brutal attacks, it suppressed the posts of Palestinian supporters under some pretexts, such as community rules or some algorithmic errors.
Selective decency and its impact on public opinion
The interconnected nature of information sharing on social media platforms such as Meta and the interactively growing narrative leads to a cycle of disinformation where misleading content gains traction and serves to create a distorted understanding of conflicts. Contrary to expectations, the almost two-decade-long era of interactive social media platforms seems to have complicated the situation rather than helped access information, freedom of expression, and the functioning of democratic processes.
In its first decade, people used to have fascinating expectations from these platforms, such as easy access to information, citizen journalism, and an environment where everyone can express themselves. At this point, we have to talk about the harmful and destructive effects of social media, from protecting ourselves from misinformation spread through such platforms to preventing interference in elections.
When it comes to conflict zones, disinformation spread through social media can cause misreading of the current situation at the international level, damaging cooperation and solidarity between societies. The ability to find peaceful solutions to conflicts, to exhibit a fair and just attitude, and to distinguish right from wrong is only possible by handling the events correctly. Correct information and truth are essential to achieve this. If Meta and others intend to be platforms that benefit societies, they must be truth-seeking, impartial, transparent, and open to collaboration. For example, since they function as a news source, it is inevitable that they cooperate with news agencies and make efforts to confirm information circulated on the platform.
With the vast budgets they have earned, they can invest in advanced verification mechanisms to quickly detect and label false information to make their verification processes error-free and to take steps to improve their platforms so that they do not turn into disinformation dumps.
By ensuring that the algorithms they use are transparent, they can give users a clearer view of how content is prioritized and amplified. In doing so, they can prevent the spread of misinformation, the entrenchment of prejudice and the self-reinforcing cycle of misunderstanding.
Perception operations are not always successful
Millions of people filling the streets in support of Palestine prove that the perception operations and psychological warfare carried out by social media platforms and many Western media organizations are less effective than thought. In the information age we live in, it is possible for platforms that reach millions of users within hours to lose all their credibility and users in a very short time. At a time when options are so plentiful, it would be naive to think that the current capacity for power and influence is unshakable. The image of a highly controversial and unreliable platform may ensure that today's giants end up on the dusty shelves of the Internet age, just like many others before them.
Meta, the Facebook of the period, may be perceived to have made a clever image effort by transforming to Meta to correct the bad image that was attached to it due to its previous mistakes. However, Meta may need more than a new name change to clean up the bloodstain this time.
Within Meta's ecosystem (including Facebook and Instagram), the circle of disinformation regarding Gaza poses a severe challenge to truth, objectivity, and the potential for peace in the region. As a significant influencer in the information world, Meta must proactively address these issues and fulfill its responsibility to build a more informed and empathetic global community. By prioritizing transparency, accuracy, impartiality and truth, Meta can play a constructive role in developing a more fair, consistent, and equitable understanding of complex geopolitical conflicts.
Murat Selvi is a researcher at TRT World Research Center.
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/analysis/opinion-censorship-of-gaza-on-social-media/3075723
Countercurrent – December 7, 2023
Genocide Resumes in Gaza
by Dr Chandra Muzaffar
After an uneasy seven day truce, Israel and Hamas are now once again locked in a violent combat. Each side has accused the other of violating the truce. What is really important is the consequence of this resumption of conflict.
Thousands more Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank are going to be killed. According to various sources, within 24 hours of the end of the truce on Friday 1st December, 184 Palestinians were wiped out as a result of Israeli bombardments. This brings the total number of dead Palestinians at the hands of Israeli fire-power since the present phase of fighting broke out on 7th of October 2023 to 15,500. In contrast, 1332 Israelis and others have been killed by Hamas and its allies.
Of the Palestinians killed, it is estimated that over 6,000 are children. That more than a third are children is a matter of great significance especially when we consider the figures for past conflicts between the two sides. During Israel’s Operation Cast Lead for instance from 27th December 2008 to 18th January 2009, children accounted for a quarter of the dead. In another clash between 1st November 2021 and 18th January 2022, 840 Palestinian children died. To this statistic we should add the number of women killed by Israel in the current tussle between the two protagonists. It is estimated that 2700 of them have perished.
The deliberate massacre of children and women is part of a pattern of annihilation closely related to Israel’s overall goal of eliminating Palestinians from their ancestral land. In other words, it is central to ethnic cleansing. In 1948 when Israel was established on Palestinian land, something like 750,000 indigenous Palestinians were expelled or evicted from their homes and villages. This has gone on, at regular intervals, on a smaller scale for the last 75 years. Massacres and military operations against the Palestinians have also been integral to the policy of decimating and destroying Palestinian families and communities. Considered as a whole, the implementation of this policy, buttressed by bellicose pronouncements by Israeli leaders over a long period of time amounts to genocide as understood in international law.
This time, unlike 1948, voices have been raised against the Israeli government’s brutal, barbaric carnage — carnage of largely defenceless, unarmed Palestinians. In villages and cities across the continents, millions of people of all shades and hues are demanding that Israel’s relentless bombardment of Gaza, the most congested place on earth, ends immediately. They want a permanent ceasefire involving all parties in the conflict to be instituted without delay. Citizen groups all over the world should intensify their campaign for a ceasefire mediated and supervised by the United Nations. It is worth noting that Qatar, one of the countries that arranged the earlier truce between Israel and Hamas, is also committed to an immediate ceasefire.
Global citizens demanding a ceasefire should reinforce their call with two other critical concerns. They should request the UN to establish immediately an International Protection Force to ensure the safety of the residents of both Gaza and the West Bank. Such a Protection Force under the auspices of the UN will hopefully deter Israel from its incessant attacks upon civilians in Palestine. It will not only save human beings, especially children, but also offer some protection to hospitals, schools and other public amenities which have all been targeted by the Israeli armed forces.
The other concern relates to water, fuel, food, medicines and the other essentials of life. Since the 7th October Hamas attack on Israeli communities living at the Gaza-Israel border, the Israeli government has imposed even more draconian restrictions upon accessibility to essentials. This has exacerbated the sufferings of the people of Gaza. With the resumption of the genocide, it is feared that many vulnerable groups in Gaza will die from starvation and disease— apart from bombs. The UN through its agencies like WHO and FAO should step in to ensure that there is uninterrupted and adequate flow of essentials to the people. This is an urgent task.
An equally urgent challenge facing the UN is addressing the root causes of the conflict between Israel and Palestine. Unless this is done immediately, the conflict will recur over and over again as it has for so many decades. As many of us have argued for such a long while, the root causes are related to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land since 1948. The manner in which the UN divided the land —giving the larger portion to the recently domiciled Jewish minority while allowing the indigenous Arab Muslim and Christian majority to remain on the smaller portion — was in itself a supreme act of gross injustice. There was no plebiscite; no attempt to assess sentiments on the ground.
The cruel inhumanity that accompanied the division and the creation of the state of Israel — the expulsions and the massacres — has already been discussed. It is important to emphasise at this point that the Israeli state has perpetuated its power and authority through an apartheid system of governance. In some instances, Israelis and Palestinians have separate laws and separate facilities. There are roads on the West Bank for instance which are prohibited to Palestinians. The water they drink is of inferior quality compared what is available to Israelis.
Apartheid Israel is so comfortably nestled in its privileged dominance that very, very few Israelis are troubled by the discrimination against, and marginalization of, the Palestinians in their midst. There is so little empathy in contemporary Israel for the immense sufferings of the Palestinians. On the contrary, a substantial segment of Israeli society wants its political and military elite to punish Palestinians even more severely for daring to resist Israeli hegemony and aggression.
This is why the pressure upon the Israeli elite and Israeli society to act justly towards the Palestinians will have to come from outside Israeli society. As shown by the mass outpouring of support for the Palestinian cause from all over the world since October 7, pressure will have to come from the people. People’s pressure could be directed towards three targets. One, the Israeli elite; two, the elite in the United States and Britain, Israel’s staunchest supporters in the West; and three, the elite in the Arab countries and the larger Muslim world.
In targeting elites, there is a critical resource the people can harness. This is the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. The movement initiated by Palestinians in July 2005 directed against Israel can play a vital role at this moment. It has already achieved some success. Now is the time to enhance and expand the BDS movement. Citizens all over the world should give a huge push to the movement by persuading more and more institutions, organisations and companies to join the movement so that Israel will really feel the impact of efforts to boycott, divest and sanction her.
Under the BDS rubric, three other measures could be given some consideration. One, a worldwide movement to get those nations that recognize Israel to withdraw their Ambassadors from Israel as a way of isolating the country, diplomatically. This would be a temporary measure aimed at changing Israel’s behaviour vis-à-vis the Palestinians. Two, an arms embargo imposed by the UN which prohibits any state or entity from engaging in the arms trade with Israel. The prohibition will also extend to joint ventures in the manufacture of arms and military equipment with Israel or enterprises associated with it. Under this proposal, the US, as a case in point, will have to suspend its military ties with Israel. Three, the UN must ensure that no country supplies oil to Israel as long as it pulverizes Gaza and the West Bank. If Arab and Muslim states that exercise considerable influence over the oil market are united in employing oil as a weapon to tame Israel, it is quite conceivable that it will be less contemptuous of the rights of others.
In the ultimate analysis, the question is whether the people have the guts and the gumption to act against an arrogant state that tramples upon the dignity of another with impunity.
Dr Chandra Muzaffar is the president of the International Movement for a Just World (JUST), Malaysia.
https://countercurrents.org/2023/12/genocide-resumes/
Countercurrent – December 7, 2023
Dying to Be Free:
Releasing Palestinian Captives is Not a Numbers Game
By Dr Ramzy Baroud
There is a reason why Palestinians are keen on releasing their prisoners, despite the heavy price they continue to pay for their freedom.
It may seem rational to ask the question: what is the point of releasing a few Palestinian detainees from Israeli prisons, if the price of doing so is the death of over 15,000 Palestinians in Gaza?
In fact, even if all Palestinian prisoners – numbering about 7,000 – are released, they would not even amount to 30 percent of the total number of Palestinian dead and missing, so far, in the ongoing Israeli genocide in the Strip.
The logic may sound even more puzzling when we consider that, between October 7 and November 28, Israel has detained over 3,290 Palestinians in the West Bank and Occupied East Jerusalem.
Namely, the number of Palestinian women and children detainees released – following several prisoner swaps between Palestinian Resistance and the Israeli army, in the period between November 24 to November 30 – is insignificant compared to those who were detained during the same period.
But mathematical equations are irrelevant in liberation wars. Because if we resort to this kind of logic, then, perhaps, it is more rational for colonized nations and oppressed groups not to resist in the first place, because doing so could multiply the harm inflicted upon them by their colonizers and oppressors.
While Israelis see their captives, whether civilians or military, held in Gaza in terms of numbers, Palestinians approach the issue from an entirely different perspective.
All Palestinians are captives, according to the reality on the ground, because all Palestinians are victims of Israeli colonialism, military occupation and apartheid. The difference between being a prisoner in Megiddo, Ofer or Ramleh prison, for example, and being a prisoner in an isolated, walled-off Palestinian town under Israeli military Occupation in Area C in the West Bank, is rather technical.
True, those in Megiddo are subjected to more violence, torture even. They are denied proper food, medicine, and the freedom to move about. But how is that fundamentally different from the incarceration of 2.3 million people living in Gaza now?
Some would even argue that living in Gaza during a time of genocide is more confining and far less safe than being a political prisoner in Israel, under ‘normal’ circumstances.
So clearly, the issue is not related to numbers, but to power relations.
Under international law, Israel is the Occupying Power. This entitles Israel to certain rights per, for example, the Fourth Geneva Convention, but also numerous responsibilities. For decades, Israel has abused those ‘rights’ and completely ignored all its responsibilities. Over the same period, Palestinians have appealed to – even implored – the international community to enforce international law on Israel, unsuccessfully.
This was illustrated in the pitiful display by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas during a speech at the United Nations General Assembly on May 15. “Protect us,” he said, repeatedly, before making an analogy between Palestinians and animals. “Aren’t we human beings? Even animals should be protected. If you have an animal, won’t you protect it? Protect us!”
Most Palestinians know well that the US, West-dominated international institutions will not provide protection for Palestinians based on any kind of moral rationale or even their love for animals.
This realization dawned on Palestinians generations ago, when the international community failed to enforce a single UN resolution on Israel. Regarding the ongoing Gaza genocide, it proved particularly irrelevant, to the extent that UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres pronounced it outright when he saidon November 8, that the UN has neither “money nor power” to prevent genocide in Gaza.
Guterres and other top UN officials must be aware of the marginal role that the international community is able to play in the Israeli war on Gaza because of the strong US stance in support of Israel. As long as Washington continues to serve the role of the vanguard of Israeli war crimes in Palestine, Tel Aviv has no reason to stop.
So, Palestinians do what every other occupied, colonized people did in this situation. They resist. Through their resistance, they hope to introduce a new factor to a long-skewed equation, largely controlled by Israel and its Western allies.
By releasing their prisoners, as a direct result of their own resistance, Palestinians are, therefore, able to influence outcomes. It means that they are political agents; in fact, political actors who can redefine the rules of the game altogether.
Indeed, Palestinians approach the issue of prisoners as part of a larger campaign of liberation struggle. Those who can free 100, or 7,000 detainees would, then, set a historical precedent that would, eventually, allow them to free the whole Palestinian people.
Israel is fully aware of the power and representation of the prisoners’ issue because Israel imprisons Palestinians as an expression of power and control over every aspect of Palestinian lives. Though some of the Palestinian detainees are considered, in the eyes of Israel, ‘security prisoners’, many were detained for social media occupation and apartheid. The difference between being a prisoner in Megiddo, Ofer or Ramleh prison, for example, and being a prisoner in an isolated, walled-off Palestinian town under Israeli military Occupation in Area C in the West Bank, is rather technical.
True, those in Megiddo are subjected to more violence, torture even. They are denied proper food, medicine, and the freedom to move about. But how is that fundamentally different from the incarceration of 2.3 million people living in Gaza now?
Some would even argue that living in Gaza during a time of genocide is more confining and far less safe than being a political prisoner in Israel, under ‘normal’ circumstances.
So clearly, the issue is not related to numbers, but to power relations.
Under international law, Israel is the Occupying Power. This entitles Israel to certain rights per, for example, the Fourth Geneva Convention, but also numerous responsibilities. For decades, Israel has abused those ‘rights’ and completely ignored all its responsibilities. Over the same period, Palestinians have appealed to – even implored – the international community to enforce international law on Israel, unsuccessfully.
This was illustrated in the pitiful display by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas during a speech the rights of Palestinians to celebrate their children’s freedom.
Specifically, Israel wants to control every aspect of Palestinian lives – their actions, real or symbolic, but even their anger, their joy and all other emotions.
When Palestinians are released through prisoner exchanges, they emerge, proudly and with heads held high, from Israeli dungeons, despite the numerous obstacles, restrictions, and Israel’s insistence on keeping all Palestinian captives. For Palestinians, this is an unparalleled victory.
So, no, this is not a numbers game. Though every Palestinian individual matters, whether those being killed in Gaza, or those held captive in Israeli prisons, for Palestinians all issues are linked to one single project called liberation.
It is for this coveted collective freedom that Palestinians have fought, generation after generation, however the high cost of death, imprisonment, and perpetual captivity.
Dr. Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of six books. His latest book, co-edited with Ilan Pappé, is ‘Our Vision for Liberation: Engaged Palestinian Leaders and Intellectuals Speak Out’. His other books include ‘My Father was a Freedom Fighter’ and ‘The Last Earth’. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA). His website isﾠwww.ramzybaroud.net
World Socialist Web Site – December 7, 2023
Gaza health system collapses amid nonstop Israeli bombardment
By Benjamin Mateus
With Israel’s resumption of the assault on Gaza with “maximum force,” a genocidal campaign that has been recently escalated by Israel against the Palestinians is driving a significant majority of the population out of their homes into shelters and refugee camps in the south.
In the course of the last few days, hundreds more innocent civilians, the majority women and children, have been killed in the incessant bombing that, as one commentator on the ground noted, turns “the sky grey and the ground red” with blood.
In northern Gaza, Kamal Adwan Hospital has been surrounded by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) trapping hundreds of people who have sought treatment or refuge in the buildings and adjacent compounds. On Tuesday, the health ministry told reporters that more than 100 people had been killed close to the facility. The overnight bombing in Beit Lahiya around the hospital sent terror into the hearts of the thousands sheltering there. No one can grow accustomed to such violence, both in anticipation of the next attack and the subsequent carnage.
Munir al-Bursh, director-general of the health ministry in Gaza, speaking from inside the hospital, said, “The Israeli occupation forces have laid siege to the hospital from all sides. We are targeted by gunfire and artillery shells. We fear a massacre inside Kamal Adwan Hospital, as happened in Al-Shifa and Indonesian hospitals.” Anyone venturing outside is shot on sight.
Of the 24 hospitals that existed north of the Wadi Gaza before October 7, only three are functioning at the most rudimentary capacity, said the World Health Organization (WHO) during the pause in the conflict last week. Without fuel, water or food, the situation for the remaining patients and those providing care is assuredly bleak.
Meanwhile, in the southern Gaza district of Khan Younis, home to approximately 170,000 Gazans, Israeli troops have crossed into the heart of the city. Leaflets directed at residents of six districts of Khan Younis, amounting to a quarter of the population, are warning them to shelter inside or at the hospitals. “Don’t go out,” it read. “Going out is dangerous. You have been warned.”
A team of physicians with Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres, or MSF) working at the Nasser Medical Complex located in Khan Younis told Al Jazeera that the number of displaced people arriving at their facility were increasing, necessitating building shelters for them in the car parks with many simply sleeping on the ground in the open. The inured were also arriving in droves. Chris Hook, the MSF medical coordinator, said, “The hospital has been receiving multiple severely injured patients nearly every hour. With the situation as it is in the hospital—there is no available space anymore. It really is a terrible situation. Everyone is genuinely worried about what will come next.”
Dr. Richard Peeperkorn, WHO representative in Gaza, told reporters by video link, “The situation is getting worse by the hour. There’s intensified bombing going all around, including here in the southern areas, Khan Younis and even in Rafah.” After explaining how concerned he was about the vulnerability of the densely populated enclave as people were escaping south to avoid the shelling, he dejectedly noted, “We will witness [here] the same pattern of what happened in the north. That cannot happen. … I want to make this point very clear, that we are looking at an increasing humanitarian disaster.”
Already more than 80 percent of Gaza’s population has fled to the south which means that the population density in that region is the highest across any urban center. Rafah, which normally has a population of 280,000, is hosting close to one-half million people.
Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of WHO’s health emergencies program, recently explained, “There are now almost two million people internally displaced, so many people living within shelters, living within family homes, three, four or five families now per apartment, living in other types of shelter, mosques and schools, community halls. Everywhere is packed. The weather has deteriorated. The rain is falling. Children are getting colder. Nutritional status is dropping rapidly … all the conditions are there for a deterioration of the situation.”
Since hostilities commenced on October 7, close to 500 healthcare facilities have been targeted by the IDF. The experiences at Al-Shifa and Indonesian hospitals only confirm that even these “privileged” facilities are not safe for those seeking shelter and protection. Indeed, the decimation of the entire healthcare system is vital to Israel’s plan for genocide and ethnic cleansing.
One must understand that Gaza’s healthcare system was already teetering on the brink before the genocidal campaign. It had only 36 hospitals with a total capacity of 3,412 beds that was treating the 2.3 million people that lived there. While the need for access to emergent health services has jumped by several orders of magnitude, the overall bed capacity that remains has plummeted to 1,500. Only 15 are now partially functioning, almost all (12) in the south, and all are completely overwhelmed.
At the World Health Organization’s (WHO) press briefing on November 29, much of the discussion was on the state of the healthcare and the health crisis in Gaza. They warned several times that the singular most important facet in the crisis was “to preserve the existing capacity in the health system in Gaza.”
Speaking to this, Dr. Ryan said, “The one thing I will say is that if we use as a marker, and this is often used as a marker of the effectiveness of health systems, the immunization rates in Gaza prior to the conflict were some of the highest in the world, which means regardless of the government situation, the reality is that primary prevention and basic care to individuals was being carried out beforehand; and in fact, we’re in many ways relying on that residual protection that exists for that population.”
The panel warned that these conditions will drive outbreaks of serious epidemics that for children, elderly, malnourished and pregnant women can lead to severe disease if not be fatal without immediate access to medical facilities, where close monitoring and intravenous fluids can be administered.
Dr. Ryan, in response to a query, said that besides the rise in infectious and diarrheal diseases, they were seeing an uptick in the signal for Acute Jaundice Syndrome—caused by infectious pathogens that attack the liver (acute viral hepatitis E, A, B and C)—common in densely populated refugee camps without adequate provisions or general hygiene standards.
Dr. Peeperkorn, who had attended the press brief before leaving for Gaza, listed that there had been 111,000 cases of acute respiratory infections, 12,000 cases of scabies, and 11,000 cases of lice. Among those under the age of five, 36,000 cases of diarrhea and for those five and over, 40,000. More than 24,000 people had developed skin rashes. There were also 1,100 people with jaundice and 2,500 with chickenpox. There were also 111 cases of meningitis, of which 74 were in the last two weeks. Meanwhile, at one of their UNRWA schools that was housing 19,000 people, there were only eight functioning toilets.
According to Gaza health officials, as of December 5, 2023, the death toll is at a conservative 16,248 Palestinians that have been confirmed killed. Of these, 7,112 are children and 4,885 women, accounting for nearly three-quarters of all killed. More than 43,616 are wounded. Some 7,600 remain unaccounted.
Al-Bursh, speaking with the Palestinian news agency Shehab, said, “The Israeli occupation wants to kill hope, it wants to kill our youths, our children and women. The Israeli forces do not differentiate between a child and the elderly.”
At the time of the temporary pause, according to Salama Maarouf, head of the media office, more than 40,000 tons of explosives (an equivalent to dropping three nuclear bombs the size that was used on Hiroshima) has been dropped on Gazans, who live in one of the most densely populated regions of the world. The destruction wrought on northern Gaza, in particular, is comparable to the Allied bombing of major German cities during World War II.
Maarouf noted, “The bombs recently used by the occupation (forces) have never been used before, and hundreds of martyrs are buried in the places where they died. The devastation by the occupation reflects its intent to make Gaza uninhabitable.”
As of last week, the IDF boasted that it had fired over 90,000 shells on Gaza or around 1,800 per day. In a recent report from WION, that since commencement of hostilities, the United States has graciously given Israel 15,000 bombs, including 100 BLU-109, 2,000-pound bunker busters, and 57,000 artillery shells. These bunker busters can penetrate more than six feet of reinforced concrete.
The sole purpose of using such armaments in the manner they are being deployed is not intended to flush out Hamas but to eradicate the entire population by first destroying the entire social structure of Gaza and then allow the slow death brought on by starvation, dehydration and infections from contamination of injuries. This is all to ensure each and every Palestinian meets a violent cruel death.
The comments by Giora Eiland, the former head of the Israeli National Security Council to destroy hospital systems as to allow “severe epidemics in the south of Gaza Strip will bring victory closer,” are not ravings of a sick mind but a strategy designed, planned and being executed.
That the US now is calling for Israel to do more to reduce harm to the civilian population while continually arming them with weapons of mass destruction is simply absurd and farcical if it was not so grotesquely horrific.
The crisis in Gaza is beyond urgent, as the population is being massacred. Only the working class can bring these hostilities to an end and ensure resources are immediately directed to Gaza to alleviate the suffering. As the statement by the World Socialist Web Site Editorial Board recently stated, “The struggle to put an end to Israel’s genocide in Gaza must be waged as a struggle against the imperialist governments that are responsible for it and the capitalist system whose barbarism is being put on hideous display before the world.”
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/12/07/lrzu-d07.html?pk_campaign=newsletter&pk_kwd=wsws
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