How Many Children Must Die? As the Death Toll of Palestinian Children in Gaza Surpasses 1,000, A Ceasefire Is Urgently Required
17.10.23
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For the last ten days, like all sensitive people everywhere, I’ve been aware that a rift has opened up in the world — a dangerous tear in the very fabric of human decency, of fundamental morality, through which supposed justifications are loudly being made to excuse the killing, in the Gaza Strip, of children, of women, of the elderly and the ill, and of unarmed men “of military age” who have not engaged in any kind of military conflict at all.
It’s an age-old story, sadly. Throughout human history, men — it’s almost always only men — have slaughtered civilians in their quest, or their leaders’ quest for land, power and control. You could be forgiven for thinking that what drives most wars is actually an excuse to unleash these darkest impulses, and that everything else is secondary.
Gideon Levy’s ‘A Brief History of Killing Children’
It’s nearly two years since the great Israeli journalist Gideon Levy wrote an article for Haaretz, Israel’s oldest newspaper, entitled ‘A Brief History of Killing Children’, in which he chronicled the moral decline of the Israeli government from the 1990s to the time of writing through the ways in which Palestinian children have been treated.
“First we were ashamed, then we were shocked, and we even investigated”, Levy wrote. “Then we denied it and lied. After that we ignored and repressed it, yawned and lost interest. Now is the worst phase of all: We’ve started to extol the killers of children. That’s how far we’ve gone.”
Levy recalled the shock he felt in 1996, when a new-born baby, whose mother, Faiza Abu Dahuk, gave birth to him at an Israeli checkpoint, died after Israeli soldiers turned her away from three checkpoints. When she finally arrived at a hospital, after carrying him “all through a cold and rainy night”, he “was already dead.”
At the time, Levy noted, “The matter came up at a cabinet meeting. An officer was dismissed and a mini-storm ensued. This was in April 1996, during the year of hope and illusions.”
By 2000, however, and the time of the Second Intifada, the killing of 12-year old Mohammed al-Dura, who was shot by Israeli forces as he sought shelter with his father behind a concrete cylinder, marked the start of what Levy described as Israel’s “phase of denials and lies.” Although the Israel Defense Forces initially accepted responsibility for the killing, they then retracted their admission, claiming that “the whole episode was staged and that Mohammed al-Dura was not killed at all — or was murdered in cold blood by the Palestinians — to discredit and ‘delegitimize’ Israel”, as Levy’s fellow journalist Khaled Diab described it in 2013.
After that, as Levy described it, “20 years of indifference and complacence” began, as a result of which, as he further explained, “Soldiers and pilots have killed 2,171 children and teenagers, and not one of these cases shocked anyone here, or sparked a real investigation or led to a trial. More than 2,000 children in 20 years — 100 children, three classrooms a year.”
Crucially, he added that “all of them, down to the last, were found guilty of their own death”, because of the prevailing opinion in Israel that “they were terrorists and the soldiers or the police had no choice but to execute them.”
Levy’s 2021 article was prompted by what he called “the next phase” in this dehumanisation, in which Israel now “praises the killers of children; they are the new heroes.” He added, “This never happened before. They were Palestinians, terrorists, but still they were children.”
The specific example Levy focused on was that of 16-year old Omar Abu Sab, who “went out with a knife to stab a Border Police officer.” As he explained, “A video clip released by the police shows him approaching two officers from behind and attacking them. He was smaller and thinner than them, they could have stopped him, they didn’t have to shoot him, and they certainly didn’t have to kill him, like they needlessly killed children with knives before him and after him.”
Instead of being condemned or even criticised, however, the border guard who shot Omar Abu Sab to death at point-blank range was feted in the press, with the officer described as “The hero from the Old City”, who “took out a terrorist and prevented a major disaster” — and with no mention made of Omar Abu Sab’s age. As Levy concluded, “to turn the shooting of a 16-year-old with a knife into a big story is the crossing of a moral red line. It will encourage the needless killing of more children, if any such encouragement was needed.”
Children’s deaths amidst increasing violations of international humanitarian law
Gideon Levy’s analysis of Israel’s increasing dehumanisation of Palestinian children is significant, in part because it highlights Israel’s refusal to accept that, as stated in Article 6 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (which was agreed in 1989, and was ratified by Israel in 1991), States Parties “must recognize that every child has the inherent right to life”, and “shall ensure to the maximum extent possible the survival and development of the child”, but also because, in the case of Omar Abu Sab and other children summarily executed by Israeli soldiers, it so flagrantly violates the Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict, which was adopted by the UN General Assembly in May 2000, and which has also been ratified by Israel, in which Article 6.3 calls on States Parties to provide juveniles recruited into armed conflict with “all appropriate assistance for their physical and psychological recovery and their social reintegration.”
In addition, of course, Levy’s assessment also condemns Israel for its increasing contempt not just for the rights of children, but also for the entire apparatus of international humanitarian law, which, as the ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross) explains, “protects those who do not take part in the fighting, such as civilians and medical and religious military personnel”, who “are entitled to respect for their lives and for their physical and mental integrity”, who “also enjoy legal guarantees”, and who “must be protected and treated humanely in all circumstances, with no adverse distinction.”
This is hugely important, of course, because the 2,171 children and teenagers killed by Israel from 2000 to 2021 weren’t all shot at checkpoints; many were, instead, killed in the indiscriminate bombing raids on the Gaza Strip that have been taking place with alarming regularity ever since the 2.3 million inhabitants of that tiny densely populated area (roughly the size of east London) were first imprisoned in 2007, when Israel imposed a complete land, air and naval blockade of such severity that Human Rights Watch has accurately described the Gaza Strip as “an open air prison.”
Major assaults on the Gaza Strip took place in 2008-09, in 2012, in 2014 and again in 2021, with B’Tselem, the Jerusalem-based NGO, which documents human rights violations in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories, compiling reports demonstrating that, from September 29, 2000 (the start of the Second Intifada) to December 26, 2008 (the start of Operation Cast Lead, the first of Israel’s major attacks on Gaza), 961 Palestinian children were killed, 345 children were killed in the 23 days of Operation Cast Lead, which lasted until January 18, 2009, and 877 more children were killed between January 19, 2009 and January 18, 2022.
This is a total of 2,183 Palestinian children killed, while over the same period 139 Israeli children were killed — a ratio of 15.7:1. UN figures from January 1, 2008 to September 19, 2023 provide further context, with 6,407 Palestinians in total killed throughout that period compared to 308 Israelis — a ratio of 20.8:1.
The death toll in Gaza is spiralling out of control
Now, however, with Israel having launched an incomparably savage attack on the Gaza Strip in retaliation for the brutal and unforgivable attacks during incursions into Israeli territory by Hamas militants on October 7, in which at least 1,400 Israelis were killed (attacks that have been rightly condemned as war crimes by international legal experts), the death toll in Gaza is spiralling out of control.
According to the latest reports, around 3,000 people have now been killed in the Gaza Strip in Israeli bombing raids over the last week and a half (almost half of the total from the long years of bloodshed from 2000 to last month), with at least 1,000 of those killed being children (again, nearly half of the total from 2000 to last month).
Moreover, a further 1,200 Palestinians, including 500 children, are unaccounted for, with many — if not most — buried beneath the rubble of Gaza’s devastated buildings, and, even more alarmingly, untold numbers of people will soon die of thirst, hunger, their wounds, pre-existing medical conditions and disease if Israel refuses to lift the “complete siege” of Gaza that was imposed on October 8, when defense minister Yoav Gallant stated, in stark and blood-curdlingly chilling terms, “There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we will act accordingly.”
It may sound rather alarmist for me to suggest that the Israel government is well aware of the statistics over the last 22 years — and, specifically, the ratio of 20 Palestinian deaths to one Israeli death over that time — but I’m sure that some officials are aware of it, and are calculating accordingly that, at a minimum, 30,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip will be required to die to pay for Hamas’s attacks on October 7.
Behind closed doors, I’m sure that some Israeli officials have been discussing even more alarming proposals — very specifically, genocide — and I also note that, just a few days ago, the US journalist Seymour Hersh spoke to a “veteran Israeli spy” who told him that the big debate within the Israeli government was “whether to starve Hamas out or kill as many as 100,000” civilians.
Western leaders’ complicity in war crimes, and the urgent need for a humanitarian ceasefire
Disgracefully, as I noted in my article last week, My Shame at the West’s Uncritical Support for Israeli War Crimes in Gaza, Western leaders initially responded to the start of Israel’s unprecedented assault on Gaza — in which 6,000 bombs were dropped, almost as many as the US dropped on Afghanistan in an entire year — by unconditionally endorsing Israel’s “right to defend itself.”
Many, if not most have subsequently rowed back from this position — in many cases, I have no doubt, because human rights lawyers have pointed out to them that they may, as a result, be complicit in war crimes — but although the West’s position is now broadly in accord with President Biden’s statement on October 15, when he belatedly acknowledged that “[w]e must not lose sight of the fact that the overwhelming majority of Palestinians had nothing to do with Hamas’s appalling attacks, and are suffering as a result of them”, the humanitarian crisis will not be addressed through standing at a podium and finally saying the right thing.
While the West vacillates and pontificates — and, far too often, still defends Israel unconditionally — the Israeli government’s unrelenting blizzard of violations of international humanitarian law — of war crimes — continues as though they only apply to lesser beings.
As well as imposing the most extraordinarily violent and cruel collective punishment on the people of Gaza, via its indiscriminate bombing raids, and by withholding water, food and medical supplies (all of which are quite startling war crimes), the Israeli government has recently added ethnic cleansing to its growing list of violations, via the evacuation order for half of the population to move to the south of the Gaza Strip, with the apparent intention of persuading Egypt to open the Rafah Crossing so that they can be exiled to the Sinai Desert, never to return.
As Jan Egeland, the secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, told the Associated Press, this is “not an evacuation opportunity, it’s an order to relocate. Under humanitarian law, it’s called forcible transfer of populations, and it’s a war crime.”
What is needed now, clearly, is nothing short of an immediate ceasefire followed by the provision of urgent humanitarian relief and supplies to the Gaza Strip. Anything less means that those in positions of power around the world continue to be complicit in war crimes, and, as more Palestinian children die, will have these children’s blood on their hands.
* * * * *
Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer (of an ongoing photo-journalism project, ‘The State of London’), film-maker and singer-songwriter (the lead singer and main songwriter for the London-based band The Four Fathers, whose music is available via Bandcamp). He is the co-founder of the Close Guantánamo campaign (see the ongoing photo campaign here) and the successful We Stand With Shaker campaign of 2014-15, and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. He is also the co-director (with Polly Nash) of the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (available on DVD here, or you can watch it online here, via the production company Spectacle, for £2.50).
In 2017, Andy became very involved in housing issues. He is the narrator of the documentary film, ‘Concrete Soldiers UK’, about the destruction of council estates, and the inspiring resistance of residents, he wrote a song ‘Grenfell’, in the aftermath of the entirely preventable fire in June 2017 that killed over 70 people, and, in 2018, he was part of the occupation of the Old Tidemill Wildlife Garden in Deptford, to try to prevent its destruction — and that of 16 structurally sound council flats next door — by Lewisham Council and Peabody.
Since 2019, Andy has become increasingly involved in environmental activism, recognizing that climate change poses an unprecedented threat to life on earth, and that the window for change — requiring a severe reduction in the emission of all greenhouse gases, and the dismantling of our suicidal global capitalist system — is rapidly shrinking, as tipping points are reached that are occurring much quicker than even pessimistic climate scientists expected. You can read his articles about the climate crisis here.
To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to Andy’s RSS feed — and he can also be found on Facebook (and here), Twitter, Flickr and YouTube. Also see the six-part definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, The Complete Guantánamo Files, the definitive Guantánamo habeas list, the full military commissions list, and the chronological list of all Andy’s articles.
Please also consider joining the Close Guantánamo campaign, and, if you appreciate Andy’s work, feel free to make a donation.
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37 Responses
Andy Worthington says...
When I posted this on Facebook, I wrote:
As the number of Palestinian children killed in Israeli bombing raids on the Gaza Strip surpasses 1,000, I look in my latest article at the Israeli government’s lack of concern for children’s deaths as part of its wholesale abdication of its responsibilities under international humanitarian law, and urge Western leaders to call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and the lifting of the siege that has cut off supplies of water, food and medical supplies.
Otherwise, as I explain, they may well find themselves complicit in the Israeli war crimes they themselves have endorsed though their uncritical support of Israel’s actions over the last ten days.
...on October 17th, 2023 at 8:54 pm
Andy Worthington says...
As I was preparing to post this article, I heard about the bombing of the Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City, where 500 people are said to have been killed, according to the Gaza health ministry.
While the Israeli military has denied responsibility for the attack, suggesting that it was hit by a rocket barrage launched by Islamic Jihad, a now-deleted tweet by Netanyahu adviser Hananya Naftali boasted about how it was an Israeli strike, based on a disgraceful allegation that a Hamas terrorist base was located within the hospital, and also suggesting that further strikes on non-military locations would be justified because Hamas was “launching rockets from hospitals, Mosques [and] schools.”
I’m not sure I can actually comprehend the evil involved in repeatedly telling hospitals in Gaza to evacuate, over the last few days, when there’s no way that is possible, then bombing one of them, and then attempting to delete the evidence and to claim that it was actually Islamic Jihad who bombed it instead.
See the deleted tweet here: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10161559245093804&set=p.10161559245093804&type=3
...on October 17th, 2023 at 10:57 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Mary MacGregor Green wrote:
Well written, Andy … tensely and yet honestly put to us. I have been associated with Lama Foundation since 1971, where we are as a community, to say both Zhikr and Sabbath prayers … and many years ago, more than 6 years now … I was driving up the mountain to the foundation (since I live in town, in Taos) for Sabbath and listening to a report on Democracy Now about a father and son being detained at checkpoints instead of being allowed to get the injured son to a hospital (an accident on their farm) and the son bled out in his Palestinian father’s truck. I was at Sabbath before sunset and yet I could not say the prayers and I have not been able to since then. I’ve known of the call to use any excuse at all to kill Muslim men between the ages of 16 and 40 … and of the children who have been jailed, etc. And I can ask God for mercy and express my sorrows and my helplessness but I just can not pray in Hebrew right now. We here are all praying … for a ceasefire. Please.
...on October 17th, 2023 at 10:59 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Thank you very much for your supportive words, Mary, and for your account of how the poison of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian people has affected you. There are so many of us praying for a ceasefire, shouting about it and working to try and make it happen, even though so many of us, I’m sure, just feel paralyzed and powerless. We can only hope our leaders see sense, and that the restraints agreed upon by the international community in the wake of WWII, though so often broken and demeaned, can still mean something when confronted by genuinely genocidal intent.
...on October 17th, 2023 at 11:00 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Natalia Rivera Scott wrote:
I don’t have words … it’s heartbreaking.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10161743484453092&set=p.10161743484453092&type=3
...on October 17th, 2023 at 11:05 pm
Andy Worthington says...
It took me quite some time to write this article, Natalia. I knew I needed to focus on the death toll, and it was important to me to focus on the children killed, and then today I found Gideon Levy’s article from two years ago, which helped me to pull the whole thing together. It’s devastating to hear how many children have been killed, and it’s absolutely unforgivable, not only legally but morally too – no child should ever be killed to satisfy evil men’s lust for murder.
...on October 17th, 2023 at 11:06 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Natalia Rivera Scott wrote:
Andy, I know you always write the truth and I trust in what I read in your articles. I have asked to translate [into Spanish] this one and the last one because it’s important people read you and know what’s happening. It’s important for people to be on the right side of history even if it’s harder, more painful and more outrageous. It’s heartbreaking but we need to stand for the ones that are gone. Stand with Palestine.
...on October 17th, 2023 at 11:07 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Thanks for your appreciation of my efforts, Natalia. As you know, this is new territory for me, and I know there are many great writers out there with much more experience of the topic than me, but I can’t stand by and not add my thoughts, when what is happening is so extraordinarily brutal, and I hope my 17 years of experience writing about Guantanamo have enabled me to bring some sort of valid perspective to it all.
...on October 17th, 2023 at 11:08 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Anna Giddings wrote:
Absolutely. We’ve given them our full support throughout all this. Thanks Andy.
...on October 17th, 2023 at 11:08 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Thanks, Anna. We are millions, up against a smaller if vociferous number of depraved enthusiasts for genocide, all overseen by a really quite small number of politicians who are so fundamentally morally bankrupt that they should never be voted for again.
...on October 17th, 2023 at 11:09 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Mary MacGregor Green wrote, in response to 4, above:
“Genuine genocidal intent” … well said. And the ones with this wound, with this hurt in their humanity, they are suffering and hurt people, hurt people. SO … we pray … and you do your work and your reporting and the “rules of engagement” do mean a lot to the soldiers (my Dad was Field Commander 5th USAF and he called them his men … and he was keenly aware of how important those rules were to his men).
...on October 18th, 2023 at 12:34 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Thanks, Mary, for highlighting the trauma that drives this homicidal rage. I just came across a tweet from a British woman, Helen Knott, who does voiceovers, which resonated with me. “Groups formed by pain are bound tightly with burning ropes of anger. They only look inwards to each other”, she wrote. “Getting them to turn and look out at the other side … to see that the pain is shared … for that you need the women.”
I can’t entirely agree about the gender lines, as plenty of men are also opposed to violence, and, as the far-right mentality continues to colonise so many countries around the world, it’s also shocking to see so many women embracing fascism, but I’m pretty sure that mothers on both sides of this conflict would make an extraordinarily powerful case for peace if the media would allow their voices to be amplified. https://twitter.com/HelenJKnott/status/1714555798947279187
Thanks also for your recollections of your father. He sounds like a good man, and, while I abhor war in all its forms, when good men are involved there is, at least, a chance that the excesses of brutal licence that war so often allows will be restrained.
...on October 18th, 2023 at 12:35 pm
Andy Worthington says...
S Brian Willson wrote, in response to 2, above:
Andy i am sick in my whole body. Evil beyond evil!
...on October 18th, 2023 at 12:36 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Yes, well said, Brian. We can at least be assured that millions of people feel the same way, but it is beyond infuriating how many genuinely heartless people are in positions of political power in the West, and are also so present in the mainstream media. They seem not to even have any concept of what it means to have blood on your hands through what you say and do – or what you don’t say and don’t do.
...on October 18th, 2023 at 12:36 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Hilary Homes wrote:
A common theme of dehumanization runs through so much of what you write about, Andy, from Guantanamo to this and so much more. No wonder you were moved to hit the keyboard.
...on October 18th, 2023 at 12:40 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Thank you so much for your wonderfully supportive words, Hilary. It’s actually the first time that anyone has pointed out how much I’m driven to challenge dehumanization. I’d always thought of my work as representing the marginalized and demonized – but yes, fundamentally it is about dehumanization, and the terrible actions that supposedly legitimizes.
In the emotionally charged atmosphere of the last ten days, I’ve been having very interesting conversations with various people I know or have bumped into, particularly, I think, because Israel’s actions right now, and the mindset of those in the West who support it, demonstrate the failure of human beings to rise above their basest impulses on a truly colossal scale.
We’ve been here so many times before, of course, in wars involving so many countries, but the Israel-Palestine crisis is so long and so blood-soaked, and so one-sided in terms of who has the power and yet how they continue to portray themselves as victims, that I can’t recall a time when the human horror at the heart of this story has been so clearly spelled out – both via the fetished trauma of the Israelis, who desperately need collective counselling, and their concomitant erasure of anything resembling empathy, without which we will always struggle to overcome our dark side.
...on October 18th, 2023 at 12:42 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Deborah Emin wrote:
Well said, Andy. The fractures now occurring here in the US along the lines of who supports Israel and those who are seen as having a less committed attitude and branded as anti-semites is going to make living here even more intolerable. This degree of dehumanization is unbearable. It is why having civil discourse is impossible. It is why in this semi-rural area of PA I live in, I walk away from almost all conversations with so many people about the one side vs the other. I have turned my energies to feeding the hungry, writing and practicing the piano almost exclusively.
I read even your articles sparingly. We are in agreement. I have given a lot of time and energy to resisting this conflict and have been disowned by my family because of it. Not a real loss. Just symbolic to me that I have tried. Thank you for your work.
...on October 18th, 2023 at 12:59 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Thanks for the supportive words, Deborah. I am so sorry to hear that civil discourse has become impossible where you live in PA, and by extension, I suppose, across the US in general. As has been the case with intolerance and Islamophobia since 9/11, the situation is not as bad here in the UK amongst people in general, but there is a deep well of dangerous divisiveness in our political leaders and far too much of the mainstream media.
On a much more positive note, I’m humbled by your commitment to feeding the hungry, your attachment to the land and your vegan principles. You are, I strongly suspect, sowing important seeds for community survival in the difficult years ahead.
...on October 18th, 2023 at 1:00 pm
Andy Worthington says...
David Barrows wrote:
With a few exceptions, where are our so-called religious leaders?
...on October 18th, 2023 at 1:00 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Susan Hall wrote:
Perhaps the “christian” cults like I used to be in do what their pastors suggest & that is to consider the Jewish people are chosen above everyone else – very racist concepts. Lots of churches or ppl don’t believe in the pledge of allegiance, “liberty & justice for all.”
...on October 18th, 2023 at 1:01 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Yes, well said Susan. I think “identifying” with Israel, and racism against Palestinians (or Arabs, or Muslims) runs shockingly deep. The former question has always failed to question the basis of that identification, as so much of the settler mentality is actually quite similar to the genocidal mentality of 19th century America and of European colonialists, without any of the struggles and questioning that was involved in at least rowing back to some extent from that position in the 20th century, while the latter, of course, has been a shocking emotional incendiary device since 9/11, with the world’s entire population of Muslims tarred endlessly either as terrorists or as terrorist sympathizers.
...on October 18th, 2023 at 1:02 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Lizzy Arizona wrote:
‘Ex-Israeli Peace Negotiator Daniel Levy Decries Israel’s Actions in Gaza’ – on Democracy Now!
https://youtu.be/W1FruK36luM?si=ex3vcRuRTK6gK78H
...on October 18th, 2023 at 1:04 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Thanks for sharing that, Lizzy. I saw Daniel’s BBC interview at the time, and it’s very powerful.
...on October 18th, 2023 at 1:04 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Anna Giddings shared Matt Kennard’s tweet about how the US, the UK, France and Japan vetoed a UN resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, and stated, “This is shameful.”
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10160529790886998&set=p.10160529790886998&type=3
...on October 18th, 2023 at 1:07 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Shameful but predictable, Anna, because Russia proposed the resolution, and the US, the UK, France and Japan were able to sidestep the reality – that they wouldn’t endorse a resolution proposed by Russia – by claiming that their opposition to it was because its “lack of specific condemnation of extremist group Hamas”, which, as the UN news release unhelpfully described it, “began the current escalation of violence” through its actions of October 7. https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/10/1142427
...on October 18th, 2023 at 1:08 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Deborah Emin wrote:
The true length of time that the US has been complicit in the Israeli war crimes is as long as the US has made Israel its largest recipient of military aid.
...on October 18th, 2023 at 1:09 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Yes, that’s a very good point, Deborah. As a Stimson Center report noted just last week, “Israel is the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. military assistance since the Second World War, amounting to more than $158 billion over the past seven decades, not adjusted for inflation. In recent years, U.S. assistance to Israel has been outlined in a 10-year memoranda of understandings, the most recent of which was signed in 2016 and pledges $38 billion in military assistance between FY2019-FY2028.” https://www.stimson.org/2023/in-shadow-of-war-a-snapshot-of-u-s-military-assistance-to-israel/
...on October 18th, 2023 at 1:09 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Hanann Abu Brase wrote:
Thanks Andy.
...on October 18th, 2023 at 1:12 pm
Andy Worthington says...
You’re most welcome, Hanann. Sadly, I can’t think of a time in recent memory when the saying, “silence is complicity” has been so relevant. Those of us with consciences – and there are millions of us – must continue to speak out.
...on October 18th, 2023 at 1:13 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Please read this article, published in the New York Times, by Ayman Odeh, an Israeli Arab member of the Knesset and the leader of the left-wing Hadash party, after hearing that the extended family of a friend of his, Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish, a physician from Gaza who now lives in Canada, lost five babies in Israel’s genocidal bombing raids on Gaza.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/19/opinion/israel-netanyahu-palestinians.html
Also on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/AyOdeh/status/1714996093769937358
...on October 19th, 2023 at 6:29 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Also worth reading – this article today by the Israeli journalist Haggai Matar, ‘A real friend of Israel would be making it face up to some uncomfortable truths’: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/19/israel-president-joe-biden-violence
...on October 19th, 2023 at 6:33 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Also worth reading – the Center for Constitutional Rights’ emergency legal briefing paper, just out today, entitled, ‘Israel’s Unfolding Crime of Genocide of the Palestinian People & U.S. Failure to Prevent and Complicity in Genocide’: https://ccrjustice.org/sites/default/files/attach/2023/10/Israels-Unfolding-Crime_ww.pdf
...on October 19th, 2023 at 6:34 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Mary MacGregor Green wrote, in response to 12, above:
Andy, I have a friend from Lama, almost attacking me for posting your story and the tweet that verifies the attack on the hospital was by Israel … she is from Israel and is beside herself about the attack and can not just yet believe that Israel would do this. For her, it’s not rage, but it’s about losing her faith in Israel, in something that has defined her and her reality … it is going to strip her of her faith in Israel to accept that it was an Israeli rocket.
...on October 19th, 2023 at 6:41 pm
Andy Worthington says...
I feel for your friend, Mary, but an awakening to the true nature of Israel right now is absolutely what’s required.
...on October 19th, 2023 at 6:42 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Mary MacGregor Green wrote:
Andy, that’s my thought too, and yet … she might not be able to choose truth …
...on October 19th, 2023 at 6:42 pm
Andy Worthington says...
It’s so very hard, Mary, for people brought up to believe in their country’s “exceptionalism” to recognize how extensively they have been lied to. As a British citizen, I was brought up to believe that, despite our vast and violent colonization of so much of the planet, we behaved “better” than all the other colonial powers. My route to awareness that this was not the case probably came about initially via my recognition that another myth – that we “won” two world wars – was also a disgraceful lie, as there are no winners in war, but many British people are still unaware of the scale of the atrocities committed when we allegedly “ruled the world.”
The US, of course, is another country with a huge “exceptionalism” problem, and one which, again, is largely unrecognized, and Israel is definitely another. It is hard to look in the mirror and to recognize that “we” are the enemy, but it is absolutely required if we are to reclaim our humanity.
...on October 19th, 2023 at 6:43 pm
Andy Worthington says...
I’m very glad to see that, on Oct. 22, Eurasia Review, which sometimes picks up on my articles and cross-posts them, chose to publish this, as “How Many Children Must Die?”: https://www.eurasiareview.com/22102023-how-many-children-must-die-oped/
...on October 25th, 2023 at 5:31 pm