24.10.23
And so the evil — there is no other word for it — continues, as, after two weeks of unprecedented airstrikes on the trapped civilians of the Gaza Strip, the Israeli military continues to increase its attacks, with 704 people, including 305 children and 173 women killed in the last 24 hours.
Last week, when I last wrote about the indiscriminate slaughter of Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip as a result of Israel’s merciless and relentless bombing campaign, over a thousand children had been killed in Israeli bombing raids, out of a total death toll of over 3,000.
In just a week, that number has more than doubled.
As the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor reported today, 2,450 children have now been killed by Israel bombing raids, as well as 1,323 women, out of a total of 5,926 people killed overall. In addition, 16,124 people have been wounded, and around 1,500 people are reported missing and buried under rubble, including 830 children.
How are we to comprehend the scale of this atrocity? As Maha Hussaini of Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor has just tweeted today, “Approximately 200 Palestinian children are killed everyday as a result of the ongoing Israeli bombing of Gaza”, adding that the rate at which children are being killed in Gaza “is unprecedented in the history of wars.”
Israel’s attacks, in response to the atrocities committed by Hamas militants on October 7, when around 1,400 Israelis were killed, have, as a result, now killed over four times more Palestinians than the number of people killed on October 7, although crucially, whereas the Israeli fatalities are now fixed in time, the number of dead Palestinians continues to rise, with no sign of when the slaughter will be halted, as the countries of the west — who are in a position to demand a ceasefire — have persistently refused to do so.
Two UN Security Council resolutions calling for a ceasefire have been blocked — one, launched by Russia, was blocked by the US, the UK, France and Japan, while another, by Brazil, was blocked by the US — and while western leaders have gradually begun walking back from their initial enthusiastic endorsement of Israel’s self-declared “right” to do whatever it wants “to defend itself” — presumably through the efforts of human rights lawyers pointing out that their uncritical support may well have made them complicit in war crimes — all that has really changed is that their pronouncements in support of Israel now include a suggestion that Israel’s actions should conform to the obligations of international humanitarian law — even as they also continue to supply weapons to Israel to continue their slaughter regardless.
President Biden’s lamentable speech in Israel
A particularly egregious example of western hypocrisy involved President Biden’s visit to Israel on October 18, just days before he sought $105 billion in supplemental military funding from Congress, including $61.4 billion for Ukraine, and $14.3 billion for Israel, to “strengthen Israel’s defense from vicious terrorist attacks and bolster the Israeli Defense Forces through Department of Defense (DOD) assistance”, to “ensure Israel’s air and missile defense systems’ readiness”, to “replenish DOD stocks that are being drawn down to support Israel in its time of need”, and to “strengthen Israel’s military … with foreign military financing from the Department of State.”
Also included was a paltry $100 million to “address [the] humanitarian needs of innocent civilians”, including, partly, “those impacted by the war in Israel and in Gaza” — a drop in the ocean compared to the request for more weapons of mass destruction to be used by the Israeli military on those who, if they survive, will presumably need some of that humanitarian assistance.
In a rambling and often contradictory speech, Biden promised that, “As long as the United States stands — and we will stand forever — we will not let you ever be alone”, condemned Hamas for having “committed atrocities that recall the worst ravages of ISIS, unleashing pure unadulterated evil upon the world”, claimed that “[t]he State of Israel was born to be a safe place for the Jewish people of the world”, noted in passing that “[t]he vast majority of Palestinians are not Hamas”, and that “Hamas does not represent the Palestinian people”, before claiming that “Hamas uses innocents — innocent families in Gaza as human shields, putting their command centers, their weapons, their communications tunnels in residential areas”, and immediately following that with a claim that “[t]he Palestinian people are suffering greatly as well”, and that “[w]e mourn the loss of innocent Palestinian lives.”
He also claimed, risibly, given its track record, that “[t]he United States unequivocally stands for the protection of civilian life during conflict”, adding, “I grieve — I truly grieve for the families who were killed or wounded by this tragedy”, before abruptly stating that “[t]he people of Gaza need food, water, medicine, shelter”, and adding that he had urged the Israeli cabinet “to agree to the delivery of lifesaving humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza”, and also declaring that “[w]e must keep pursuing a path so that Israel and the Palestinian people can both live safely, in security, in dignity, and in peace”, via the long-dead notion of a two-state solution.
In a particularly grim passage, he claimed, “We are all human beings created in the image of God with dignity, humanity, and purpose. In the darkness, to be the light unto the world is what we’re about. You inspire hope and light for so many around the world. That’s what the terrorists seek to destroy. That’s what they seek to destroy because they live in darkness — but not you, not Israel”, that latter point echoing Benjamin Netanyahu’s swiftly-deleted tweet last week in which he stated that Israel’s “war” on Gaza was a “struggle between the children of light and the children of darkness, between humanity and the law of the jungle.”
Shamefully, Biden also delivered an emotive description of the killing of Israeli children during Hamas’s attacks on October 7, while refusing to acknowledge that every word he said applied equally to the 2,450 Palestinian children killed in bombing raids financed by his own government — as clear an example of double standards, and the US’s dehumanisation of Palestinian children, as you could ever hope not to hear uttered.
Describing staring at the empty chair of a murdered Israeli child, Biden said, “They are the everyday things — the small things that you miss the most. The scent when you open the closet door. The morning coffee you shared together. The bend in his smile, the perfect pitch of her laugh, the giggle of your little boy — the baby.”
As he also said, “I promise you, you’ll be walking along some days and say, ‘What would she or he want me to do?’ You’ll smile when you pass a place that reminds you of them. That’s when you know — when a smile comes to your lips before a tear to your eye — that’s when you know you’re going to fully make it.”
Perhaps most bizarrely, however — and I do hope that one day Biden’s scriptwriters, along with their boss, will be called to account for their creative complicity in seeking to justify war crimes — Biden, while briefly acknowledging that, after the 9/11 attacks, the US “made mistakes” (but also, apparently, “sought justice and got justice”), also said, “Since this terrorist attack took place, we have seen it described as Israel’s 9/11. But for a nation the size of Israel, it was like 15 9/11s.”
Peddling the 9/11 analogy is dangerous enough, while only conceding that the US “made mistakes”, and not spelling out that those “mistakes” included the unleashing of extraordinary Islamophobia, the launching of two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (the latter, explicitly, though lies) that resulted in at least 250,000 civilian deaths, as well as the shredding of the Geneva Conventions, the establishment of a global program of kidnapping and torture, and the creation, at Guantánamo, of a prison dedicated not only to holding men indefinitely without charge or trial, but also, fundamentally, to depriving them of any rights whatsoever as human beings.
In addition, seeking to magnify Israel’s suffering through manipulated statistics that suggest that what happened on October 7 is equivalent to 15 9/11s only invites the undertaking of some other calculations that refute Israel’s perpetual propaganda about itself as the “victim”, and more properly show it as the aggressor.
By the same formula, what the Palestinians of Gaza have suffered since October 7 is the equivalent of 285 9/11s.
And to provide another perspective, if the number of deaths in Gaza were to be scaled up to reflect the US population, what Gaza has suffered in two weeks of bombing is the equivalent of bombing raids on the US mainland that resulted in a staggering 850,000 deaths.
Israel’s Guantánamo
At the weekend, while thinking about Guantánamo for a talk I was giving at Conway Hall about grassroots campaigning, I was reflecting on the plight of the men held at Guantánamo who have never been charged with a crime (the majority of the 779 men and boys held at the prison since it opened in January 2002, and 19 of the 30 men still held), and how it resembles the shameful system of “administrative detention” used by Israel against Palestinians.
Just last month, the Israeli human rights group Hamoked, drawing on data provided by Israel’s prison service, established that 1,264 men (and boys) were being held in ”administrative detention” — held without charge or trial, on the basis of secret evidence, in a system that allows the Israel authorities, if they wish, to renew the “administrative detentions” indefinitely.
Reflecting on this, it suddenly occurred to me that, in one significant respect, the whole of the Gaza Strip is Israel’s Guantánamo, its 2.3 million inhabitants held in what Human Rights Watch has accurately described as “an open air prison” since Israel imposed a total land, air and sea blockade on it in 2007, leaving its inhabitants almost entirely dependent on Israel for its supplies of food, water, medical supplies and fuel, and severely, and in many cases permanently impeding any kind of free movement.
Since October 7, the analogy has, shamefully, become even more apt, after Israel’s President, Isaac Herzog, said, “It’s an entire nation out there that is responsible. This rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved, it’s absolutely not true. They could’ve risen up, they could have fought against that evil regime.”
With that statement, Herzog declared that 2.3 million people, held indefinitely without charge or trial in “an open air prison”, were all guilty of terrorism, and had no rights, just as the US government claimed after 9/11 when it began rounding up and imprisoning men and boys at Guantánamo.
Genocide
Multiplying the horrors of Guantánamo to an almost indescribable degree, however, Gaza’s 2.3 million inhabitants are not only collectively regarded as being guilty of supporting terrorism, despite never having been charged or tried; they are also being slaughtered indiscriminately.
From the beginning of Israel’s attacks on Gaza, experts in international humanitarian law warned that Israel was engaged in the collective punishment of its 2.3 million inhabitants. On October 12, dozens of UN Special Rapporteurs and members of various Working Groups, led by Francesca Albanese, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967, condemned Israel for its collective punishment of Gaza’s population, stating, “There is no justification for violence that indiscriminately targets innocent civilians, whether by Hamas or Israeli forces. This is absolutely prohibited under international law and amounts to a war crime.”
On October 19, Albanese and eight other Special Rapporteurs, including Pedro Arrojo Agudo, the Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation, followed up with an even more damning assessment, raising “serious humanitarian and legal concerns over Israel tightening its 16-year siege of the enclave and its population and long-standing occupation, depriving 2.2 million people of essential food, fuel, water, electricity and medicine.”
As a press release explained, “They recalled that the wilful and systematic destruction of civilian homes and infrastructure, known as ‘domicide’, and cutting off drinking water, medicine, and essential food is clearly prohibited under international criminal law”, and they added, “An estimated 50,000 pregnant women in Gaza are in desperate need of prenatal and postnatal care”, while “[t]he number of internally displaced people across the Gaza Strip is estimated at around one million.”
As their press release also explained, “They recalled that the UN Security Council has repeatedly condemned the use of starvation of civilians as a method of warfare, which is prohibited under international humanitarian and criminal law”, adding that “[t]he unlawful denial of humanitarian access and depriving civilians of objects indispensable to their survival are also a violation of international humanitarian law.”
Condemning “[t]he complete siege of Gaza coupled with unfeasible evacuation orders and forcible population transfers” as “a violation of international humanitarian and criminal law”, the experts also described Israel’s policies as “unspeakably cruel”, and, in the most strongly worded passage directed at the Israel government, stated, unequivocally, “We are sounding the alarm: There is an ongoing campaign by Israel resulting in crimes against humanity in Gaza. Considering statements made by Israeli political leaders and their allies, accompanied by military action in Gaza and escalation of arrests and killing in the West Bank, there is also a risk of genocide against the Palestinian People.”
Adding, “There are no justifications or exceptions for such crimes”, they also made sure that all the western leaders providing unconditional support to Israel know that they too are complicit, stating, “We are appalled by the inaction of the international community in the face of belligerent war-mongering.”
Revolution?
Nearly one week on, with no ceasefire in sight, with water, food and medical supplies all running out in Gaza, with no sign of what might actually lead to Israel ending its genocidal aggression, with authoritarian suppression of pro-Palestinian voices widespread in the West, with Islamophobia on the rise, and with my feed on X (Twitter) dominated by the most extraordinary evidence of Israel’s brutality and a seemingly relentless roll call of the deaths in Gaza of children, of talented students, of artists, journalists and writers, and of entire families, it’s hard to glimpse any glimmers of hope to keep despair at bay.
However, hope must always be found, and it can, fortunately, be located in the millions of people around the world who are taking to the streets to support the Palestinians. It may also be that seismic political change is possible, as more and more people recognise that the leaders of all our major political parties — whether in government, or in opposition — are not only failing us when it comes to climate collapse; they have also shown us, in the case of the Palestinians, the almost unspeakable chasm that exists where their hearts, their morality and their respect for the law should be.
It’s fanciful to think of revolution these days, but perhaps the twin evils of genocide in Gaza, and the indifference of our leaders in the face of climate collapse — the greatest crisis any of us have ever faced in our lifetimes — will usher in what the increasingly marginalised majority of people around the world actually need: the collapse of the existing systems of brutality and exploitation, and the greedy, violent men who oversee them, and the rise of something new, caring and positive.
If not, I fear that fire will consume us: a combustible, spreading fire of war in the Middle East, and the fire devouring the very atmosphere that we need to survive on this precious planet that, like so many of its people, we all too frequently abuse.
* * * * *
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.
Investigative journalist, author, campaigner, commentator and public speaker. Recognized as an authority on Guantánamo and the “war on terror.” Co-founder, Close Guantánamo and We Stand With Shaker, singer/songwriter (The Four Fathers).
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37 Responses
Andy Worthington says...
When I posted this on Facebook, I wrote:
Two weeks into Israel’s relentless bombing of Gaza, as the death toll reaches 5,926, including 2,450 children, I discuss, in my latest article, ongoing western complicity, focusing on President Biden’s visit to Israel last week, his hypocrisy, his rambling and often contradictory speech, and his absurd claim that Hamas’s attacks on October 17 were not only Israel’s equivalent of the 9/11 attacks, but, “for a nation the size of Israel, it was like 15 9/11s.” Making a comparable assessment, I explain how, for the people of Gaza, their deaths to date are equivalent to 285 9/11s.
I also discuss “administrative detention” in Israel, comparable to indefinite imprisonment without charge or trial at Guantanamo, and also reflect on how a Guantanamo analogy can be made regarding the 2.3 million inhabitants of the Gaza Strip, which is an open air prison, and where those held, without charge or trial, are all regarded as guilty of Hamas’s crimes, according to Israel’s President, Isaac Herzog.
Finally, I look at the growing body of evidence that Israel’s attacks on Gaza constitute genocide, with particular reference to a UN report last week, in which nine Special Rapporteurs stated “There is an ongoing campaign by Israel resulting in crimes against humanity in Gaza”, and adding that “there is also a risk of genocide against the Palestinian People.”
...on October 24th, 2023 at 7:30 pm
Anna says...
Hi Andy, I admire your courage to listen to those hateful, hypocritical, ignorant and arrogant speeches.
I admit that I turn off the sound and wait for someone to summarise the horror for me, whether journalists on AJE or yourself. Thank you !
For humanitarian suggestions, we now have to rely on autocratic regimes which we usually condemn for their own poor to abysmal human rights record. ‘We’ have sunken so low, that we are not even capable of formulating anything that resembles humanitarian attitudes & objectives, let alone implementing them.
In the meantime politicians in the ‘security’ council are playing their usual games, while every day delaying a ceasefire means many hundreds more dead or mutilated.
I – naively – thought that Herzog was a trifle better. Another illusion shattered.
The US suggesting a ‘humanitarian PAUSE’. In other words: “We do not object to your genocidal killing spree as such, but we do not want to be blamed later for having starved Palestinians to death. So for the sake of our plausible deniability and PR, let’s get a minimum of humanitarian aid to them before you launch your ground offensive. You will be able to kill them later anyway, just a matter of time.”
As for the ‘human shield’ accusations, I’ve heard them before, in Afghanistan. Irregular groups such as the Taliban under US/NATO occupation or Hamas simply do not have barracks like the regular armies they are fighting with!
I once posed the rhetorical question in some newspaper article, whether the Taliban perchance were expected to open a tented camp in the desert and paint ‘Taliban barracks’ on their roofs ?
Such fighting resistance groups – no matter whether we agree with them or not – do have to eat, drink & sleep. As they have no barracks, they can only do this ‘among the civilian population’.
In overcrowded Gaza this is even more true.
After WWII and the genocide of European Jews, we asked : “How on earth was this possible, how come no one stopped it, why did everyone look the other way? Never again!” Future generations will ask these same questions about the current genocide, which is happening before our very eyes. And this time we – rather our governments, but so what ? – will be on the wrong side of history ourselves.
Even the Irish one refused to clearly speak up, but this Irish MP is brilliant :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PISs0AwztGQ
The same one some 10 years ago : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkXWi2OI6ns
What should we do ? March & send mails to politicians stating ‘NOT IN MY NAME’ ?
...on October 24th, 2023 at 9:31 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Thanks for your thoughts, Anna. It’s taken me many days to find the strength to write this article. I’ve mainly been glued to Twitter (X), scrolling through the most unbelievable heartbreak playing out in real time – dead children, doctors, students, artists, writers, photographers being killed, entire families slaughtered.
Earlier this week, the news emerged that the parents-in-law of Scotland’s First Minister, Humza Yousaf, are trapped in Gaza. His wife is Palestinian, and the in-laws had travelled to visit a sick relative. Now, as the BBC explained two days ago, they are “down to six bottles of drinking water in a house where 100 people were sheltering, including a child of two months old”, and who knows if they will live? No one is safe. If the most famous person in the world – whoever that might be – had happened to end up in Gaza three weeks ago, there would be nothing they could do. They wouldn’t be able to get any protection from the mass murderers of the Israeli government.
I’m at a loss to know what we can do. We will march again on Saturday, but it seems to me that no one can rein in the evil government of Netanyahu. Decent Israelis should rise up. No one else seems capable of challenging Netanyahu and his fascist ministers, certainly not the pathetic western leaders who unconditionally support Israel with money and weapons, but who, in their presence, seem completely spineless – pretend statesmen intimidated by the thugs they’ve bankrolled.
...on October 24th, 2023 at 11:22 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Bernard Sullivan wrote:
Will we see you on Saturday, Andy? Hope so. 🙏
...on October 24th, 2023 at 11:28 pm
Andy Worthington says...
I’ll be there, Bernard [at the third London March for Palestine], but probably seeking out a good vantage point to take photos. Whether we see each other or not may depend on quite how many people are there. Very many, I hope and expect.
...on October 24th, 2023 at 11:29 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Natalia Rivera Scott wrote:
Thank you, Andy 🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸
...on October 24th, 2023 at 11:30 pm
Andy Worthington says...
You’re welcome, Natalia. I can still barely concentrate on anything else, and I can’t remember ever feeling quite this consistently horrified. Everyone who has supported Israel’s actions in any way must be permanently ostracised, I think, unless they see the error of their ways.
Genocidal intent is still being authorised by people who claim to be responsible politicians, and is still being supported by people who claim to be decent and to hold some sort of moral high ground. I suppose senior Nazis and their sympathisers did the same.
...on October 24th, 2023 at 11:30 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Natalia Rivera Scott wrote:
Me too, Andy. I understand how you’re feeling. I finished translating your last article about Gaza. I hope thousands read it. Here there’s so much misinformation … everyone is like “oh, poor Israel”, so I hope your article brings light. I can’t stand the suffering. I’m horrified.
...on October 24th, 2023 at 11:31 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Thank you so much for translating my article, Natalia. I hope it finds an audience – just as, I hope, my original articles are managing to get out to people. I’m sure many independent journalists and commentators feel the same way, but I do find it infuriating how, over the years, it seems to have become harder and harder to even reach people in the first place.
...on October 24th, 2023 at 11:32 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Natalia Rivera Scott wrote:
Andy, I love to think millions read what you write cause it should be that way. I don’t know how many read the translations but I don’t really need to know because I love doing it and I feel it’s a way to do good in this world. And yes, I know it must be infuriating to be unable to reach people. I’m not a journalist but I have my activism page and feel I reach so few, I feel so small sometimes.
...on October 24th, 2023 at 11:33 pm
Andy Worthington says...
We do what we can, I suppose, Natalia. Everything is better than nothing – and it’s not like it’s anything new to me to discover that people aren’t necessarily interested, after 17 years of writing about Guantanamo for the handful of people who actually care.
...on October 24th, 2023 at 11:36 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Kathleen O’Connor Wang wrote:
Thank you, Andy.
We all have friends in Gaza, afraid we will find they were killed when no posts. Electricity off, can’t charge phones or go on facebook to keep in touch with family in Gaza or the world.
...on October 24th, 2023 at 11:37 pm
Andy Worthington says...
It is so profoundly shameful, Kathleen – evil, to be honest. Day after day on Twitter I see photos of children no longer with us, I see the last tweets by talented people – doctors, artists, writers, photographers – who are then killed, and it is so shocking to think that no one’s safe there, that anyone you know might be killed.
...on October 24th, 2023 at 11:38 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Anna Giddings wrote:
Thank you Andy as always.
...on October 24th, 2023 at 11:38 pm
Andy Worthington says...
You’re most welcome, Anna. I do what I can, but we’re all so powerless, aren’t we? Who would have ever thought that we’d have to witness a genocide taking place first hand? I know what truly dreadful people are in charge in Israel, and I can only hope that decent Israelis rise up and remove them for power. And as for the western leaders supporting Israel unconditionally, they need to be held accountable for their complicity in war crimes. What an insult to those who worked so hard after the horrors of WWII to try to prevent collective punishment, ethnic cleansing and genocide to see all that effort brushed aside as though it’s irrelevant by people who simply refuse to accept that Palestinian civilians have a right to live.
...on October 24th, 2023 at 11:39 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Anna Giddings wrote:
Yes I can’t believe the attitude. The vetos the abstentions whilst Palestinians are being systematically killed. It’s a living hell in Gaza and still they support Israel. I’m livid.
...on October 24th, 2023 at 11:40 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Yes, it’s infuriating to see the five permanent members of the UN Security Council unable to transcend their divisions, Anna. The Security Council is such an anachronism, and so broken, but I can’t see any way that particular problem can be resolved. The hopes of the post-war period, when the UN was set up, have long been nothing more than ashes when it comes to the Security Council – unlike various other parts of the UN, which I love: the Special Mandates, for example, and those brave UN workers in Gaza right now.
...on October 24th, 2023 at 11:45 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Mary Zink wrote:
The irony that a people who had this done to them could then turn around and do this to others is what I have the hardest time with.
By stealing everything from the Palestinian people and throughout the 75 years of the State of Israel’s existence and its increasingly abhorrent actions they have become the very monsters they once swore they would never forget. Mind blowing.
...on October 25th, 2023 at 11:38 am
Andy Worthington says...
Yes, well said, Mary. The lack of any ability whatsoever by those caught up in this virulent homicidal Zionist creed to reflect on how they have become the same as the monsters who murdered their ancestors is almost impossible to grasp.
...on October 25th, 2023 at 11:38 am
Andy Worthington says...
Meagan Murphy wrote:
I’m also very upset about Israel’s imprisonment of children such as Ahmad Manasra, who I read was innocent and arrested and tortured anyways at the age of 13. He is now 20 and held in solitary confinement. I read many Palestinian children have been arrested and imprisoned. This has got to stop. This is organized child abuse and torture. Free them now.
...on October 25th, 2023 at 11:39 am
Andy Worthington says...
Thanks for mentioning Ahmad’s case, Meagan, which Amnesty International reported on just last month: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/09/israel-opt-after-nearly-2-years-in-solitary-confinement-ahmad-manasra-too-ill-to-attend-his-hearing/
...on October 25th, 2023 at 11:40 am
Andy Worthington says...
I didn’t have the space in my article to elaborate on the plight of Palestinian children in Israeli custody, Meagan, but it really is a scandal that more people should know about. Here’s an article about, and a video of a UN Human Rights Council event organised by Defence for Children International (DCI) in July: https://defenceforchildren.org/hrc53-side-event-childhood-in-captivity-palestinian-children-arbitrarily-detained-in-israeli-prisons/
As the article states, “It is estimated that the Israeli military detains and prosecutes between 500 and 700 Palestinian children each year in Israeli military courts that lack basic safeguards for a fair trial. Khaled Quzmar [of DCI] described that ‘from the moment of arrest, often violently take from their beds in night raids, most Palestinian children are subjected to ill-treatment, torture and violations of their fundamental rights at the hands of Israeli forces.’ Despite the fact that international norms reaffirm that civilians, especially children, generally should not be brought before military courts, Israel remains the only country in the world to automatically and systematically prosecute children in military courts.”
...on October 25th, 2023 at 11:41 am
Andy Worthington says...
Matt Zorn wrote:
When will enough be enough??
We all lose when the violence is perpetuated.
...on October 25th, 2023 at 11:41 am
Andy Worthington says...
Well said, Matt. I just read some very pertinent comments by Yonatan Ziegen, the son of Vivian Silver, who is thought to have been kidnapped by Hamas, and who was asked what his mother would think about what Israel is doing in Gaza now. “She would be mortified”, he said, “because you can’t cure dead babies with more dead babies. We need peace. That’s what she was working for all her life.” https://twitter.com/StanleyCohenLaw/status/1716840341456797866
...on October 25th, 2023 at 11:42 am
Andy Worthington says...
Yesterday’s speech to the UN Security Council by UN Secretary General António Guterres is the benchmark by which all political leaders around the world must be judged.
If they don’t back his call for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire and recognise the “clear violations of international humanitarian law … in Gaza”, they are complicit in war crimes.
Read the full statement here: https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/speeches/2023-10-24/secretary-generals-remarks-the-security-council-the-middle-east%C2%A0
My meme: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10161578139588804&set=p.10161578139588804&type=3
...on October 25th, 2023 at 11:44 am
Andy Worthington says...
All credit also to António Guterres for pointing out, while condemning Hamas’s actions on Oct. 7, that they “did not happen in a vacuum”, and daring to mention that the Palestinian people “have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation.”
As Israel responded hysterically by calling for him to resign, Media Lens were correct to note, “Nobody should resign for relating the basic facts in the mildest possible way.”
Media Lens: https://twitter.com/medialens/status/1717095636426748207
Israel’s hysterical response: https://twitter.com/GuantanamoAndy/status/1716973075315491150
...on October 25th, 2023 at 11:45 am
Andy Worthington says...
In the UK Parliament, Richard Burgon’s Early Day Motion on Israel and Gaza, calling on the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary “to urgently press all parties to agree to an immediate de-escalation and cessation of hostilities”, has 81 signatories to date, including, noticeably, two Tories with a conscience (Sir Peter Bottomley and Crispin Blunt), as well as – mainly – numerous Labour and SNP MPs: https://edm.parliament.uk/early-day-motion/61430
Please encourage your MP to sign. Everyone who doesn’t sign is complicit in war crimes and doesn’t deserve to be reelected at the next General Election.
...on October 25th, 2023 at 11:45 am
Andy Worthington says...
Please also watch the AJ+ video telling the stories of some of the nearly 6,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza over the past two weeks: https://www.facebook.com/ajplusenglish/videos/2083380605333198/
...on October 25th, 2023 at 12:12 pm
Andy Worthington says...
When I wrote my article yesterday, the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor was reporting that 5,926 people had been killed in Gaza, including 2,450 children. In just 24 hours, the total number of deaths has increased to 6,734, including 2,812 children. That’s over 800 deaths in just one day, including over 350 children. https://euromedmonitor.org/en/article/5883
Are they no limits to Israel’s vengeance? Are there no limits to western leaders’ indifference towards Israel’s indiscriminate slaughter of civilians, of innocent, utterly blameless children? How do we get this to stop?
...on October 25th, 2023 at 4:09 pm
Andy Worthington says...
And please read this thread to counter Israeli propaganda that the Gaza health ministry is run by Hamas and is exaggerating the death toll (as if any reasonable person wasn’t, in fact, wondering why it isn’t higher): https://twitter.com/nour_odeh/status/1716909774103842992
...on October 25th, 2023 at 4:30 pm
Andy Worthington says...
The second component of Israel’s genocidal intent in Gaza, after the relentless and indiscriminate bombing of a civilian population, is to cut off water supplies. Please read this thorough account of Gaza’s Israel-controlled water supplies, past and present, by Damien Gayle, with its detailed analysis of how catastrophic the death toll from dehydration and diseases will be if Israel fails to immediately address Gaza’s water crisis. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/25/how-bombings-blockades-and-import-bans-caused-gaza-water-system-to-crumble
...on October 25th, 2023 at 5:14 pm
Andy Worthington says...
The third component of Israel’s genocidal intent in Gaza, after bombing and cutting off water supplies, is cutting off fuel supplies. Without fuel, which Israel refuses to allow into Gaza, water cannot be pumped and sewage cannot be treated (in other words, the cutting off of fuel supplies is a crucial component of the water supply problem noted above), but in addition, without fuel, hospitals can no longer function, and are already shutting down. Another good Guardian article here. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/24/gaza-hospitals-ceasing-to-function-as-water-and-fuel-run-out
...on October 25th, 2023 at 5:15 pm
Andy Worthington says...
As the BBC World Service reported just five hours ago, “Doctors in Gaza say hospitals will soon run out of fuel, and premature babies relying on life-saving machines will die in minutes.” https://twitter.com/bbcworldservice/status/1717150419493785864
As the father of a son who was born prematurely, and wonderfully cared for here in London, I can’t begin to tell you how distressing it is to hear that one more genocidal crime to be added to Israel’s ever-expanding list of genocidal crimes may well be the deaths of these premature babies.
...on October 25th, 2023 at 5:16 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Damien Morrison wrote:
The human race is completely mad or is going completely mad.
...on October 26th, 2023 at 11:37 pm
Andy Worthington says...
It does make me wonder sometimes, Damien, whether we’re all missing something, and whether the truth about the imminent end of everything our leaders have held dear – via our rapacious greed disguised as success, which, it is now being revealed, is going to wipe out a liveable planet – has unhinged them all somewhere deep in the recesses of their being, and they’re doing what all vile old men do when confronted by their mortality – and, in this case, their stupidity: lash out, start wars, bomb the f*ck out of everything and everyone. The food and water shortages haven’t even started yet. How much worse is it going to get unless we can cleanse ourselves and the planet of all these old, mostly white, mostly male sociopaths and psychopaths?
...on October 26th, 2023 at 11:38 pm
Anna says...
In addition to the unbelievable genocidal carnage itelf, I too am increasingly baffled by at least Europe’s atttitude & behaviour. A few days ago a very highly educated (Normalien & Sorbonne) Frenchman – admittedly also former Israeli intelligence officer and security analyst – literally freaked me out. Which is not that easily done. French upper-class arrogance (no offense to other French 🙂 ), echoing the ludicrous Israeli UN ambassador’s attacks, he actually proclaimed that Guterres one day will be judged by an international criminal court for war crimes, for ‘supporting Hamas’… ?!
Beyond the drama of Palestine, this person brought home to me that in Europe we must have plenty of such highly educated minds with eminently fascist ideas. I felt betrayed, my lifelong – even if wearing increasingly thin – trust in Europe’s basic moral & ethical values – even if those increasingly are turning into empty slogans – wiped out by what I maybe should consider to be an Israeli agent disguised as a French intellectual ? Am I now moving onto a slippery slope, I wonder ? France expects refugees & migrants to not only integrate but even assimilate to a sometimes absurd degree. But some apparently can openly serve in a foreign state’s army or even intelligence service. Depends on the state, I suppose … ?
If you can stomach the venom :
https://www.aljazeera.com/program/inside-story/2023/10/26/what-can-the-united-nations-do-to-end-israels-war-on-gaza
...on October 27th, 2023 at 10:47 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Thanks for your reflections, Anna, and sadly, shamefully, there must be many others throughout Europe who think like this disgraceful excuse for a human being, although they don’t always voice their opinions out loud. Somehow, though, I find the hypocrites even more disconcerting – those in leadership positions who keep nodding to humanitarian concerns while still backing Israel unconditionally.
What an unprecedented horror show this whole situation is. Today I attended the third March for Palestine in London, which, yet again, was extremely well-attended, but what can we do if our leaders won’t listen? I’m not sure I’ve ever felt quite this appalled and yet also so powerless.
...on October 28th, 2023 at 4:52 pm