I no longer know what to say or do.
Yesterday, Israel deliberately targeted and murdered Hossam Shabat, the brave, beautiful 23-year old journalist who somehow dodged death for over 17 months, reporting relentlessly from the front lines of Israel’s brutal attacks, including the four months from October last year until a ceasefire began on January 19, when Israel implemented an exterminatory “genocide within a genocide” in northern Gaza.
After hanging up his press vest and helmet two months ago, when the now aborted ceasefire began, he only put them on again four days ago, after it became abundantly clear that Israel had deliberately shredded the ceasefire, reimplementing a “complete siege” on all humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip on March 1, and then, under the cover of night on March 18, resurrecting its genocidal aims with renewed fury, launching a hundred simultaneous attacks across Gaza that killed at least 436 people, “including at least 183 children, 94 women, 34 elderly people, and 125 men”, as Al Jazeera explained, adding that at least 678 others were injured, “many critically, with more still trapped under the rubble.”
Just yesterday, Gaza’s beleaguered health ministry announced that these deaths — to which another 356 have been added in the following days, has pushed the official death toll to over 50,000 since October 7, 2023 — 50,021 in total, including 15,613 children, of whom 872 were under one year old. The health ministry added that over half of those killed were women and children. The figures don’t include 14,222 other people who are almost certain dead, their bodies “trapped under the rubble or in areas inaccessible to rescuers”, as Al Jazeera reported on February 3, noting that the total number of children killed or presumed dead at that time was 17,492.
A “genocide within a genocide” is taking place in northern Gaza, where Israel has specifically prevented any food, water, fuel or medical supplies entering since October 1, and where Israeli forces are involved in massacre after massacre, bombing and blowing up residential buildings and killing entire families, attacking and decommissioning the last three remaining partly-functioning hospitals, and picking off and killing anyone who dares to leave their homes via armed drones and snipers.
This is the manifestation of the “Generals’ Plan”, a diabolical initiative proposed by retired general Giora Eiland, which advocated for the enforced evacuation of the remaining 400,000 residents of northern Gaza — those unwilling or unable to obey previous evacuation orders — followed, after a week, by starvation and the execution of everyone who remains as a “terrorist.”
That plan was horrendous enough — especially because there is no legal basis whatsoever for regarding civilians who can’t or won’t leave a designated military area as “terrorists” — but its manifestation is even more horrific.
Today, October 9, 2024, two days into the first anniversary of the start of the State of Israel’s genocidal assault on the Palestinian population of the Gaza Strip, almost unimaginable horrors are taking place yet again, in the devastated northern half of the beleaguered territory, where around 400,000 of its residents remain, as Israel implements a plan for its complete ethnic cleansing, prior to it becoming a “closed military zone.”
Those who remain are those who resisted, or were unable to comply with orders to evacuate the north, which were implemented a week after the genocide began, to the consternation of US State Department officials, whose concerns about war crimes and the trampling of international humanitarian law, revealed by Reuters last week, now look like missives from a lost world in which morality still existed.
Over the last three days, untold numbers of Palestinian civilians have been killed in relentless bombing attacks, or have been murdered in the streets by armed drones and quadcopters, assassinated by snipers, and, it appears, summarily executed in house raids. The area’s three surviving hospitals — brought back into operation through the tireless dedication and ingenuity of Palestinian workers after they were shut down last November — have been ordered to evacuate, even though there is no place for the seriously ill to go, while journalists have been relentlessly targeted, with several of those who have survived Israel’s relentless execution of journalists over the last year being shot and wounded by snipers, while others have been murdered.
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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