Yet another massive assault on Palestine is underway, where, of course, according to the Balfour Declaration, the Jewish population are guests not occupiers since: “ …the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of (this) it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine …” (1.)
Overnight (8th/9th July) however, one hundred and sixty targets were initially hit, including the European Gaza Hospital (a war crime without a war.) Twenty eight people were killed and over two hundred injured (2) added to the unending onslaught on Palestine from the day the Zionist cuckoo took over the Palestinian nest, homes, gardens, history, culture, ancient sites, cemeteries, villages, valleys, olive and apricot groves on 14th May 1948 (3) ignoring, jack booting and bulldozing entirely the “civil and religious rights” of the population, accompanied by subsequent decades of mass murder and demolitions.
The current onslaught is apparently in response to the deaths of three youths from settler families, for whom no one has claimed responsibility and many questions remain (4.) However homes of two Palestinian “suspects” were arbitrarily destroyed by the Israeli military with no arrests, trial, recourse to law for the dispossessed victims of any kind.
Subsequently in an apparent revenge killing, Palestinian teenager Muhammad Abu Khudair (16) was kidnapped and murdered, his body doused in gasoline, which was also reportedly poured down his throat before setting him alight (5.) Muhammad’s cousin Tariq Khudair (15) visiting from Florida was apprehended and beaten so badly by the Israeli police that he reportedly: “woke up in hospital.” (6)
The all led to rockets being fired in to Israel, though no injuries have been reported. Israel responded by targeting Gaza (Palestine of course, has no meaningful defence forces) with: “four hundred tonnes of bombs and missiles” with “four hundred and forty targets being hit” and with: “The battle against Hamas (to) intensify over the coming days; it will exact a huge price.” (7) The tiny Gaza Strip is just forty one kilometers long and between six and twelve miles wide and home to 1,816,379 people (2014 figure.)
Israel is clearly planning another “turkey shoot” reminiscent of General Norman Schwartzkopf’s infamous boast of his aerial slaughter on the Basra Road, of those seeking safety, with no where to hide, in the first Gulf war.
With the UN in the form of Ban Ki-moon flaccidly urging “restraint” and world leaders mute, as ever, on Israel’s murdering misdemeanors and homicidal excesses, it must be noted that 2000-2014, Palestinian child fatalities “as a result of military and settler violence” to date are 1,407. The eight reported killed today are not included in that Defence for Children International’s figures (8.)
Since US aid to Israel is $3 Billion annually, they too are partner in yet another Middle East crimes against humanity.
As all victims of tragedy the dead are not numbers, but names. The incomplete list of the latest victims of “the only democracy in the Middle East” so far recorded by the Palestinian Ministry of Health are:
Mohammed Shaaban, 24, Gaza
Amjad Shaaban, 30, Gaza
Khadr Alepesheliqi, (Abu Jabal, indicating father of Jabal) 45, Gaza
Rashid Nassin, 27, from Nusseirat
Mohamed Ayman Ashour, 15, from Khan Younis
Riad Mohammad Kaware, 50, Khan Younis
Mohamed Ibrahim Kaware, 50, Khan Younis
Bassim Salem Kaware, 10, Khan Younis
Hussein Yousef Kaware, 13, Khan Younis
Bakr Mohammed Gouda, 22, Khan Younis
Ammar Mohamed Gouda, 26, Khan Younis
Mohamed Habib, 22, Gaza
Musa Habib, 16, Gaza
Saqr Ayesh Ajjouri, 22, from Jabalya
Ahmed Nael Mahdi, 16, Gaza
Victims of residential areas not yet recorded are:
Hafiz Mohammad Hamad, 30
Ibrahim Mohammed Hamad, 46
Fawzia Khalil Hamad, 62
Dena Mahdi Hamad, 16
Suha Hamad, 25
Sulaiman Salman Abu Soawin, 22
Siraj Iyad Abdel Aal, 8
Abdelhady Al-Soufi (age, as area, unrecorded.)
There are seven others and eight more children to be added. By the morning there will surely be others, names, not “collateral damage” or “casualties”, living beings who were planning the day ahead, erased.
Will the insanity ever end? Maybe there is a glimmer of hope. The coming week end there are demonstrations in cities around the world in numbers not seen since the proposed assault on Iraq in 2003, in outrage at the attack on Palestine and the Palestinian people. To read the extraordinarily comprehensive list of participating cities (9) arranged in so brief a time should, in itself, be a wake up call for governments.
The US and UK are closest of Israeli allies and leaders of world wide destruction, both have elections next year perhaps this might be the start of a mega warning message to both countries and to Israel: Enough.
Notes
1. http://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/E210CA73E38D9E1D052565FA00705C61#sthash.GWBCSNvq.dpuf
4. http://mondoweiss.net/2014/07/israeli-officials-missing.html
6. http://edition.cnn.com/2014/07/06/world/meast/jerusalem-u-s–teen-beaten/
8. http://dci-palestine.org/content/child-fatalities
9. http://samidoun.ca/2014/07/take-action-protests-around-the-world-respond-to-assault-on-palestine/
