Breaking News: Israel cut off food and water supplies to Gaza… Breaking News: Israel cut off fuel and electricity… Breaking… Israel cut off phone services and internet connections… Israel cut off dignity… smiles… dreams… hope… Israel cut off life.
In the face of this relentless Israeli aggression, I am just wondering: Is there anything left for Israel to cut off?
Whether in Gaza, the West Bank, or within its own borders, Israel’s intent is as clear as it is heinous: oppressing, torturing, and killing as many Palestinians as possible, giving the world a masterclass in how to commit the most horrific crimes against humanity, and yes — how to get away with them.
By weaponizing food and medication, fuel and electricity, internet and phone services, Israel’s aim is the dehumanization and collective punishment of every Palestinian in Gaza. What an evil aim.
Striking Gaza from the air and land and sea, indiscriminately, Israel destroyed homes where civilians were inside, mosques and churches where Palestinians prayed and sought shelter, and hospitals where the wounded and sick turned for treatment. Israel bombed them all.
The Israeli strategy is as stupid as it is heartbreaking: “protecting Israel” by eliminating more than two million Palestinians.
And the result?
A humanitarian catastrophe; a theater of bloody devastation; movie-like pictures of decimation; a hell-on-earth amplifying untold suffering; live scenes of loud yet unheard cries of orphaned children whose tears mix with the blood of their lost families.
Put it in whatever terms you want: I am running out of words to describe the Israeli crimes in Gaza.
More than 11,000 Palestinians are dead, over 26,000 are injured, and upwards of one million have been displaced from their homes. And these are misleading figures; the situation on the ground is likely far more dreadful.
People are trapped in their homes, hungry and in darkness, awaiting their turn — for death. Palestinians in northern Gaza are receiving constant warnings from the Israeli military to move south, only to find out that their fellows in the south are, too, under heavy attacks; if not, the civilian or ambulance convoys heading south are, themselves, under Israeli bombardment.
When their turn comes, as it sadly will, and their homes’ roofs fall on them due to the indiscriminate Israeli bombing, the injured Palestinians face the harsh reality that phone services are cut off for them to call for emergency response, or that ambulances are without fuel to come to their rescue.
And even if they are somehow lucky enough to make it to a hospital, they would then discover that the stretched-thin hospitals, where the severely wounded lay with the floor as their bedding, are without electricity, and guess what: They are targets, too. Yes. For Israel, hospitals are legitimate war targets.
Families in Gaza have been writing their children’s names on their little bodies, as a way to mark them to ensure they will not die unknown — or maybe in the hope that Mr. Biden will ensure that at least their deaths are real, as he cast doubts on Palestinians’ death toll.
Yes. In the age of Israeli crimes, it seems that the most a Palestinian mother can hope for is for her child to die known, just for the record, to be counted, to be remembered.
Ladies and gentlemen: Yes, your date on the calendar is correct: This is 2023.
And we are witnessing, at this very moment, a tragic yet real story of Palestinians’ suffering: a story bearing the title of Israeli aggression and complicit Western silence.
Yet, despite the Western leaders’ blind support for Israel, the Western media’s one-sided pro-Israel coverage, and the Israeli propaganda machinery, there are still some good conscientious people who have rallied behind the oppressed Palestinians.
People have stood up in protests against Israeli crimes all over the world.
In the Arab countries, from Rabat to Baghdad, and from Sana’a to Beirut, the Arab people have stood for their Palestinian fellows. People in the Arab world have seen this before; they know full well where the West’s mistakes and hypocrisy can lead. They have seen this before in Iraq, and they will not allow the same to happen again, or at least they are trying their best.
In Western countries, where political leaders suddenly abandoned their long-standing principles, others have chosen to uphold theirs. From London to New York, and from Berlin to Toronto, Western citizens rallied in support of the just Palestinian cause.
They may not speak Arabic, but they are fluent in the language of humanity; they may lack knowledge about the Middle East region, but they know human suffering; they may not be familiar with the clauses of the Geneva Convention, but they recognize a war crime when they see one.
They are seeing a collective massacre of innocent Palestinians, and they want to be, unlike their governments, on the right side of history.
Elsewhere and worldwide, people can still see Israeli crimes, black and white.
From North America to Latin America, and from Oceania to Asia, people around the globe have taken to the streets, waving Palestinian flags and denouncing Israeli atrocities. Though hundreds of miles away from Palestine, to the Palestinians suffering, they are always closer.
Israel can continue “defending itself” from Hamas by eliminating more than 2.3 million Palestinians. Israel can kill thousands more innocent Palestinians, exacerbate hunger for thousands more, and inflict suffering on millions. And I am sure Israel will spare no effort for that.
Israel can cut off more food, more electricity, more medical supplies. It can even cut off rays of sunlight with the dark clouds of debris from its ruthless bombardment. It can cut off all of this.
Yet, there is one thing Israel cannot cut off: the truth.
Despite its extensive propaganda, the support of Western governments, and the partiality of Western media outlets, Israel still cannot conceal its crimes from the rest of the world.
Today and tomorrow, whether in the Middle East, Europe, or Latin America, young or elderly, people will continue to see Israeli crimes – not because they are International humanitarian law experts or skilled fact-checkers; no, but because Israeli crimes are so heinous, so evident, so relentless that they cannot be hidden.
History will not be kind to Israel: and this is my message to Israel.
