Our Wednesday News Analysis | A Genocide Foretold

"But it is easier to pretend.
Pretend Israel will allow in humanitarian aid.
Pretend there will be a ceasefire.
Pretend Palestinians will return to their destroyed homes in Gaza.
Pretend Gaza will be rebuilt.
Pretend the Palestinian Authority will administer Gaza.
Pretend there will be a two-state solution.
Pretend there is no genocide."

There are no surprises in Gaza. Every horrifying act of Israel’s genocide has been telegraphed in advance. It has been for decades. The dispossession of Palestinians of their land is the beating heart of Israel’s settler colonial project. This dispossession has had dramatic historical moments — 1948 and 1967 — when huge parts of historic Palestine were seized and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were ethnically cleansed. Dispossession has also occurred in increments — the slow-motion theft of land and steady ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

The incursion on Oct. 7 into Israel by Hamas and other resistance groups, which left 1,154 Israelis, tourists and migrant workers dead and saw about 240 people taken hostage, gave Israel the pretext for what it has long craved — the total erasure of Palestinians.

Israel has razed 77 percent of healthcare facilities in Gaza, 68 percent of telecommunication infrastructure, nearly all municipal and governmental buildings, commercial, industrial and agricultural centers, almost half of all roads, over 60 percent of Gaza’s 439,000 homes, 68 percent of residential buildings — the bombing of the Al-Taj tower in Gaza City on Oct. 25, killed 101 people, including 44 children and 37 women, and injured hundreds — and obliterated refugee camps. The attack on the Jabalia refugee camp on Oct. 25 killed at least 126 civilians, including 69 children, and injured 280. Israel has damaged or destroyed Gaza’s universities, all of which are now closed, and 60 percent of other educational facilities, including 13 libraries. It has also destroyed at least 195 heritage sites, including 208 mosques, churches, and Gaza’s Central Archives that held 150 years of historical records and documents.

Israel’s warplanes, missiles, drones, tanks, artillery shells and naval guns daily pulverize Gaza — which is only 20 miles long and five miles wide — in a scorched earth campaign unlike anything seen since the war in Vietnam. It has dropped 25,000 tons of explosives — equivalent to two nuclear bombs — on Gaza, many targets selected by Artificial Intelligence. It drops unguided munitions (“dumb bombs”) and 2000-pound “bunker buster” bombs on refugee camps and densely packed urban centers as well as the so-called “safe zones” — 42 percent of Palestinians killed have been in these “safe zones” where they were instructed by Israel to flee. Over 1.7 million Palestinians have been displaced from their homes, forced to find refuge in overcrowded UNRWA shelters, hospital corridors and courtyards, schools, tents or the open air in south Gaza, often living next to fetid pools of raw sewage...

Read more: A Genocide Foretold

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OPINION | 'FEELING THREATENED': AN ISRAELI PRESCRIPTION FOR KILLING WITH NO CRITICISM OR OVERSIGHT

Source: Haaretz
https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/palestinians/2024-03-25/ty-article-opinion/.premium/feeling-endangered-an-israeli-prescription-for-killing-with-no-criticism-or-oversight/0000018e-74fc-d829-a3ef-74fdbece0000

By Amira Hass
Published March 26, 2024

A displaced Palestinian man along with his belongings sits on a donkey cart amid the rubble of houses destroyed by Israeli bombardment in Hamad area, west of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on March 14, 2024.Credit: AFP

… because it reached Al-Jazeera?
We will never know how many thousands of Palestinian civilians were killed in the same manner, according to the same automatic subjective recipe for killing.
We will never know the identity and number of pilots and drone operators who killed Palestinian civilians, ostensibly due to a collective concern
(also serving as a masquerade for revenge),
protected in advance from any oversight, criticism, correction,
self-examination, and sleepless nights.

"I felt threatened" became, long before October 7, an automatic defense whenever a Jew kills a Palestinian.

"I felt" is a very personal and subjective state of being.

Still, when spoken in IDF-ese in contemporary Hebrew, it becomes a rigid and objective truth, sheltering all those under its wings.

The identity of the dangerous suspect shot to death usually varies. Defining the suspect as dangerous and fit-to-be-killed does not require them to carry a weapon. Nor does the age or gender matter. However, the person feeling subjectively threatened must meet two conditions so as not to be suspected of lying, and so that public opinion's yardstick will safegaurd his impunity: he has to be Jewish and he has to be armed.

Will the fact that the dead 63-year-old man was a convert well-liked by the settlers change the storyline which automatically absolves settlers who kill?

Read more: Opinion | 'Feeling Threatened': An Israeli Prescription for Killing With No Criticism or Oversight

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HOW TO HOLD ISRAEL ACCOUNTABLE FOR TORTURING PALESTINIANS

Source: Middle East Eye
https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/how-hold-israel-accountable-torturing-palestinians

By Samah Jabr
Published March 27, 2024

Amid a surge in torture cases since 7 October, there is an urgent need for health professionals to properly document such atrocities

Israeli soldiers transferred detained Palestinians out of the Gaza Strip on 21 November 2023 (Menahem Kahana/AFP)

Reports of sexual abuse,

including rape and forced nudity,
underscore the depravity to which detainees are subjected.
The insidious combination of physical and psychological torture
serves not only to punish but also to extract coerced confessions.

Such practices scar and traumatize survivors and their families
while intimidating the broader Palestinian community.

Torture remains a pervasive reality in Palestine, where countless individuals have endured unspeakable physical and psychological trauma at the hands of Israeli forces.

This has been a severe problem since the Gaza war began on 7 October, with Palestinians telling the Middle East Eye that they have been physically tortured with dogs and electricity, subjected to mock executions, and held in humiliating and degrading conditions. One man described how he was handcuffed, blindfolded, and detained in a metal cage for 42 days.

Addressing such grave human rights violations demands a comprehensive approach, including the development of specialised skills for healthcare professionals tasked with documenting and treating survivors.

Trained in the Istanbul Protocol for torture documentation, I have dedicated myself to equipping fellow professionals with the necessary tools to navigate this challenging terrain.

As violence continues to escalate - with torture not restricted to detention centres, but also witnessed in the streets of the occupied Palestinian territories and captured on video - it is more imperative than ever to bolster health workers’ capacities to document such incidents, thus amplifying the voices of survivors in their pursuit of justice...

Read more: How to hold Israel accountable for torturing Palestinians