(CHICAGO – June 10, 2024) – When Israel bombs, starves, or shoots Palestinians, mainstream media downplays the atrocities.
Loss of lives is chalked up to mistakes or the tragedy of wartime mayhem. It’s not. It’s murder.
The Israeli Defense Force’s recent slaughter of hundreds of Gazans to retrieve Israelis taken captive by Hamas is another bloody example of unlawful killing, genocide, and murder.
“Hell.” That’s what the Israeli military attack, artillery shells, and bombings looked like, said Mohamed al-Habash. “We saw many fighter jets flying over the area. We saw people fleeing in the streets. Women and children were screaming and crying,” he told the Associated Press.
The June 8 assault in Nuseirat, which the Associated Press described as “a built-up refugee camp dating to the 1948 Arab-Israeli war,” was another slaughter since the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas and other militant groups.
“According to Gaza’s health ministry, more than 270 people, including children and other non-combatants, were killed during intense fighting between Israeli forces and Hamas militants in and around the Nuseirat refugee camp on Saturday (June 8), in the middle area of the war-torn enclave. More than 600 were reportedly injured with hospitals overwhelmed,” said UN News.
Days earlier, the IDF hit a nearby UN school being used as a shelter. Local officials reported 37 people, including 14 children, were killed.
Since it launched an essentially one-sided offensive, Israel has killed nearly 37,000 Palestinians. Almost 2 million Palestinians are displaced and facing starvation.
The refugee camp attack was widely praised, and Israel’s hostage rescue was lauded, with almost nothing said about the nearly 300 Palestinians killed. This is simply wartime mayhem, analysts would argue. It’s not. It’s murder.
When outright murder isn’t applauded, Israeli war crimes are attributed to “mistakes.” Remember Rafah? It’s been days since the video captured the screams, horror, fear, and panic as tents in a refugee camp were set ablaze. Palestinians fleeing and seeking safety died after an Israeli strike that the Zionist state said killed Hamas members. The collateral damage was at least 45 Palestinian deaths as bombs hit. Fires spread, burning children, women, and men alive in tents. Some were dismembered.
The attack was widely condemned outside of America as a massacre and a violation of human rights law. Inside of America, the press mentioned the human tragedy and repeated Israel’s propaganda that the incident was a mistake to be investigated.
Is there any other place on earth or incident in which a criminal is allowed to probe and render a judgement on his crime?
While Palestinians die in Rafah, the Biden administration plays politics and word games. Since there has not been an all-out invasion, Israel has not violated President Biden’s red line, and U.S. money and arms keep flowing, say the White House and its supporters.
The Rafah massacre occurred shortly after the International Court of Justice ordered “an immediate cessation of military operations” in Gaza. Israel scoffed at the decree. Before that, the International Criminal Court sought warrants charging Mr. Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant with war crimes. Israel and America responded by threatening both forums for global justice.
Like other murderous “mistakes” and atrocities discovered, Rafah has been forgotten. Remember when Israeli Defense Forces told Palestinians to flee south? Then, they bombed them. That, too, was called a mistake.
Israel has committed other heinous crimes: Palestinian officials say more than 500 bodies were recovered in mass graves at Gaza hospitals in May, some mutilated and with signs of torture. Victims’ hands were tied, and some were missing their heads, said the Gaza Ministry of Health.
According to accounts given to UN personnel, Israeli authorities dumped detainees or bodies of Palestinians taken to Israel back into Gaza. Detainees said they “were routinely rounded up, stripped to their underwear and loaded into trucks, blindfolded and bound.” After arrest came “shocking inhumane treatment, including waterboarding, severe beatings, attacks by dogs and being forced to hold (a) stress position for hours, sometimes 12 hours, 24 hours.”
Israel, which controls food coming into Gaza, has been warned against using starvation as a “weapon of war.” The warning came after a May report forecast famine for 2.3 million people unless fighting stops and aid shipments increase. “The extent of Israel’s continued restrictions on the entry of aid into Gaza, together with how it continues to conduct hostilities, may amount to the use of starvation as a method of war, which is a war crime,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk warned.
These acts aren’t mistakes or mayhem. They are the intentional destruction of an entire people.
Naba’a Muhammad, award-winning Final Call editor, is host of “Straight Words With Naba’a Richard Muhammad, Bj Murphy, and James G. Muhammad,” which airs live Tuesdays, 9 p.m. to 12 a.m Central Time, on WVON AM 1690 Black Talk Radio Chicago and is livestreamed at the iHeart Radio app and WVON.com. Get more of his writing and content at straightwords.com.
