World

Gaza: massacre behind closed doors

- 10:47 am
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bombing-gaza-oxfam-France

As the horrified world watches the relentless shelling of the Gaza enclave by the Israeli army, Western leaders hypocritically avert their eyes, abandoning more than 2.2 million people to the bombs. Israel is playing with fire.

“On Friday night, intensive IDF bombardment caused the death of more than 2,000 Palestinians,” announces a source on the Telegram social network. These 2,000 deaths are in addition to the 7,500 recorded over the past three weeks, and the tens of thousands of wounded whose saturated or destroyed hospitals can no longer treat them for lack of electricity, water, gas or Internet connections… The 2.2 million Gazans, caught in a trap between the sea and the border with Israel, are being hunted down and slaughtered like wild animals. Gaza’s buildings are razed to the ground. The images broadcast on television around the world are chilling. Humanitarian aid is arriving in dribs and drabs. 21 journalists have been killed since the start of the offensive on Gaza, along with 57 UN officials. And it’s not over yet, with Tsahal announcing a ground offensive in the next few days, perhaps in the next few hours.

The Law of Talion

Can Westerners allow this slaughter to go on, which sooner or later will turn against them? Jacques Chirac’s former Prime Minister, Dominique de Villepin, warns of the risk of a “spiral of militarism” that could bring the world to the brink of the abyss. He denounced the “double standards” in this war and explained that “the Palestinian question remains, for the Arab peoples, the mother of all battles”.
It’s true that Israel is applying the law of Talion and will take revenge for a murderous Hamas attack on October 7, 2023. But Hamas is also taking revenge for the fate of the Gazans over the past 17 years, and for the intolerable Israeli colonization of the West Bank.
The reasoning behind the search for the causes of this new phase in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict goes back to the first hours of the creation of the State of Israel, on May 14, 1948. The following day, May 15, Arab armies launched the first war in a conflict that continues to this day.

Hamas, terrorist or not?

Justifying Israel’s violent retaliation on the grounds that Hamas is a terrorist organization changes nothing. As Nancy-based Hamas lawyer Liliane Glock points out, “under French and European law, they are terrorists for legal reasons. A terrorist is someone who is on the list [of terrorist organizations]. Under international law, the International Criminal Court, the International Court of Justice, the UN, they are not terrorists.” As for “colonization” [it] is a crime under international law. Resistance to oppression and crime is perfectly legitimate.”

Uprising in Arab countries

The bombing of the Gaza Strip has provoked an unprecedented uprising in Arab countries, as well as in several European capitals. In London on Saturday, October 28, 200,000 demonstrators called for an end to the bombing, as in Stockholm and Madrid. In Paris, the pro-peace demonstration was banned by the prefecture of police, and the ban was upheld by the administrative court. However, some 15,000 people gathered at Place du Châtelet in support of Palestine.
In Istanbul, Turkey, they numbered in the millions, as well as in Yemen, Jordan and the West Bank… The Arab world is in turmoil. Calls to Hassan Nasrallah, religious leader of Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite Islamist movement, are worrying. Armed and financed by Iran, Hezbollah, like Hamas, aims to eliminate the State of Israel. The recent rapprochement between the leaders of Hamas (Sunni) and Hezbollah (Shiite) in Teheran raises fears of the worst. A regional war would have disastrous consequences throughout the Middle East and far beyond.
Israel really is playing with fire.

 

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