Ceasefire in Gaza now

walterpalladOctober 20, 2023

The dying toll in Gaza continues to climb as Israel inflicts collective punishment on the two.4 million Palestinians trapped contained in the occupied enclave, the world’s largest open-air jail. Palestinians in Gaza have lived underneath a whole Israeli army blockade since 2007, following Hamas’ victory in Palestinian legislative elections. Since then, Israel has determined how a lot meals, gas and water will get into Gaza, and fully controls the motion of Palestinians in or out of Gaza in a system of management that Human Rights Watch and quite a few different organizations have known as apartheid.

Because the brutal Hamas shock assault on southern Israel on October 7 that killed greater than 1,300 Israelis, largely civilians and together with many youngsters, Israel has intensified its siege, unleashing a relentless bombardment on the slender Gaza Strip. Greater than 3,800 Palestinians have been killed as this goes to press, with over 12,000 injured. These numbers are sure to extend as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu guarantees a “lengthy and tough conflict.”

A lot of the western mainstream media on Wednesday was centered on who was accountable for the horrific explosion on the Al-Ahli Hospital in northern Gaza, which killed an estimated 500 individuals. The eye was directed much less on the carnage within the hospital. Given the obvious scale of the explosion, accountability was first extensively believed to lie with Israel, which has an enormous arsenal with quite a few varieties of bombs, missiles and different munitions. Whereas en path to Israel, President Joe Biden and western mainstream media nearly instantly embraced the Israeli army’s rationalization that the explosion was brought on by an “errant” Palestinian Islamic Jihad missile.

Forgotten have been the hundreds of Palestinians already killed by the greater than ten days of Israeli bombardment and the unknown quantity buried, alive or lifeless, beneath the rubble.

“The atrocities are past description,” Mustafa Barghouti, Palestinian doctor and common secretary of the Palestinian Nationwide Initiative, mentioned on the Democracy Now! information hour.

“We’re subjected now as Palestinians not solely in Gaza but in addition the West Financial institution, horrifying conflict crimes. Ethnic cleaning. Acts of collective punishment in opposition to the inhabitants of Gaza the place civilians are dying as a result of they don’t have water, electrical energy, don’t have meals, don’t have medicines. An energetic genocide. Each 5 minutes a Palestinian is killed in Gaza. Each quarter-hour, a Palestinian baby is killed in Gaza. And it goes on.”

Throughout the Arab world, in addition to in the USA and Europe, the protests are mounting, from Ramallah within the occupied West Financial institution, to Amman, Jordan, to Baghdad, Iraq, and on the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. There, a Jewish-led protest organized by the teams If Not Now and Jewish Voice for Peace introduced hundreds out to demand a ceasefire. 300 protesters have been arrested contained in the Cannon Rotunda.

Amongst those that attended the D.C. protest was Amira Hass, the famend Israeli Jewish journalist with Haaretz who has lived within the Occupied Territories for many years. The daughter of Holocaust survivors, she mentioned on Democracy Now!, she was there, “as a Jew, not as a journalist…This pounding of Gaza, it must be stopped proper now.”

One other protest got here from an unlikely quarter: from contained in the U.S. State Division. Josh Paul served for 11 years because the Director of Congressional & Public Affairs, Bureau of Political-Navy Affairs. That is the federal government workplace most instantly concerned with the supply of weapons to international governments. On Wednesday, Paul wrote a two-page resignation letter, which he shared publicly on-line, and deserves to be quoted at size:

“We can’t be each in opposition to occupation, and for it. We can’t be each for freedom, and in opposition to it. And we can’t be for a greater world, whereas contributing to 1 that’s materially worse. I consider to the core of my soul that the response Israel is taking, and with it the American help each for that response, and for the established order of the occupation, will solely result in extra and deeper struggling for each the Israeli and the Palestinian individuals–and isn’t in the long run American curiosity. This Administration’s response…is immensely disappointing, and completely unsurprising. A long time of the identical strategy have proven that safety for peace results in neither safety, nor to peace. There may be magnificence to be discovered in all places on this world, and it deserves each safety, and the correct to flourish, and that’s what I most want for Palestinians and for Israelis. The homicide of civilians is an enemy to that want–whether or not by terrorists as they dance at a rave, or by terrorists as they harvest their olive grove. The kidnapping of kids is an enemy to that want–whether or not taken at gunpoint from their kibbutz or taken at gunpoint from their village. And, collective punishment is an enemy to that want, whether or not it includes demolishing one dwelling, or one thousand; as too is ethnic cleaning; as too is occupation; as too is apartheid.”

This column initially appeared in Democracy Now!

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