Drop Site News reports that more than 80 Palestinians have been killed since Jan. 19 by IDF forces. Imagine if 80 Israelis had been killed by Hamas during that time.
Israeli soldiers in eastern Rafah in Gaza, May 2024. (IDF Spokesperson’s Unit, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0)
By Caitlin Johnstone
CaitlinJohnstone.com.au
Listen to Tim Foley reading this article.
Drop Site News reports that more than 80 Palestinians have been killed by the IDF in Gaza since what we’re calling a “ceasefire” went into effect on Jan. 19.
The majority have been in Rafah, a now completely destroyed city which the Biden administration had previously said was off limits for a major Israeli offensive.
More than 80. Imagine if 80 Israelis had been killed by Hamas during that time instead. Hell, imagine if 80 Israelis were killed in addition to the more than 80 Palestinians who’ve been killed by Israel. Does anyone believe anything resembling a “ceasefire” would continue to hold had that been the case?
Of course not. Palestinian lives are viewed as expendable, while Israelis are viewed as human beings. Killing a few Palestinians here and there is viewed by Israel as morally equivalent to swatting a few flies who are creating a nuisance.
Five-year-old girl among two Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks amid Gaza ceasefire https://t.co/UOlveZqY6f pic.twitter.com/UZVwlEaMbL
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) January 28, 2025
As an example of the kind of behavior I’m talking about, on Monday Israeli forces killed a 5 year-old girl in an airstrike on an animal-drawn cart near the Nuseirat refugee camp, apparently for no other reason than because the cart was traveling on a road that had not been “authorized for passage.”
Those are the IDF’s own words, not mine. That’s their own public justification for bombing a cart pulled by a donkey with a small child on it.
“In central Gaza, an [Israeli military] aircraft fired to distance several suspicious vehicles that were moving northward in an area that is not authorized for passage according to the agreement,” the Israeli military said.
The IDF claims that it used strikes from military aircraft to “distance” vehicles it considered “suspicious” because they were not traveling the right direction on the right road.
They’ll use airstrikes as a means of communication, the way normal countries use road signs. They’ll say, “We don’t like the way those Arabs are moving so let’s just send them a little message. There. Boom. Now your kid’s dead. Guess you’ll stop traveling the wrong way on that road now.”
In all the dozens of incidents in which Israeli forces have been firing upon Palestinians in Gaza, they have reliably justified their actions as defensive responses to a perceived “threat.” But we can see from the example above how shaky those claims of being under threat actually are.
Uhh pretty sure the Israeli contractor was shot exactly BECAUSE he was unarmed and dressed in civilian clothing, guys. pic.twitter.com/YJ7pt739tY
— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) January 29, 2025
We also see it illustrated in the way IDF troops on Tuesday “accidentally” killed an Israeli military contractor who happened to look a lot like an unarmed Palestinian civilian.
If you read the Haaretz report on the incident you’ll be told that the man “was unarmed and dressed in civilian clothing, making it unclear why he was shot,” but it is not at all unclear why he was shot.
The photo the outlet provides makes it clear that the contractor was darker-skinned and did not look like an Israeli of European ancestry, so when he showed up without a weapon or a uniform, the Israeli troops assumed he was a Palestinian civilian and killed him.
Obviously an Israeli military contractor would not have been behaving in a menacing way toward Israeli soldiers. His only mistake was failing to adequately communicate to them that he was Israeli, and therefore worthy of being treated like a human being. Because he didn’t, he was exterminated like the vermin the Israeli troops saw him as in that moment.
Palestinians are so pervasively dehumanized in Israeli society that Israelis tend to think nothing of killing them, which is why the Gaza holocaust has been allowed to happen.
Palestinians are also dehumanized in Western society, which is why we also allowed it to happen.
Despite all the West’s purported values of equality and human rights for all, it’s an easily observable fact that, under the imperial status quo, some human lives are more equal than others.
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This article is from CaitlinJohnstone.com.au and re-published with permission.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
A case of ‘friendly fire’ – however, the military contractor didn’t have a chance – after all, since the IOF gunned down three of their own who were bare chested (to show that they were not wearing a bomb belt), calling out in Hebrew and waving white flags what chance did the military contractor have?
quote
“They’ll use airstrikes as a means of communication, the way normal countries use road signs. ”
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airstrike by drone ?
as little trust I have at times it would not surprise me if he was hit by drone and the version portrayed concocted .
They remove the corpse so no evidence (cya), realize they shot the dog and not the duck .
Need to minimize and justify like the first time in treatment to go out and continue their habit . Don’t be fooled . they need inpatient treatment . Deadman dont speak , hope he wasn’t shot a 2nd time like backing up and running over someone you just ran into just to make sure ?
They showed pic after fact or photo of him alive or laying on the ground .
The vaugeness of the story told by Is News is not to explicit ?
I admit I did reply only with info in this article and not trying to judge the article .
Point I try to make is shot shoot airstrike drone troops no matter the method is weak like in the back courageous
Can’t trust any of this BS
Any attention I create is my own , not the author .
This killing is Wrong in any case , thanks bringing this to atention .
Great analogy in quote above
“chowder-brained bootlickers” nice Cait, and
with that powerful image comes Orwell’s
description of life in 1984 as a “boot stamping
on a human face.”
So here we are in 1984.
The zionists have the disease of extreme tribalism, of the which the nationalist form (in German) is naziism.
Tribalism is excessive social and economic dependency upon tribal groups, usually groups that feel threatened.
Members of extreme tribalist groups cannot challenge tribal doctrine without losing friends and employment.
This creates fear of leaders and allows the common tyrant personality to demand power as the tribal defender.
The tyrant claims that all good comes from the tribe, and all bad comes from other tribes, usually competitors.
The tyrant uses defense power for aggressive war to steal resources, to reward his benefactors and followers.
Not surprising that the victims of tribalism become radically defensive, which leads them to aggressive tribalism.
So the Versailles convention gave us the Nazis, who gave us the Zionists, who are giving us our own fascism.
We need public and mass media education to identify and avoid dangerous social dependency upon tribal groups.
Good work Sam, your first line is theologically detailed
by the late German theologian Paul Tillich, and why
American evangelical fundamentalists (Trump’s
“beautiful Christians”) are most accurately described
as “religious nationalists” opposed to Tillich’s leadership,
of “religious socialists.”
Tillich came to America in 1933, just as Hitler’s Nazis were
about to destroy him, the first gentile to flee Nazi Germany.