Consider the warnings and the deeds. Consider the genocide.
Israeli airstrikes light up the streets of the Gaza Strip, sometime during the 2023- 2025 bombing campaign. (Jaber Jehad Badwan / Wikimedia Commons /CC BY-SA 4.0)
In early May, the security cabinet of Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met and agreed that Israel would “capture” Gaza and remove its Palestinian population “to protect it.”
To achieve this policy of annexation of Gaza, the Israelis tightened their siege by preventing the entry of food, water, electricity and other humanitarian aid (they had already enforced a blockade of aid since March 2).
Then, the Israelis began to bomb Gaza with increased ferocity, with Israeli ground forces gathering at the edge of Gaza and entering in short bursts. By May 18, these Israeli ground forces began measured entries into Gaza. After intense pressure, the Netanyahu cabinet agreed to allow “basic amounts” of food into Gaza. Meanwhile, the Israeli army released a “forced displacement order” for the people in Khan Younis.
There is a tangle of war crimes in the paragraph above: 1. Population transfer in an occupied territory is illegal. 2. Deprival of food, water, and electricity for civilians is illegal. 3. Annexation of an occupied territory is illegal. 4. Deliberately killing civilians in a war zone is illegal.
It would be meaningless to recite chapter and verse to prove this, since it is by now well known that the Israelis have violated every single one of the laws of war and that their violations have been meticulously documented by the United Nations special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967.
Francesca Albanese in her annual report (and in recent statements, where she has spoken of a “[tragedy] foretold and [a] stain on our collective humanity”) and by Amnesty International in their report, “You Feel Like You Are Subhuman: Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza.”
In Amnesty’s recent annual report, there is the chilling sentence: “The world has been made audience to a live-streamed genocide.”
‘Eradication’
The bombardments to prepare the way for the annexation have been ferocious. The Israeli bombs have eradicated entire families of Palestinians. The word “eradicate” is generally used in reference to pests or diseases. It is an ugly word. I am using it here deliberately. It comes from the Latin word eradicare, which means “to pull out from the roots,” a botanical meaning that now has far more sinister meanings when used in reference to humans.
Eradicate sounds clinical when it refers to weeds, but horrendous when applied to humanity, just as clinical and bureaucratic as the term “The Final Solution” (when used to refer to the horrendous genocide of the Jews in Europe).
Among the Attacks on One Day in Gaza
Adolf Hitler used the terms “annihilation” (vernichtung) and “eradicate” or “exterminate” (ausrotten) when he spoke of Jews in the 1930s, and then when he spoke of the Final Solution (Endlösung) in the 1940s. Language is cruel, already bearing the implications of the deed.
Consider the deed.
May 19, 2025.
At 6 a.m., a group of Israeli special forces (mista’arvim) entered Khan Younis disguised as Palestinian women. They came under the cover of F-16 airstrikes and quadcopter drone strikes. The special forces soldiers executed Ahmad Kamel Sarhan in front of his family. Then they kidnapped his wife, his son Mohammed (age 12), and other, older children.
No one knows where they have been taken. At least 16 civilians died in the operation. Their names are:
- Abeer Salah Khamis Ayyash
- Ahmad Akram Mohammad al-Dali
- Ahmad Kamel Hamdan Sarhan
- Ahmad Mohammad Abu al-Rous
- Ahmad Mohammad Kawarea
- Elin Ashraf Hamdan Shalouf
- Hasan Mahmoud al-Astal
- Ibrahim Hamed Hussein al-Aqqad
- Laila Fadi Naeem Ayyash
- Malak Youssef Qeshta (Shalouf)
- Mohammad Mahmoud Kawarea
- Muhannad Mohammad Kawarea
- Nabila Abd Wafi (Abu al-Rous)
- Saja Salim Ibrahim Asleeh
- Samira Abdel-Majid Ahmad al-Qarra
- Tawfiq Ali Hamdan al-Qarra
An Israeli tank fired a shell at a home in the al-Amour neighbourhood in al-Fakhari, to the east of Khan Younis, and wiped out Safa Alyan Saleem al-Amour and her six daughters, Sama Rashad Omar al-Amour, Lama Rashad Omar al-Amour, Saja Rashad Omar al-Amour, Leen Rashad Omar al-Amour, Nada Rashad Omar al-Amour, and Layan Rashad Omar al-Amour.
Israeli artillery shellfire hit a house in al-Fakhari, killing five members of a family: Jumana Kamal Muhammad Abu Daqqa, Wassim Muhammad Ali Abu Daqqa, Siraj Muhammed Ali Abu Daqqa, Jolan Muhammad Ali Abu Daqqa, and Jilan Muhamed Ali Abu Daqqa.
These are a few of the attacks that took place on one day in one part of Gaza, from where I was merely able to get reports from people on the ground as well as press reports. The attacks took place as well in Gaza City, near the Indonesian Hospital, which had been targeted the day before. Other names could be filled in here for others killed by other deliberate acts of violence.
These attacks come at the same time as a severe crisis of hunger inflicts itself upon the people of Gaza, with children hardest hit. At least 57 children have already died of malnutrition in Gaza, while 71,000 Palestinian children struggle to eat. The World Health Organisation warns of stunted growth, impaired cognitive development and poor long-term health for the children who do not die.
The Food and Agriculture Organisation warns of “famine looming” in Gaza. Everyone warns about this or that. But these warnings amount to nothing. The U.N. Emergency Relief Coordinator Thomas Fletcher condemns Israel’s ‘cruel collective punishment’ of the Palestinians. He knows that ‘collective punishment’ is a war crime.
Consider the warnings. Consider the deed.
Consider the genocide.
Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian, editor and journalist. He is a writing fellow and chief correspondent at Globetrotter. He is an editor of LeftWord Books and the director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. He is a senior non-resident fellow at Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China. He has written more than 20 books, including The Darker Nations and The Poorer Nations. His latest books are Struggle Makes Us Human: Learning From Movements for Socialism and, with Noam Chomsky, The Withdrawal: Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan and the Fragility of U.S. Power.
This article is from Z Network.
Views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
…… *“You Have Not Yet Been Defeated.”
“The centre is treason because there’s room in it only for the General…. The centre is treason and I have never been a traitor. They think they’ve pushed us back into the margins. They don’t realise that we never left it, we just got lost for a brief while. Neither the ballot boxes not the palaces or the ministries or the prisons or even the graves are big enough for our dreams. We never sought the centre because it has no room except for those who abandon the dream. Even the square was not big enough for us, so most of the battles of the revolution happened outside it, and most of the heroes remained outside the frame.“ Alaa Abd el-Fatah
hxxps://pentransmissions.com/2024/10/15/no-propaganda-on-earth-can-hide-the-wound-that-is-palestine-arundhati-roys-pen-pinter-prize-2024-speech/
*“Acts of kindness. Like rain in a drought. Release the spirit with a whoop and a shout. I don’t believe we were born to be sheep in a flock. To pantomime prayers with a hands of a clock.” Paul Simon.
“Consider that,” Francesca Albanese & Thomas Fletcher, like Nils Melzer was, have been “Snuffed Out!” “Look through the papers,” Today’s Newspapers,” 5.26.25, @ hxxps://www.frontpages.com/ *“Makes you wanna cry. Nobody cares if the [Palestinians], “live or die.” The Sacraments Bee’s front page, “Israeli Air Strikes Kill Seven of Gaza Doctor’s Children.”
“Consider that,” on this Memorial Day, “As the horror we are witnessing in Gaza, and now Lebanon, quickly escalates into a regional war, its real heroes [UN’s Special Rapporteurs, Emergency Relief Coordinators, Investigative Journalists, Palestinians] “remain outside the frame. But they fight on because they know that one day–From the river to the sea, Palestine will be Free.”
“It will. Keep your eye on your calendar. Not on your clock. That’s how the people – not the generals – the people fighting for their liberation measure time.” Arundhati Roy.
“So, let us once and for all dispense with the lie about the US being a mediator, a restraining influence, or as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (considered to be on the extreme Left of mainstream US politics) put it, ‘working tirelessly for a ceasefire’. A party to the genocide cannot be a mediator.” [NOT] all the power and money, not all the weapons and propaganda on earth can any longer hide the wound that is Palestine. The wound through which the whole world, including Israel, bleeds.” Arundhati Roy
“Our Name Is Our Virtue.” The special forces soldiers execute, kidnap, “snuff out,” Palestinians. “[NO ONE] knows where they have been taken. At least 16 civilians died in the operation. Their names are:” listed above. Thank You, VIJAY PRASHAD!!! *“If I die too young, if the gunmen come, I’m full of love. So release me, every piece of me, up above. And, if I die too young for something I ain’t done. Carry my name, every day. Awh, Beautiful Strangers.” TY, Vijay Prashad, CN, et al. “Keep It Lit!”
* “I Don’t Believe,” Paul Simon
*https://pentransmissions.com/2024/10/15/no-propaganda-on-earth-can-hide-the-wound-that-is-palestine-arundhati-roys-pen-pinter-prize-2024-speech/
* “Beautiful Strangers,” Kevin Morby
Israel is the worst country on Earth!
I understand why you say that, but you are forgetting the world’s greatest monster, by far, the United States of America. Nothing “Israel” is doing is possible without the authorization and support of the USA.
All this “is by now well known” and requires no further proof.
More importantly:
what is to be done to stop the genocide and ethnic cleansing?
Can legal means really be counted on as a method to solve political problems?
Given that the ICC has no jurisdiction over Israel or the US, since neither signed up to the Rome Statute, and ICJ cases must be approved by the (gutless) UN Security Council – guess who would veto that – what redress is likely to be available via litigation?
So, while thanks are due for reporters of what “is by now well known”, informed people also know that “after all is said and done there is far more said than done”.
I would prefer a military intervention. However, the world’s governments have already proven to be intimidated by rising fascism and blackmailed by war mongers’ threats of WWlll.
That leaves an internationalist working class revolutionary army the only option with potential to not only drive the occupiers out of Palestine, but also of marching on Tel Aviv.
Yes, I would join such a force.
In the meantime, I’ll watch and wring my hands along with the world – knowing that, eventually, voyeurism and impotence become companion bed mates.
In solidarity! ?
“Given that the ICC has no jurisdiction over Israel or the US, since neither signed up to the Rome Statute,…”
This is completely false. The ICC has jurisdiction over Gaza as the Observer State of Palestine joined the ICC in 2015. Whoever commits crimes in Gaza, such as Israel, is liable to ICC prosecution. That’s how the ICC indicted Netanyahu.
Look at what happened to the Mavi Marmara which was only attempting to deliver aid to Gaza in 2010. How would your proletarian army enter Israel and march on Tel Aviv without be slaughtered? There is only one way the genocide can be realistically be stopped: The US and Germany must immediately stop sending Israel guns and money to carry it out.
Excellent comment. Keep on writing, we need to see that we are not alone in the struggle for peace, freedom to save the innocent. like they say, the first casualty of war is truth.
The U.N. has been rendered obsolete by its inaction in a live-streamed genocide. Perhaps it is time to relocate it to the global south and totally rewrite its charter. No more permanent member status for major countries. In fact, those countries that have supported or participated in genocide should be banned from member status for decades. A rebalancing of global power structures is long overdue. What more evidence is needed?
How can any individual, nation, people, endure such evil blood lust by the Israeli master race toward helpless natives who have lived in Palestine since long before the creation of Judaism? The answer is by the West’s hatred of Islam, Muslims and Arabs. The west has been jealous of the initial success of Islam for hundreds of years, It is a sadistic state of ” How dare you get ore converts to your boogieman in the sky than we have been able to get with our boogie man in the sky. Simple jealousy, silly , stupid, primitive, and deadly.
Give Palestinians back their land and send the European invader Zionizis back to Europe, where their persecution started. It wasn’t the Arabs who started this. Read your history.
Americans and the West have the most ignorant, stupid, brainwashed and arrogant people in the world. The MAGA and MAGA like citizens are only the latest incarnation of this stupidity, ignorance, brainwashing and arrogance. It is as American as mom and apple pie.
The freaky, arrogant Zio sadists have two primary goals right now:
1.) Expel all the Palestinians in Gaza to Egypt, Jordan or Libya or anywhere else, just get them out of Gaza (an Israeli politician said yesterday that the IDF should immediately kill all the men in Gaza and forcefully relocate all the women and children)
2.) Compel Washington into a major attack on Iran; that this could touch off World War 3 apparently isn’t a big concern for the Jew supremacist lunatics
It appears the American people are the only force on earth right now that could possibly stop both of these repulsive projects.
So, when does Trump dim the lights when Bibi visits and show video footage of an actual genocide?