Another day, another scandal.
This is the inevitable fate of Palestinians in the dark, dystopian desert that is Gaza.
This is inevitable because no matter the scale, nature or manner of the attacks, Palestinians have been, and always will be, viewed as disposable human flesh by Israel’s army of unrepentant enablers and apologists.
Of course, they work hard to try, as they are conditioned to do, to find an explanation, an excuse, a justification to absolve Israel of any responsibility for the crimes against humanity it has committed with impunity in Gaza. and beyond.
In its myopic calculation, Israel is never to blame, never responsible, never guilty. Admitting that Israel is at fault, responsible, author or culpable would in effect also admit its guilt.
The usual array of lies, distortions and obfuscations are deployed, at the right time, by the usual suspects in capitals and the usual newsrooms to deny or obscure the evidence.
Blindness is a necessary extension of their complicity. They refuse to see what we can see. Their evangelical allegiance to Israel trumps truth and decency. It always has been. This will always be the case.
This now familiar pantomime plays out in the shocking remains of the massacre of more than 100 desperate Palestinians who rushed onto aid trucks carrying what had been denied them by a fanatical regime determined to kill them quickly or slowly.
This time, the terror took place on al-Rashid Street, in the southwest suburbs of what remains of Gaza City, where thousands of homeless Palestinians had gathered in the open at night. Cold. Sick. Thirsty. Hungry.
What happened at that place and time was not an “incident” or a “chaotic scene.” Rather, it was more deadly evidence of the genocide committed by a ruthless occupying power against an imprisoned and helpless people with deliberate and malicious efficiency.
We know what happened there at that time because Tel Aviv Tribune’s Ismail al-Ghoul was there. He was not in Tel Aviv or occupied East Jerusalem. He was not in a television studio in Washington, DC, New York, London or Paris, according to the account of a pretentious Israeli spokesperson. He was there.
This is what al-Ghoul reports witnessing.
Dozens of Palestinians learned that trucks carrying precious flour were about to arrive. As they waited impatiently early Thursday morning, Israeli soldiers began shooting. You can hear the crackle of gunfire in the video that captured the killing spree.
“We went to get flour. The Israeli army shot at us. There are many martyrs on the ground and for now we are removing them. There is no first aid,” a witness told Tel Aviv Tribune.
Another witness added: “The Israelis just opened fire on us as if it were a trap. »
Then, after machine-gunning the Palestinians, Israeli tanks advanced and crushed the dead and wounded, al-Ghoul said.
What the witnesses appear to be describing is the military tactic known as “double tap.” The initial strike hits the intended target. A second strike targets passers-by called to help the dead and injured.
Regardless, once the carnage was over, the staggering number of dead and injured Palestinians grew, as it did every day for the past five months, with relentless ferocity.
When daylight arrived, the true extent of this appalling massacre became apparent.
Ambulances were unable to reach the dozens of dead and disfigured people because the roads, like much of Gaza, had been destroyed.
The dead were loaded onto the flatbed portion of one of the aid trucks transformed into a mobile morgue, their limp, lifeless bodies intertwined in a grotesque heap of humanity.
The deluge of wounded Palestinians who survived the attack fell on the overwhelmed hospitals and on the caregivers who still staff them.
“Hospitals are no longer able to accommodate the large number of patients because they lack fuel, let alone medicine. Hospitals are also running out of blood,” al-Ghoul said.
A Palestinian doctor preparing to help the wounded amid the bloody chaos admitted there was little he could do.
“The majority of cases require surgery and operating rooms,” he said. “To be honest, I don’t know what we can do. The situation is…horrible.
The situation has been “horrible” for a long time. But the so-called “international community” is hesitant. Worse still, he spouts meaningless platitudes “calling” on Israel to stop killing civilians.
Clearly, hesitations and platitudes don’t work. Crimes against humanity continue again and again.
At first, Israel said the Palestinians were responsible for the killings and harming Palestinians.
The Palestinians were crushed and trampled, Israel said, as they rushed toward the aid trucks. It’s not our fault.
Predictably, this unhealthy “reasoning” fails to explain why hordes of Palestinians must load aid trucks.
Israel’s stated goal is to force the Palestinians to capitulate by depriving them of food, water, fuel and medicine.
Then Israel changed course. We had no intention of starting shooting at unarmed civilians. We only started shooting because our heavily armed soldiers felt “threatened” by unarmed civilians.
Israel knows that this blatant nonsense will work. They have already worked. They will work again.
Israel knows it has the right to kill as many Palestinians as it wants, whenever it wants, for as long as it wants, by any means it wants, and “the international community” will do nothing. tangible. to stop it.
Instead, he will nod his head in approval and agreement. He will accept Israel’s exculpatory version of what happened.
The “indignation” will last a day or two, then the “international community” will continue on its joyful and illusory path.
Meanwhile, Palestinians will have to manually bury more of their dead in open graves while they wait for Israel’s insatiable “murderous rage” to end.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Tel Aviv Tribune.