All Aflame on the West Bank Front
The Scourging of Gaza: Diary of a Genocidal War
The ruins left by the IDF’s “limited operation” in Rafah. Image: WAFA.
+ Here’s a snapshot of Israel’s escalating war on the West Bank…
+ Since January 2023, 772 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli armed forces (747) or settlers (18), including 181 children.
+ In the same time period, 14,632 Palestinians have been injured by Israelis, including 2,167 children.
+ Since January 2023, 6,202 Palestinians, including 2771 children, have been displaced from their homes, and more than 2107 Palestinian buildings and houses have been destroyed by Israel armed forces or settlers.
+ Israeli forces are killing a Palestinian child every two days in the West Bank.
+ In the last week, Israeli settlers committed 43 attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank, resulting in one death, ten injuries, and extensive damage to property.
+ On September 4, armed Israeli settlers forcibly entered the Palestinian Bedouin community at Wadi al Faw, threatened the families at gunpoint, and demanded they leave. When the Palestinians refused, the settlers attacked the families with pepper spray, which injured two men. Hours later, Israeli police arrived and detained one of the Palestinian men and a foreign activist. They were released later that night after the police confiscated their phones. When the Bedouin families began to move out, the Israeli forces physically assaulted and injured two Palestinians who were helping the families relocate to Khirbet ‘Atuf.
+ Two days earlier, another group of eight Bedouin herders from the West Bank community of Baryet Hizma were forcibly displaced by violent attacks from Israeli settlers, which had been escalating since the illegal of a new Israeli settler outpost last October, which was constructed on the remains of a Palestinian residential structure that Israeli forces had demolished. Video footage captured armed Israeli settlers harassing Palestinian residents daily, including by firing live ammunition, burning vehicles, and ransacking property. Many of the attacks came at night. On August 23, Israeli settlers launched a violent attack: looting homes, burning a residential structure, smashing, and stealing property. Settlers from the outpost also erected earthen mounds at the entrance of the community, preventing access. On September 6, Israeli settlers believed to be from the Shilo settlement, escorted by Israeli forces, attacked the West Bank village of Qaryut, south of Nablus city. The settlers threw stones at the villagers and tried to burn down several houses. The Palestinian villagers tried to drive off the raiding settlers by pelting them with rocks. Then, the Israeli forces began firing live ammunition at the villagers. A 13-year-old Palestinian girl was shot and killed inside her house, which was approximately 150 meters away from where the confrontation was taking place. The Palestinian Red Crescent Society responded to three casualties: the girl who was shot in the chest, one Palestinian man who was injured by live ammunition, and one who was physically assaulted. The Israeli settlers burned hundreds of olive trees on a space of about 20 dunums belonging to villagers.
+ On September 7, the day after an IDF sniper shot American peace activist Aysenur Eygi in the head in an olive grove outside the village of Beita, a group of masked Israeli settlers from Evyatar threw stones at houses in the village and injured four Palestinian villagers. One group of settlers broke into a home, threw stones, and injured a 60-year-old woman, while others pepper-sprayed a 68-year-old man and then hit him with a stone. Another Israeli settler assaulted a Palestinian woman, inflicting cuts on her head and bruising her face. The settlers broke three house windows and the windows of four vehicles.
+++
Reporter: Eyewitnesses say she [Aysenur Eygi] was killed by an Israeli sniper, autopsy says she was shot in the head…do you have any doubt
Vedant Patel, US State Dept.: I appreciate all you’re sharing, but our partners in Israel are conducting a process
Reporter: Her family wants an independent investigation. Would you support this call?
Patel: We expect Israel to make their findings public.
Reporter: Do you suspect someone fired the shot other than an Israeli soldier?
Patel: You can ask as many questions as you like–that’s not going to change my answer. We’re going to let the process play out.
Reporter: The record is quite abysmal when it comes to Israel investigating itself on the killing of Americans…Rachel Corrie, Omar Assad, Shireen Abu Akleh. What guarantee do you have that this investigation will be carried out fairly?
Patel: I’m not going to get ahead of the process
Reporter: Are they less American, or is it really the identity of the killer rather than the identity of the killed?
Patel: I’m not sure I fully comprehend what you’re asking.
Reporter: The president said, ‘If you harm an American, we will respond.’ Does that apply in this case, or are we talking about a different standard?
Patel: What the president was talking about was a terrorist attack or a direct attack from a state or non-state actor.
Reporter: But do you have doubt that it was an Israeli bullet?
Patel: I’m not going to get ahead of the process. There’s been a lot of open source and eyewitness reporting.
+ Patel couldn’t even be bothered to pronounce Aysenur’s name correctly.
+ Rob Sadler, ISM: “We were in the group with Ayşenur. Israeli soldiers fired from a distance. I turned around, and Ayşenur was on the ground… She had been shot in the head… She was deliberately targeted and killed… Israel does not want international witnesses.”
+ John Kirby, when asked if President Biden had spoken to the family of the American citizen killed by Israel: “He has not spoken to the family…The Israelis have reached out and made sure we knew they were promptly investigating this.”
+ In a series of statements on her death, Ayşenur’s family condemned the Biden administration for swallowing Israel’s account of the shooting and demanded an independent investigation.
In the midst of this terrible tragedy, our family has been crossing continents to gather and put our beloved Ayşenur to rest. We will always remember Ayşenur as a kindhearted, silly, and passionate soul whose face expressed all those qualities. We cannot speak of what happened to those expressions when her temple met a bullet fired by a trained Israeli soldier.
Ayşenur was an international observer who stood in witness of “violent extremist Israeli settlers [who] are uprooting Palestinians from their homes”–words President Biden himself used today. Despite this, President Biden is still calling her killing an accident based only on the Israeli military’s story. This is not only insensitive and false; it is complicity in the Israeli military’s agenda to take Palestinian land and whitewash the killing of an American.
Let us be clear, an American citizen was killed by a foreign military in a targeted attack. The appropriate action is for President Biden and Vice President Harris to speak with the family directly, and order an independent, transparent investigation into the killing of Ayşenur, a volunteer for peace.
+ The Israeli version of the shooting, which the Biden administration swiftly adopted, was quickly shown by witnesses, cellphone videos and a detailed investigation by the Washington Post to be not only implausible but absolute bunk. The murder of Ayşenur Eygi took place at least 20 minutes after the last confrontation between Palestinian villagers and IDF troops. Ayşenur never threw any stones and was never within 200 yards of anyone who did. The rooftop sniper had a clear view of where Ayşenur was standing, talking to her friend Helen, and she couldn’t be confused for a Palestinian “instigator.” For whatever reason, Ayşenur was targeted; the sights of the rifle focused on her head and shot. The bullet that killed her didn’t ricochet off of a tree or a rock or a dumpster. The sniper had a clear shot and took it. As Rachel Corrie’s father, Craig, said this week: “Israel does not do investigations; they do cover-ups.” (More than a week after Aysenur’s murder, none of the witnesses to her killing have been contacted by Israeli or US investigators.)
+ It’s now been eight days since an IDF sniper shot Aysenur Eygi in the head and the Biden White House still hasn’t reached out to her family.
+ On the day Aysenur’s family laid her to rest, the Biden administration approved a $165 million sale to Israel of heavy-duty tank trailers. Not a single American official attended her funeral.
+++
+ UN special rapporteur Michael Fakhri on his new report about Israel’s enforced starvation of Palestinians in Gaza: “Never in post-war history had a population been made to go hungry so quickly and so completely as was the case for the 2.3 million Palestinians living in Gaza.”
+ Queen Rania of Jordan, who is Palestinian, continues to be the most outspoken member of the Royal Family of Jordan. She made an impassioned speech about Gaza, the West Bank, and the Palestinian people earlier this week at the Cernobbio Forum in Italy.
Would any Western population be expected to tolerate decades of occupation, oppression, and violence? Yet in Palestine, this injustice has been rationalized and allowed to go on in full view of the global community. Is the world saying that Israel’s security is more important than anyone else’s and therefore nothing is off-limits in its pursuit? That no level of Palestinian suffering is too high a price to pay? This devaluation of life must be called out for what it is: anti-Palestinian racism…..
Yet, what is the Global South supposed to think when they see the West stand up for the people of Ukraine while leaving innocent civilians in Gaza to unprecedented collective punishment? What are they to think when global leaders express outrage at airstrikes on foreign humanitarian workers, but not on the desperate Palestinians those same aid workers are trying to support? What are they to think when the ICJ’s advisory opinion that Israel’s occupation is illegal is ignored by some and dismissed by others?
Even as Gaza’s displaced children are being bombed, and teens are killed by Israeli bullets to the head, what conclusions are people to draw about who matters, who doesn’t, and why? More than hypocritical, the double standard is dehumanizing. It is cruel. And if it isn’t racist, I don’t know what is.
+ According to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, Israel is not permitting enough fuel for health service providers in northern Gaza. The PRCS warned that this “will lead to the complete cessation” of ambulance operations and emergency clinics “amidst the repeated targeting of civilians.”
+ Tally Gotliv, an Israeli lawmaker and member of Netanyahu’s Likud Party, has written a letter to the head of the police calling for the detention and interrogation of Yuli Novak, the director of Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, following a speech she made at the United Nations Security Council earlier this week. The law Gotliv wants Novak prosecuted under has a punishment of a life sentence or the death penalty.
+++
+ Since 1948, Palestinians have accounted for 95% percent of the deaths in the Israeli-Palestinian “conflict”–a number that will rise to nearly 99% when the real death toll (300,000+) in Gaza is determined.
+ Antonio Guterres, Secretary-General of the UN: “The level of suffering we are witnessing in Gaza is unprecedented in my mandate as secretary-general of the United Nations. I’ve never seen such a level of death and destruction as we are seeing in Gaza in the last few months.”
+ Human Rights Watch: “Israel’s use of surveillance technologies, artificial intelligence, and other digital tools to determine targets to attack in Gaza may increase the risk of civilian harm, often relying on faulty data and inexact approximations to inform military actions.”
+ A UN convoy carrying 12 UN staff members on their way to support the polio vaccination campaign in northern Gaza stopped under gunpoint at the Al Rashid Checkpoint and told that Israeli forces wanted to hold two of the UN staff members for questioning. The UN vehicles were soon surrounded by encircled by IDF tanks and bulldozers, which started ramming the UN vehicles from the back and front inside. One bulldozer dumped debris on the first vehicle while Israeli soldiers threatened staff. The convoy remained at gunpoint while senior UN officials tried to convince Israeli authorities to de-escalate the situation. The two staffers were interrogated and then released. After seven-and-a-half hours at the checkpoint, the convoy returned to their UN base, unable to complete its humanitarian mission, which had been pre-approved by Israeli commanders.
+ UNRWA’s Philippe Lazzarini on the IDF detaining a UN convoy trying to deliver polio vaccines in northern Gaza: “The Israeli Army stopped a UN convoy on its way to northern Gaza for more than eight hours today (Monday) despite prior detailed coordination.
The convoy had both national and international staff traveling to roll out the polio vaccination campaign for children in Gaza City and northern Gaza. The convoy was stopped at gunpoint just after the Wadi Gaza checkpoint with threats to detain UN staff.
Heavy damage was caused by bulldozers to the UN armored vehicles.
All staff & convoy are now released & back safely in the UN base.
We are not able to confirm whether the polio campaign will take place tomorrow, (Tuesday) in northern Gaza.
This significant incident is the latest in a series of violations against UN staff, including shootings at convoys & arrests by the Israeli Armed Forces at checkpoints despite prior notification.
UN Staff must be allowed to undertake their duties in safety + be protected at all times in accordance with international humanitarian law.
Gaza is no different.
+++
+ Five mid-September days in Gaza…
+ Between the afternoons of 8 and 12 September, 146 Palestinians were killed and 364 were injured.
+ On September 8, five Palestinians were killed and at least seven others injured when a house was hit by an Israeli missile in northern An Nuseirat, in Deir al Balah.
+ On the morning of September 9, six Palestinians, including a baby girl, were killed and several more injured when a residential building in Jabalya city, in north Gaza, was hit in an Israeli airstrike. A few hours later, five Palestinians, including three women, were killed and others injured when the Israelis bombed a residential building near the Jordanian Hospital in Tal Al Hawa, Gaza City.
+ On September 10, nine Palestinians, including six children and women, were killed when a residential building was hit by the IDF in Jabalya city, in northern Gaza.
+ Later that day, Israeli airstrikes hit a makeshift camp being used by thousands of internally displaced Palestinians. The site was in the area where the Israeli military had instructed civilians to take shelter for their safety, in the Al Mawasi part of Khan Younis. People staying there had evacuated from the eastern parts of Khan Younis and Rafah. According to the UN Human Rights Office, the attack that involved weapons with wide area effects killed at least 19 civilians and 60 others were wounded. According to a UN assessment conducted the day after the bombing, at least 68 families comprising 413 people lost their shelters in the attack, requiring new tents and other items.
+ The missiles used to attack the Al-Mawasi “humanitarian zone” left craters as deep as 30 feet–it doesn’t sound like the small munitions designed to minimize civilian casualties to me.
+ Tor Wennesland, the UN’s Envoy on the Middle East peace process, condemned the most recent Israeli airstrikes on Palestinian tent camps in the Al-Masawi “humanitarian zone” outside Khan Younis:
I strongly condemn today’s [Tuesday] deadly airstrikes by Israel on a densely populated area in an Israeli-designated humanitarian zone in Khan Younis where displaced people were sheltering.
While the IDF said it struck Hamas militants who were operating in a command-and-control center embedded inside the Humanitarian zone, I underline that international humanitarian law, including the principles of distinction, proportionality, and precautions in attack, must be upheld at all times. I also emphasize that civilians must never be used as human shields.
Yet again, such actions only underscore that nowhere is safe in Gaza.
I reiterate my call for all sides to immediately reach an agreement that will bring about the release of all hostages and a ceasefire. The killing of civilians must stop, and this horrific war must end.
Ultimately, only a political path that outlines tangible, irreversible steps toward ending the occupation and establishing a two-state solution can put a durable end to the suffering of Palestinians and Israelis. The United Nations stands ready to support all efforts towards that goal.
+ On September 11, 13 Palestinians, including nine women and girls, were killed and others injured when a house was hit by an Israeli airstrike in the Khuza’a area in eastern Khan Younis. An hour or so later, five Palestinians, including two children, were killed and others injured when the Israelis bombed a residential building in the Ash Shamaa area in Gaza City.
+ That same day, Israel bombed the al-Jaouni school in the Nuseirat refugee camp, killing 18 Palestinians, including six UNRWA workers–the most aid workers killed in a single day in the Gaza war. The manager of the UNRWA shelter was among those killed. According to UNRWA spokesperson Tamara Alrifai: “It was a school that UNRWA was using to administer the polio vaccination campaign. So not only was it a school before the conflict, turned into a shelter during this conflict, but it was also being used for this emergency vaccination campaign. There was an agreement between UN & Israel that polio vaccinations could take place and none of the premises would be targeted.”
+ More than 70% of all aid workers killed globally in the last year were killed by the IDF in either the West Bank or Gaza, many of them after sharing their locationswith the IDF.
+++
+ According to Dr. Mousa Abed, director of Primary Health Care at Gaza’s Ministry of Health, the Strip’s still functioning hospitals and clinics lack 83 percent of the needed medical supplies and 74 percent of life-saving medications. Abed said Gaza is missing 85 percent of the specialized medicines for cancer treatments and dialysis.
+ Around one in 10 pregnant and breastfeeding women screened by the UN in June and July were found to be acutely malnourished, a condition that contributes to severe anemia, infections and delayed recovery after delivery. The lack of adequate water and sanitation services further increases the risk of maternal and newborn infections.
+ Dr. Bara Zuhaili, a vascular surgeon from Flint, who spent weeks volunteering in Gaza:
I saw this one lady in her mid-20s and she was literally pacing from one side of the ER to the other. She would stay on one side of the ER for about 2 or 3 minutes and then she would pace quickly to the other side. And I found out that this lady, she’s the mother of two daughters, one is six and the other nine or ten, I believe. One daughter had significant shrapnel sticking in her face, destroying half of her face and the ER staff; she’s beyond any resuscitation effort. Let her just pass away. Yet she was still breathing, still grasping for air. So they put her on one side of the ER where they let all of the injured kids die quote unquote peacefully. On the other end of the ER was her other daughter, who’d had both legs amputated and was still actively bleeding. So young mother was torn, physically and mentally. She was pacing from one side of the ER to say goodbye to one of her daughters and going to the other side to put some pressure on the other daughter to stop the bleeding from both amputated legs. This is the kind of casualties we get from each of these attacks, and the focus in the media is about the one who died, and no disrespect that’s really a tragedy, but my heart as a surgeon goes out to the injured, mostly pediatric injuries, that happen around the fatalities.
+ The hair of Palestinian children in Gaza is prematurely graying and falling out, a consequence of nearly one year of constant stress, shock and trauma.
+ After 11 months of continuous bombing, the Palestinians living in are breathing toxic air. Nearly one million people are suffering from respiratory afflictions, made worse by the chemicals released from Israeli bombings mixing with dust particles from the rubble of destroyed buildings.
+ A cropland damage assessment based on satellite imagery collected in August 2024 by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) shows that 68 percent of permanent crop fields in the Gaza Strip (102 out of 150 square kilometers) have experienced a significant decline in health and density compared with the average over the previous seven years. This marks a 4-percentage point increase in damaged cropland since July 2024, driven by razing, heavy vehicle activity, bombing, and shelling. In the Gaza Governorate, 75 percent of cropland was observed to be damaged in August, up from 73 percent in July, while Deir al Balah saw a five-percentage point increase in the same period.
+ A satellite-based assessment of the road network conducted by UNOSAT on August 18, 2024, revealed that about 68 percent of Gaza’s road network had been damaged, with 1,190 kilometers of roads destroyed, 415 kilometers severely damaged, and 1,440 kilometers moderately damaged.
+++
+ Itamar Ben-Gvir: This is the state of Israel. There is no such thing as Palestine. This is ours. This is our land…There will be no state. No entity. We saw what happened when they wanted self-rule.
Q. Will they have self-rule?
Ben-Gvir: No. Definitely not…They will have the same status they had before they entered our lives by the so-called Oslo Accords. I dismantled the Palestinian Authority….They will not participate in elections for the Knesset. And I am against self-rule. I am against giving them control over their lives and managing themselves…They won’t be able to apply for citizenship.”
+US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield, who has blocked numerous UN Security Council resolutions on behalf of Israel: “I do not believe the Palestinians as they exist right now have all of the elements to give it statehood.”
+ George III: “All men seem now to feel that the fatal compliance in 1766 has encouraged the Americans annually in their pretensions to that thorough independency which one state has of another but which is quite subversive of the obedience which a colony owes to its mother country.”
+ The singer Chappell Roan said she originally planned to accept an invite to the Biden White House and then refuse to perform, reading Palestinian poetry instead: “[My publicist said] You fuck with the president and the government, your security is not the same, and neither is your family’s.”
+ The British Trades Union Congress, which represents 48 affiliated unions with a total of around 5.5 million members, have unanimously passed a motion demanding an end to all arms trading with Israel over the genocide in Gaza.
+ Zvi Sukkot, a Member of the Israeli Knesset from the Religious Zionist Party, entered the hospital room of an injured Palestinian and threatened him: “We will make sure that the State of Israel kills you.”
+ According to the WHO, at least one-quarter of the more than 100,000 Palestinians injured by Israeli operations in Gaza have sustained life-changing disabilities. The WHO also found that between 3105 and 4050 limb amputations have occurred in Gaza.
+ Nadav Weiman, executive director of the Israeli anti-war veterans group Breaking the Silence, on the use of Palestinians as human shields by the IDF: “Our first testifier reported that they had used the human shield procedure in December – the last one was a couple of weeks ago, it is happening everywhere among normal infantry units, not just special forces.”
+ Israeli journalist Alon Ben David: “Nine tunnels were found that cross the Philadelphi corridor – all of them are blocked on the Egyptian side. Not a single tunnel was found that crossed and was open for smuggling, and they were all blocked a long time ago.”
+Since October 7, the education system in the West Bank and Gaza has largely been destroyed by Israel: 10,770 students and 524 staff killed in Gaza; 113 students and two staff killed in the West Bank; 17,120 students and 3,663 staff injured in G; 542 students and 11 staff in the West Bank.
+++
Here’s the entire dismal interaction on the subject of Israel and Palestine between Harris and Trump, the low-light of which may have been when Trump accused Harris of hating both the Israelis and the Arabs, Harris only denied hating the Israelis…
LINSEY DAVIS: Turning now to the Israel-Hamas war and the hostages who are still being held, Americans among them. Vice President Harris, in December you said, “Israel has a right to defend itself” but you added, “It matters how.” Saying international humanitarian law must be respected, Israel must do more to protect innocent civilians. You said that nine months ago. Now an estimated 40,000 Palestinians are dead. Nearly 100 hostages remain. Just last week Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said there’s not a deal in the making. President Biden has not been able to break through the stalemate. How would you do it?
VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: Well, let’s understand how we got here. On Oct. 7, Hamas, a terrorist organization, slaughtered 1,200 Israelis. Many of them young people who were simply attending a concert. Women were horribly raped. And so absolutely, I said then, I say now, Israel has a right to defend itself. We would. And how it does so matters. Because it is also true far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed. Children, mothers. What we know is that this war must end. It must when, end immediately, and the way it will end is we need a cease-fire deal and we need the hostages out. And so we will continue to work around the clock on that. Work around the clock also understanding that we must chart a course for a two-state solution. And in that solution, there must be security for the Israeli people and Israel and in equal measure for the Palestinians. But the one thing I will assure you always, I will always give Israel the ability to defend itself, in particular as it relates to Iran and any threat that Iran and its proxies pose to Israel. But we must have a two-state solution where we can rebuild Gaza, where the Palestinians have security, self-determination and the dignity they so rightly deserve.
LINSEY DAVIS: President Trump, how would you negotiate with Netanyahu and also Hamas in order to get the hostages out and prevent the killing of more innocent civilians in Gaza?
FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: If I were president it would have never started. If I were president Russia would have never, ever — I know Putin very well. He would have never — and there was no threat of it either, by the way, for four years. Have gone into Ukraine and killed millions of people when you add it up. Far worse than people understand what’s going on over there. But when she mentions about Israel all of a sudden — she hates Israel. She wouldn’t even meet with Netanyahu when he went to Congress to make a very important speech. She refused to be there because she was at a sorority party of hers. She wanted to go to the sorority party. She hates Israel. If she’s president, I believe that Israel will not exist within two years from now. And I’ve been pretty good at predictions. And I hope I’m wrong about that one. She hates Israel. At the same time in her own way she hates the Arab population because the whole place is going to get blown up, Arabs, Jewish people, Israel. Israel will be gone. It would have never happened. Iran was broke under Donald Trump. Now Iran has $300 billion because they took off all the sanctions that I had. Iran had no money for Hamas or Hezbollah or any of the 28 different spheres of terror. And they are spheres of terror. Horrible terror. They had no money. It was a big story, and you know it. You covered it. Very well, actually. They had no money for terror. They were broke. Now they’re a rich nation. And now what they’re doing is spreading that money around. Look at what’s happening with the Houthis and Yemen. Look at what’s going on in the Middle East. This would have never happened. I will get that settled and fast. And I’ll get the war with Ukraine and Russia ended. If I’m President-Elect, I’ll get it done before even becoming president.
LINSEY DAVIS: Vice President Harris, he says you hate Israel.
VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: That’s absolutely not true. I have my entire career and life supported Israel and the Israeli people. He knows that. He’s trying to again divide and distract from the reality, which is it is very well known that Donald Trump is weak and wrong on national security and foreign policy. It is well known that he admires dictators, wants to be a dictator on day one according to himself. It is well known that he said of Putin that he can do whatever the hell he wants and go into Ukraine. It is well known when that he said when Russia went into Ukraine it was brilliant. It is well known he exchanged love letters with Kim Jong un. And it is absolutely well known that these dictators and autocrats are rooting for you to be president again because they’re so clear, they can manipulate you with flattery and favors. And that is why so many military leaders who you have worked with have told me you are a disgrace. That is why we understand that we have to have a president who is not consistently weak and wrong on national security including the importance of upholding and respecting in highest regard our military.
LINSEY DAVIS: Vice President Harris, thank you.
FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: They’re the ones — and she’s the one that caused it, that’s weak on national security by allowing every nation last month for the year, 168 different countries sending people into our country. Their crime rates are way down. Putin endorsed her last week. Said I hope she wins. And I think he meant it. Because what he’s gotten away with is absolutely incredible. It wouldn’t have happened with me. The leaders of other countries think that they’re weak and incompetent. And they are. They’re grossly incompetent. And I just ask one question. Why does Biden go in and kill the Keystone pipeline and approve the single biggest deal that Russia’s ever made, Nordstream 2, the biggest pipeline anywhere in the world going to Germany and all over Europe? Because they’re weak and they’re ineffective. And Biden, by the way —
LINSEY DAVIS: President Trump…
FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Gets paid a lot of money…
+ The singer Chappell Roan said she originally planned to accept an invite to the Biden White House and then refuse to perform, reading Palestinian poetry instead: “[My publicist said] You fuck with the president and the government, your security is not the same, and neither is your family’s.”
+++
Muhannad Hadi at EU press briefing in Brussels. Photo: UNRIC ©.
Let’s give the last word this week to Muhannad Hadi, a Jordanian national, is the UN’s Resident Coordinator/Humanitarian Coordinator for Palestine, and the Deputy Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process. He was in Brussels on September 10, briefing the European Union on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza:
When I first crossed the border, it was like a Hollywood horror movie, from the destruction I have seen. It’s like you’re watching a movie; sometimes you lose your sense of reality, and it’s hard to process. Then once you meet the people and talk to women and children, you go into a different mode of operation. But honestly, it’s painful.
A Palestinian man in Gaza told me: You have to look at us as two million zombies living on our own. The community is broken, the family is broken, society is broken. All ties are broken…There are 17,000 to 18,000 unaccompanied children, boys and girls running around the streets of Gaza without any protection and no family members. Can you imagine the exploitation, the gender-based violence? Can you imagine what they go through? It’s horrible.
There are things that we can’t think of. The sense of security. The fact that you’re sitting in this room without being worried about a bomb or an explosion next to you. The fact that you know where your relatives are. The fact that you know where your children and family members are. That’s not available in Gaza, that is an issue for the population in Gaza.
The full-time job of kids is just to go and collect firewood so their mother can cook for them. There is no cooking gas, there’s no electricity. Children collect wood, cartons and sometimes plastic.”
Children try to keep themselves busy. So you’ll be driving in the streets of Khan Younis with all the destruction. And then you will see a little girl on the side of the road with a small table and trying to sell things like a broken door knob, a cup, anything. I can’t figure out who would buy this, because there is, by the way, no currency in Gaza. The paper money is gone.
CounterPunch Magazine Archive
Read over 400 magazine and newsletter back issues here
Support CounterPunch
Make a tax-deductible monthly or one-time donation and enjoy access to CP+. Donate Now
Support our evolving Subscribe Area and enjoy access to all Subscribers content. Subscribe
Administration
https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/09/14/all-aflame-on-the-west-bank-front/
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten