Haaretz | Opinion
Israeli Society Has Truly Fallen to Cruelty, Violence and Apathy. Just Look at Us
Gideon Levy
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Sep 8, 2024
On Friday, 11 funerals were held in the Jenin refugee camp. Eight of the deceased were camp residents who were killed by the Israeli army; three died of natural causes. None of them could be buried during the 10 preceding days, on account of the brutal Israel Defense Forces operation in the camp. The bodies of another five people were seized by the army, for its purposes.
On Friday morning the IDF left the camp, after completing the mission that was given the sadistic name Operation Summer Camp, and residents began returning to what was left of their homes after the army's camp. They were in shock.
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One man said Saturday that the sights were even worse than the scenes of destruction after 2002's Operation Defensive Shield and that the behavior of the soldiers during those 10 terrible days was more violent and vicious than ever before. The spirit of the war in Gaza has become the zeitgeist of the army.
My interlocutor, Jamal Zubeidi – who had already lost nine family members to the Palestinian struggle, including two of his sons, and who last week lost Hamudi, the son of his nephew Zakaria Zabeidi – returned once again to a ruined home, as in 2002. During the 10 days of the operation, he hid in his daughter's home on the mountain. About two-thirds of the camp's approximately 12,000 residents were removed from it, led in refugee columns under the supervision of the soldiers, as in Gaza.
As the people of Jenin buried their dead, soldiers shot and killed a 13-year-old girl. Bana Laboum died in her home in the village of Qaryout, whose residents tried to defend themselves after settlers set fire to their fields. The settlers riot, the army comes – and kills Palestinians, oddly enough. "Confrontations," the media calls the incidents. The rape victim confronts their rapist, the robbery victim their robber. In the insanity of the occupation, the aggressor is the victim and the victim is the aggressor.
At around the same time, not far from Qaryout, in the village of Beita, soldiers killed a protester – an American human-rights activist who was also a Turkish citizen. Aysenur Ezgi Eygi was shot in the head during a demonstration against the wildcat settlement Evyatar, which was built on the village's land and has already cost the lives of at least seven Palestinians.
The White House said that it was "deeply disturbed by the tragic death." But this was not a "tragic death." Jonathan Pollak, a Haaretz journalist said that he saw the soldiers on a rooftop: "I saw the soldiers shooting. … I saw them aiming," adding that at the time there were no active clashes. As to the "deep disturbance" in the White House, it will pass quickly.
President Joe Biden has not called the woman's family, as he called the Goldberg-Polin family; Ezgi Eygi was also not declared an American hero, as was Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who was abducted and executed.
On Saturday, Josh Breiner published a video filmed in Megiddo Prison the morning of the criminal killings, in which dozens of Palestinians lie on the floor – prostrate, half-naked, their wrists bound behind their backs – as Israeli guards walk past them; one holds a police dog that passes inches from the detainees' faces, barking viciously.
The Israeli flag flies over this disgraceful spectacle – a gift to Itamar Ben-Gvir. The Israel Prison Service reassured the handful of outraged observers: "It's a routine exercise." This is routine. A common prison service entertainment, a Shabbat ceremony for the sadistic guards.
All this happened on Friday, an ordinary day. Israel yawned.
Sep 8, 2024
On Friday morning the IDF left the camp, after completing the mission that was given the sadistic name Operation Summer Camp, and residents began returning to what was left of their homes after the army's camp. They were in shock.
Kahane's spirit of Jewish supremacy is alive and kicking – in mainstream Israel
Tracking Israel's transition from a functioning democracy to a sick dictatorship.
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Military vehicles advance on a street during an Israeli raid, in Jenin, West Bank, Last week. Credit: Raneen Sawafta/ REUTERS
As the people of Jenin buried their dead, soldiers shot and killed a 13-year-old girl. Bana Laboum died in her home in the village of Qaryout, whose residents tried to defend themselves after settlers set fire to their fields. The settlers riot, the army comes – and kills Palestinians, oddly enough. "Confrontations," the media calls the incidents. The rape victim confronts their rapist, the robbery victim their robber. In the insanity of the occupation, the aggressor is the victim and the victim is the aggressor.
At around the same time, not far from Qaryout, in the village of Beita, soldiers killed a protester – an American human-rights activist who was also a Turkish citizen. Aysenur Ezgi Eygi was shot in the head during a demonstration against the wildcat settlement Evyatar, which was built on the village's land and has already cost the lives of at least seven Palestinians.Look at what happened Friday in the Jenin refugee camp, in Qaryout, in Beita and in Megiddo Prison – and perhaps you will see us, finally.
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