Over Six months & countless pitches to editors in the UK & Ireland, one of my pieces about Israel's genocidal campaign in Gaza - is finally published. Thanks to the Irish Independent.
We are living through Orwellian dystopia. Genocide Joe has lost his moral compass - & the plot. Students & professors wrestled to the ground, ,knees on necks - by police - on US campuses for peacefully protesting against genocide enablement - in their name. Refusing to bend to Biden's will. Their resistance brutally repressed. Please read & take action against genocide in Gaza👇
Note: I did not write: "According to Hamas figures". I wasn't aware of that edit. I've asked for it to be changed to Palestinian Health Ministry, whose numbers are verified by independent sources, including Human Rights Watch.
Update: Online article has been amended to read Palestinian Health Ministry.
My word count was way over, inevitably bits were cut. See below. Some of it is difficult reading. Please don't look away👇
"Over 33,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces (excluding those buried under the
rubble), at least 13,000 of whom are children. Over
200 aid workers, mostly Palestinian, have been
killed. Yet, it took the horrific killing of 7 international (World Central
Kitchen) aid workers to provoke global outrage. White blood trades higher than brown
on the open human rights market. The
founder of WCK said Israel “systematically targeted” his aid
workers. They were travelling in clearly marked
vehicles having coordinated and agreed their movements with Israeli forces. Israel
previously thwarted UNRWA aid operations based on unsubstantiated allegations. The
UN warned, Israel is deliberately starving Gaza,
and decent into famine is imminent.
The targeting of aid and healthcare workers is entirely consistent with Israeli officials’ early statements of genocidal intent. On October 9th, Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, declared “a complete siege” on Gaza. “No electricity, no food, no fuel”. All restraints on the IDF would be removed, “We are fighting human animals”. Former general, Giora Eiland, wrote: “In order to make the siege effective, “we have to prevent others from giving assistance to Gaza”.
Social media footage (which I watched) of the recent Al-Shifa hospital siege, shows hundreds of decomposed bodies, some stripped naked, hands of men, women and children tied behind their backs, some ravaged by dogs, bodies blown to pieces – unrecognisable. Reports abound of people being buried alive, bodies crushed by Israeli bulldozers, some still alive. Such was the calculated barbarity, the visceral vandalism of international humanitarian law and the sheer desecration of humanity, I puked. And wept. A guttural, physical reaction, to evil".
"The barbarous Hamas attacks on October 7th, killing around 1,200 Israelis, kidnapping some 200 more, was horrendous and breaches international law. That’s not when this story began though. For the last 76years, apartheid Israel has forced Palestinians off their land, occupying and illegally creating settlements. Controlling access to water, food, movement. Palestinians were/are relentlessly persecuted".
Extracts from Indo article👇
"Ayat was killed documenting Israel’s bombardment of her neighbourhood. Her body couldn’t be buried, it was blown to smithereens.
One Orwell Prize judge, a former Tory MP, wrote an article in November, opining that Britain objecting to a ceasefire was the right strategy. Another, a journalist, wrote a piece mocking pro-peace, anti-“genocide” (her inverted commas) marchers/“extremists”, accusing them of antisemitism because, “when they say Zionist”, she accused, “they mean Jew”.
Journalism 101: report what people actually say, not what you think they mean through the lens of ideological biases. Her article airbrushed out the central role of the Jewish community in organising demonstrations against Israel’s genocidal campaign"....
......"In January, the International Criminal Court of Justice ruled it is plausible that genocide is taking place in Gaza. Last month, UN-appointed human rights expert Francesca Albanese produced a detailed report on Gaza, concluding: “There are reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating the commission of the crime of genocide… has been met.”
She added: “Denial of the reality and the continuation of Israel’s impunity and exceptionalism is no longer viable, especially in light of the binding UN Security Council resolution, which called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza".
"The UN decried the massacre of civilians by Israeli forces in Gaza. “The world is witnessing the first genocide shown in real time to the world by its victims and unfathomably justified by Israel as compliant with the laws of war".
