The Common Ills: Arundahti Roy: The Gaza strip has been turned into a concentration camp

Saturday, March 09, 2024

Arundahti Roy: The Gaza strip has been turned into a concentration camp

The richest, most powerful countries in the western world, those who believe themselves to be the keepers of the flame of the modern world’s commitment to democracy and human rights, are openly financing and applauding Israel’s genocide in Gaza. The Gaza strip has been turned into a concentration camp. Those who have not already been killed are being starved to death. Almost the entire population of Gaza has been displaced. Their homes, hospitals, universities, museums, infrastructure of every kind has been reduced to rubble. Their children have been murdered. Their past has been vaporised. Their future is hard to see.

Even though the highest court in the world believes that almost every indicator seems to meet the legal definition of genocide, IDF soldiers continue to put out their mocking “victory videos” celebrating what almost look like fiendish rituals. They believe that there is no power in the world that will hold them to account. But they are wrong. They and their children’s children will be haunted by what they have done. They will have to live with the loathing and the abhorrence the world feels for them. And hopefully one day everybody – on all sides of this conflict – who has committed war crimes will be tried and punished for them, keeping in mind that there is no equivalence between crimes committed while resisting Apartheid and Occupation, and crimes committed while enforcing them.

Racism is of course the keystone of any act of genocide. The rhetoric of the highest officials of the Israeli state has, ever since Israel came into existence, dehumanised Palestinians and likened them to vermin and insects, just like the Nazis once dehumanised Jews. It is as though that evil serum never went away and is now only being recirculated. The “Never” has been excised from that powerful slogan “Never Again”. And we are left only with “Again”.

~~Never~~ Again.

CNN's Abeer Salman and Mohammed Tawfeeq report:

At least eight people were killed in an Israeli airstrike on buildings in central Gaza on Saturday afternoon local time, according to health officials at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital and witnesses on the ground.

Several witnesses told CNN on Saturday that the airstrike hit residential buildings in Nuseirat in central Gaza.

A video obtained by CNN from the hospital shows at least four of the dead being brought from the area to the facility — including two children, who were found dead after being pulled out from under rubble.

There was never any effort -- before or after the ICJ warning -- on the part of the Israeli government to mitigate casualties. There was never any effort and there was any remorse. A brutal and corrupt government killing civilians and getting away with it.

Just like they get away with lying constantly -- or at least get away with it for a little while. They lied to destroy UNRWA and to bring about starvation in Gaza. Menelaos Hadjicostis (AP) reports that Sweden has decided to begin funding UNRWA again and that "Sweden's funding decision followed similar ones by the European Union and Canada as the U.N. agency known as UNRWA warns that it could collapse and leave Gaza's already desperate population of more than 2 million people with even less medical and other assistance." As Arwa Mahdawi (GUARDIAN) declares, "I want to state the following as clearly and unequivocally as possible: Israel, with the help of the US, is deliberating starving the population of Gaza to death."

Instead of demanding Israel stop blocking food from getting it, Joe Biden wants to build a floating aid landing. Eduardo Cuevas (USA TODAY) reports, "U.S. military personnel are scrambling to build a temporary floating dock off Gaza to help distribute food and other aid to Palestinians by way of the sea, a new route for supplies after months of Israel's intense restrictions on aid delivered by land. President Joe Biden announced the assistance to Gaza during his State of the Union Thursday night, as Army personnel were already pulling plans and equipment together." Meghann Myers (MILITARY TIMES) adds, "Over the next 60 days, roughly 1,000 troops will deploy to the Mediterranean Sea to build a floating platform where cargo ships can offload aid onto smaller military vessels, which will transfer them to a causeway attached to the beach, where trucks can pick it up and distribute it within Gaza, Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters." And Tiffany Wertheimer (BBC News) notes, "The support ship, General Frank S Besson, set sail from a military base in the state of Virginia on Saturday." NBC NEWS has video of the operation here. ALJAZEERA reports, "The executive director of the US arm of the medical charity Doctors Without Borders, Avril Benoit, in a statement criticised the US plan as a 'glaring distraction from the real problem: Israel’s indiscriminate and disproportionate military campaign and punishing siege'."

Gaza remains under assault. Day 155 of the assault in the wave that began in October. Binoy Kampmark (DISSIDENT VOICE) points out, "Bloodletting as form; murder as fashion. The ongoing campaign in Gaza by Israel’s Defence Forces continues without stalling and restriction. But the burgeoning number of corpses is starting to become a challenge for the propaganda outlets: How to justify it? Fortunately for Israel, the United States, its unqualified defender, is happy to provide cover for murder covered in the sheath of self-defence." CNN has explained, "The Gaza Strip is 'the most dangerous place' in the world to be a child, according to the executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund." ABC NEWS quotes UNICEF's December 9th statement, ""The Gaza Strip is the most dangerous place in the world to be a child. Scores of children are reportedly being killed and injured on a daily basis. Entire neighborhoods, where children used to play and go to school have been turned into stacks of rubble, with no life in them." NBC NEWS notes, "Strong majorities of all voters in the U.S. disapprove of President Joe Biden’s handling of foreign policy and the Israel-Hamas war, according to the latest national NBC News poll. The erosion is most pronounced among Democrats, a majority of whom believe Israel has gone too far in its military action in Gaza." The slaughter continues. It has displaced over 1 million people per the US Congressional Research Service. Jessica Corbett (COMMON DREAMS) points out, "Academics and legal experts around the world, including Holocaust scholars, have condemned the six-week Israeli assault of Gaza as genocide." The death toll of Palestinians in Gaza is grows higher and higher. United Nations Women noted, "More than 1.9 million people -- 85 per cent of the total population of Gaza -- have been displaced, including what UN Women estimates to be nearly 1 million women and girls. The entire population of Gaza -- roughly 2.2 million people -- are in crisis levels of acute food insecurity or worse." THE NATIONAL notes, "About 31,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza since the war began in October. Another 72,524 have been wounded." Months ago, AP noted, "About 4,000 people are reported missing." February 7th, Jeremy Scahill explained on DEMOCRACY NOW! that "there’s an estimated 7,000 or 8,000 Palestinians missing, many of them in graves that are the rubble of their former home." February 5th, the United Nations' Phillipe Lazzarini Tweeted:

And the area itself? Isabele Debre (AP) reveals, "Israel’s military offensive has turned much of northern Gaza into an uninhabitable moonscape. Whole neighborhoods have been erased. Homes, schools and hospitals have been blasted by airstrikes and scorched by tank fire. Some buildings are still standing, but most are battered shells." Kieron Monks (I NEWS) reports, "More than 40 per cent of the buildings in northern Gaza have been damaged or destroyed, according to a new study of satellite imagery by US researchers Jamon Van Den Hoek from Oregon State University and Corey Scher at the City University of New York. The UN gave a figure of 45 per cent of housing destroyed or damaged across the strip in less than six weeks. The rate of destruction is among the highest of any conflict since the Second World War."

Protests took place around the world today. ALJAZEERA reports:

Tens of thousands of pro-Palestine supporters marched in central London calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

Demonstrators waved Palestinian flags and carried banners reading, “Stop the war on Gaza”, as they marched from Hyde Park Corner to the US Embassy.

Ben Jamal, the director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, said it was the 10th national march and was “unprecedented” in recent UK political history to see “this many people marching for this length of time”.

Singer Charlotte Church said she joined the protest to “show solidarity with the people of Palestine for all that they are suffering through”.

“We’re all here because we cannot bear what we’re witnessing. We cannot bear to see civilians – children, women – slaughtered. And so we are here because our hearts are so full of love for the Palestinian people,” Church said.

Madison Lambert (NBC NEWS) reports, "At least 63 people have been arrested in a pro-Palestinian protest in New York today, police said." In Canada, THE OTTAWA CITIZEN reports:

Thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators marched on Parliament Hill on Saturday in one of the largest such rallies in Ottawa since the Israeli invasion of Gaza began in October.

Braving rain and a biting late-winter wind, the group marched up Wellington Street behind a banner that said “End the Genocide in Gaza.” Waving the ubiquitous green, red, white and black Palestinian flag and banging drums, the group demanded an arms embargo and political sanctions on Israel and an immediate reinstatement of funding to the UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Work Agency.

Protests took place in Israel as well. CNN’s Lauren Izso, Eyad Kourdi, Mohammed Tawfeeq and Jennifer Z. Deaton report:

Thousands of protesters gathered again on Saturday in Israeli cities — including Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and the coastal town of Caesarea — to demand a general election and the removal of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from government.

In Tel Aviv's Democracy Square, protesters chanted: "We will not stop until Bibi (Netanyahu) is arrested!"