Israel is planning on carrying out a genocide in Gaza.
The motions have been underway for days, as Israel has relentlessly bombed the Gaza Strip, one of the most densely populated places on earth.
In six days, Israel has dropped 6,000 bombs on the besieged coastal enclave, which is home to 2.3 million Palestinians. Half of them are children. This falls just short of the highest number of bombs dropped by the US in a year in the war on Afghanistan.
Over the past week, Israel has dropped internationally-prohibited white phosphorus on civilians in Gaza. It’s leveled entire residential neighborhoods. Wiped out families off the population registry, and killed more than 1,500 Palestinians. A third of the death toll are children.
Palestinians have been screaming at the top of their lungs for days that Israel is carrying out a genocide on them. Israeli leaders have only supported those fears, calling Gazans “human animals” and pledging to “wipe Hamas off the face of the earth.”
Today, everyone’s worst fears were confirmed.
On Friday, October 13, Palestinians in Gaza woke up to the news that the Israeli army was demanding that the more than 1.1 million Palestinians who live in the northern Gaza Strip “evacuate” to the southern part of the strip in the span of 24 hours.
Let that sink in. This is half of Gaza’s population. The northern part of Gaza includes Gaza City – the most densely populated area within the Gaza Strip. It also includes two of Gaza’s eight refugee camps, the Jabalia and al-Shati refugee camps. Both have been bombed over the past few days. Both are home to hundreds of thousands of refugees. They were made refugees by Israel, 75 years ago.
The Israeli military reportedly sent a direct warning to residents of Gaza City, who number around 750,000, ordering them to leave the city, as it plans to destroy what it claims is an “extensive infrastructure” of underground tunnels used by Hamas beneath the city.
But the United Nations said it received a different, much broader order, saying Israel was given 1.1 million civilians in northern Gaza 24 hours to flee south. A UN spokesman called the order “impossible” to achieve “without devastating humanitarian consequences.”
The Israeli army reportedly ordered Gazans not to return to the north until the army says they are allowed to go back.
But will they ever be allowed to go back? And will there even be a Gaza left to go back to?
No one knows what Israel’s plans are when the 24-hour deadline expires. Will they launch a ground invasion? Or will they simply pummel Gaza from the skies, as they have been doing for the past 16 years?
Whichever way Israel decides to go about it does not matter.
What matters is that Israel, with the support of the United States, is committing genocide right before our eyes. It has been ongoing, a slow genocide and ethnic cleansing, for 75 years.
75 years of global inaction and Israeli impunity have led to this moment. The moment where we see one of the most vulnerable populations on earth, 77% of whom are already refugees, being displaced as one of the world’s strongest military powers goes on a genocidal warpath.
Many Gazans are vowing to remain, saying they refuse to be displaced yet again. Many Palestinians are saying it’s psychological warfare, akin to the Zionist radio broadcasts of 75 years ago, that spread fear amongst the population and caused many to flee their homes out of fear of the Zionist atrocities that would await them if they stayed.
But the images are already flooding in as people in Gaza begin to flee their homes in fear of what comes.
Men, women, and children, walking through the rubble of their destroyed land, holding onto whatever bags and belongings they can carry. A march to the south, not knowing if tomorrow, the south will be next.
A death march.
Palestinians have said for 75 years, that the Nakba of 1948 never ended. It has continued for 75 years, every single day. In the crowded refugee camps of Gaza, the alleyways of Jerusalem, the hills of Haifa, and the corners of Jenin.
But today feels different. As millions of Palestinians in the West Bank, Jerusalem, ‘48, and across the diaspora watch their people in Gaza be expelled en masse while Israel destroys their homes and slaughters those who remain, the only words that people can muster, is “it’s happening again.”
A second Nakba.
All week I have watched MSNBC, CNN, ABC, NBC, PBS. Listened to BBC, NPR , Read at Mondoweiss, Al Jazeera, New York Times, The Nation, etc etc. Sobbed in front of the TV listening to the grief and pain of those who escaped Hamas’s clutches, families crying for their family members who are likely being held as hostages or dead. The same kind of tears filled with compassion and deep sadness shed when reading about or searching out images because Maddow, Mika, Joe Scarborough and other complicit mainstream media host who are incapable and unwilling to broadcast what has happened to Palestinians for decades Never show the gruesome images, but are in spades when it comes to those killed by Hamas, which should be the case for Israeli crimes committed against Palestinians and crimes committed by the U.S. against people in Iraq and Afghanistan etc.. The same tears shed when I have read the 2009 Cast Lead Report and other UN reports about crimes committed against Palestinians.all
I am finding the most morally and spiritually bankrupt mainstream media host to be Mika, Joe Scarborough, Willie who have not been able to express any compassion for Palestinians…none. As i they do not exist, they are non human beings. Joe, Willie and Mika actually appear to be depraved. The other morning Mika mentioned Israel cutting off, water, electricity, and food to the Gaza…just skipped over it as if this is a common strategy in war. NO mention at all that this is a war crime. Nothing out of Mika, Joe, Willie. Just going along with what seems to be Israel’s new strategy…Let’s just kill as many Palestinians as possible.
Yes we can condemn Hamas’s crimes against humanity while at the same time condemn Israel’s decades of crimes against Palestinians and Israeli apartheid policies, We are witnessing a genocid before our eyes.
Keep thinking about how often we are hearing about the proportion of Israeli’s killed in Hamas’s massacre compared to the U.S.’s 9/11 in our mainstream media this last week if you added up all of the Palestinians who have been killed By Israel over the last 70 some years how many 9/11’s would that be?
All so horrendous! U.S. administrations fingerprints are all over Israel’s actions
I believe that Ms. Patel is correct in this analysis.
Here’s a bit of weird reporting in the MSM: today the front page of the print version of the New York Times has a long article titled “Netanyahu Vows To Crush Foe”. The last paragraph:
In 1956, Palestinian guerrillas attacked farmers in the fields of Nahal Oz, an Israeli kibbutz near Gaza, and killed and mutilated a young first lieutenant. The same kibbutz lost many people to Hamas last Saturday….Then, Moshe Dayan, the prominent Israeli commander who was the chief of staff, gave a famous eulogy, in which he acknowledged that Israeli settlers were inspiring “potent hatred” among those “sitting in the refugee camps in Gaza,” because “before their eyes we have been turning the land and villages in which they and their forefathers lived into our own inheritance.”
Huh?
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/12/world/europe/israel-gaza-ground-invasion.html
I agree with Kathleen. I have been watching the Morning Joe show for years, and just like you I was stunned to see the zionist slant, and the inability of these people, to be fair, or refer to the same horrors that the powerless occupied people have gone through again and again, when thousands of Palestinians were slaughtered, as they slept, and even at UN shelters.
Israeli people are now feeling the way the Palestinian people have felt many time over, and violence is never justified.
Suddenly, this time it was clear, that the label “zionist media” was alive and true. MSNBC, with the exception of a couple of journalists, became the unwavering supporters of an apartheid nation, that has occupied and killed civilians for over 50 years. NO reference to the occupation, the root cause of ALL the violence. NO suggestion that perhaps the US should stop funding it. No criticism of Israel and that ITS actions brought this upon their people.
I have stopped watching MSNBC now, because I got tired of seeing Greenblatt, ex Israeli military people, ex Prime Ministers, ex Ambassadors to and from the US, and ALL American zionists like Blinken, Biden, and those in Congress, being paraded out to do the PR for Israel, and show their outrage, while ignoring Israel’s part in all this, the apartheid policies, or its collective punishments.
To be fair, Joy Reid was the ONLY show that had some neutrality, and of course journalists like Ayman Moheyeldin, Ali Velshi. I am sure Mehdi Hassan would come out with the facts too.
Ari Melber the man who usually never refers to this conflict leapt to Israel’s defense, and became the stern faced journalist who seemed outraged at what has happened to Israel, with no mention of the occupation, land theft, or violations of international laws by the occupier. We now know for sure, who exactly in the media belongs to that club.
Did anyone hear the same outrage from Biden or Congress, when Israel pounded Gaza in 2014 and previously? International Agencies condemned Israel when entire families were wiped out, when dead babies were pulled out of the rubble, the UN shelters being bombed, and thousands of Palestinians killed, injured, and displaced. But all we heard from our wonderful leaders was that “Israel has the right to defend itself” over and over again. It is sheer hypocrisy all around from our government, military, Congress, and the media. I guess when we FUND this occupation and send weapons to the occupier, we cannot take any other stand.
If you want unbiased reporting look out of this country. You will never find it here.
This is a great video explaining the irresponsibility of the media, and the recorded lies by Israel and the US, to justify their brutality and endless wars. We know this is true, because we heard it all. Worth watching.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFtE9HMtiOc
RE: “On Friday, October 13, Palestinians in Gaza woke up to the news that the Israeli army was demanding that the more than 1.1 million Palestinians who live in the northern Gaza Strip “evacuate” to the southern part of the strip in the span of 24 hours.” ~ Yumna Patel
SEE – White House: Israel’s call to move Gaza civilians is “a tall order” | Reuters | October 13, 2023WASHINGTON, Oct 13 (Reuters) – Israel’s call for more than 1 million civilians in northern Gaza to move within 24 hours is going to be a “tall order,” although the United States was not second-guessing the decision, White House national security spokesman John Kirby said on Friday.
“That is a lot of people to move in a very short period of time,” Kirby said in an interview on MSNBC. . .
ENTIRE ARTICLE – https://www.reuters.com/world/white-house-israels-call-move-gaza-civilians-is-tall-order-2023-10-13/
P.S. RICHARD SILVERSTEIN (October 12, 2023): . . . The apparently cognitively impaired President of the United States, 79 year old Joe Biden, even repeated the calumny, stating he’d seen “confirmed photographs” documenting the incident. After which, his press officers “clarified” that he had not actually “seen” the photos, but was basing his statements on “Netanyahu and Israeli media.” On the other hand, Israeli journalist, Oren Ziv, visited the southern Israel communities attacked and repeatedly asked IDF officers if they could verify the story. They told him they had seen no evidence supporting these claims . . .
ENTIRE COMMENTARY – https://www.richardsilverstein.com/2023/10/12/gaza-chickens-come-home-to-roost/