Israeli politicians’ thin pretext for the latest attack on Gaza doesn’t add up, and the willing media doesn’t seem to care.
Mariam Barghouti travels to Nablus to meet the family of Ibrahim al-Nablusi, who was assassinated by Israeli forces on August 9. Al-Nablusi became a legend in the Palestinian generation born at the peak of the Second Palestinian Intifada. Although news reports hailed the young fighter as a “top commander” and “senior militant,” al-Nabulsi lived another life with his friends and family. “When we used to ask him why he kept going, he would reply, ‘I am reviving the spirit of resistance of an entire generation’,” Ibrahim’s sister Shahd al-Nabulsi tells Mondoweiss.
Israel’s latest attack on Gaza shows it is running out of options, and creating popular opposition around the world in the process.
The Mondoweiss Palestine news team discusses what led to the Israeli escalation in Gaza and the West Bank this past week, its impact on Palestinian and Israeli politics, and what Palestinians in Gaza lived through.
On August 9, Israeli forces killed four Palestinians in the West Bank, including notable Palestinian resistance fighter Ibrahim Nabulsi, “the lion of Nablus,” during a daytime military raid. Nabulsi’s killing is also connected to the ongoing struggle of hunger striker Khalil Awawdeh, who continues to be held under administrative detention in Ramleh Prison. All of these incidents are part of the same story — the Israeli campaign to eradicate Palestinian resistance.
My family members were killed in Israel’s massacre in May 2021. This year, my childhood friends were killed in the latest escalation. This is life in Gaza. Sometimes, to survive, you have to die. And to live, you have to die, too.
A surprising number of Democratic politicians running in close elections have not been vocally supportive of Israel after it attacked Gaza. They include Raphael Warnock, Mark Kelly, John Fetterman, and most of the candidates in the crowded 10th district in New York. These Dems surely see Israel as an issue that is going to cause them problems with Democratic voters, so they avoid the association.
An Egyptian-brokered ceasefire went into effect at 11:30pm local time (20:30 GMT). Palestinian Islamic Jihad announced the ceasefire in a statement, adding that they have a right to “respond to any Zionist aggression.”
Mondoweiss correspondent in Gaza Tareq Hajjaj reported that Israeli airstrikes were ongoing in the last hour leading up to the ceasefire.
The Gaza Health Ministry reports that 43 Palestinians, including 15 children, have been killed in Gaza since Israel began airstrikes on the besieged strip on Friday.
How do parents in Gaza, who are dealing with their own trauma and fear, help their children endure yet another Israeli attack? One parent tells Ziad Ali she attempted to lie to her daughter by saying the explosions were just fireworks, but her child already knows too much. “My daughter did not believe me. I was such a mess. She told me — ‘Mommy, this is a war, not fireworks.’”
Amid the latest Israeli onslaught, Gaza’s sole power plant shut down after Israel closed its border crossings with the besieged strip and cut off its fuel supply. “The state of electricity in Gaza is already terrible without the continuous bombardment, and with it darkness becomes another kind of war,” Gaza resident Khaled Hassan tells Mondoweiss.