When Donald Trump announced his so-called “peace deal”, the cheerleaders of two years of genocidal depravity sang a new tune. “Why aren’t you celebrating?” they asked of those of us who opposed Israel’s genocide.
When it was announced, I wrote:
We were desperate for the people of Gaza to have at least some respite. But we were not in fact stupid. For a start, we knew exactly how Israel has previously interpreted “ceasefire”. We had also spent two years listening to an avalanche of genocidal statements from Israeli leaders and officials, who made clear that their goal was a Gaza with no living Palestinians remaining.
Last night, the Israeli army once again bombed Gaza. They killed over a hundred Palestinians, including at least 46 children. Various Western media outlets have responded with headlines suggesting the ceasefire has been “tested”.
Imagine Hamas had just bombed Israel, killing over a hundred people and dozens of children. Bear in mind that Israel’s population is 4.5 times higher than Gaza’s pre-genocide population, so the equivalent would be up to 500 killed.
Bear in mind, too, that the current estimate of the number of Palestinian kids killed by the Israeli army overnight is 10 higher than the total number of Israeli children killed on 7th October.
If Hamas had launched attacks which killed at least a hundred Israelis, no Western media outlet would describe the ceasefire as “tested”. The ceasefire would not only be regarded as over: it would be described as the biggest single slaughter of Israeli civilians since 7th October. News bulletins would cover nothing else, newspapers would be dominated by coverage, Western leaders would be doing press conferences - and once more Israel would be given carte blanche to do what it likes to the apocalyptic rubble of Gaza.
We are told that the pretext is an Israeli soldier being killed by Hamas. We don’t know the circumstances or who the assailant was: we do know when two Israeli soldiers were killed on 19th October, a White House source briefed it was caused by an Israeli settler bulldozer running over an unexploded ordnance.
In any case, we know that the Israeli military has systematically violated the ceasefire since it came into effect. According to al-Jazeera estimates, more than 200 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli military in Gaza since 12th October.
Yet the vast majority of the Western media fail to give adequate coverage to this violence - let alone frame it as systematic violations of the ceasefire.
Israel also agreed to allow 600 aid trucks per day into Gaza. In the first 11 days, a *total* of 520 aid trucks were allowed into Gaza. Since then, the daily number remains well short.
As ever, the Western media fails to do its job, takes the dehumanisation as a given, and whitewashes Israeli crimes. That makes it all the more important to get the truth out.
Israeli ceasefires are always “You cease; we fire.”
Thank you Owen. The perpetrators of this horror as well as the politicians and media who try to cover it up must be brought to justice.