[News] Covid Hits Gaza As Its Bombed, Deprived Of Electricity And Humanitarian Aid And Media Silent

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://qudsnen.co/covid-hits-gaza-as-its-bombed-deprived-of-electricity-and-humanitarian-aid-and-media-silent/ 
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  Covid Hits Gaza As Its Bombed, Deprived Of Electricity And
  Humanitarian Aid And Media Silent

Robert Inlakesh - August 26, 2020
------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Gaza Strip was bombarded by Israel for ten consecutive nights, with 
little to no international media coverage. Even when the media did touch 
on the issue, outlets such as the guardian injected Israeli propaganda 
into their headlines, publishing terms such as “balloon bombs”. However 
the worst part of Israel’s latest assaults on Gaza, has not been the 
airstrikes.

Between the 11th and 21st of August Israel launched airstrikes targeting 
sites from Rafah (Southern Gaza) to Beit Hanoun (Northern Gaza), hitting 
a UN school and injuring Palestinian civilians, including a pregnant 
woman and two young children. For the bulk of this bombardment, the 
Western press was almost completely silent on the issue, quoting the 
lines of the Israeli foreign ministry almost verbatim when they did 
publish on the issue.

By the 13th of August, Israel had already locked down Gaza’s sole 
humanitarian aid crossing to the flow of gas and oil into the besieged 
coastal enclave. The prohibiting of fuel into Gaza has now effectively 
dissabled Gaza’s sole power plant, leading to 34 hour plus blackouts, 
with the lack of electricity severely impacting vital services in Gaza, 
such as hospitals. Israel has stopped all but limited humanitarian food 
and medical aid to reach Gaza, which does not sufficiently meet the 
demands of Gaza’s two million residents.

Israel has continued their campaign of air raids, attacking early in the 
morning for the most part and there has been no international 
condemnation. Instead we hear in the West of so called “balloon bombs”, 
most concerning is that this is not just coming from right-wing 
pro-Zionist papers, but rather the likes of the widely respected 
Guardian in the United Kingdom.

The situation has effectively been painted by the Western media as 
Israel responding in self-defence to Hamas aggression against it. But 
the reality is a staunchly different picture. On the 10th of August 
balloons, set off by Gazan youths, with burning objects attached to 
them, flying across into Israeli held farm lands. The same farm lands 
that formerly belonged to the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip, prior to 
them being dispossessed and ethnically cleansed from their lands 
beginning in 1947.

The tactic of flying balloons with hand-made burning objects attached to 
them, across the separation fence, was created during the Great Return 
March, by youths wishing to apply pressure to Israel to end the illegal 
siege on Gaza. After around 8 weeks – into the Great Return March 
(beginning on March 30, 2018) – of bombings, shootings, gassings and 
incursions by Israeli bulldozers onto Gazan farmlands, this strategy 
began to become a strategy. Putting this in its proper context is 
important, as by this point, hundreds of Palestinians had been massacred 
and thousands had been wounded by Israel and the International Community 
did not lift a finger to help Gaza.

The strategy of balloons was created as a form of attempting to pressure 
Israel to ease the siege. Not a single Israeli has been killed as a 
result of the balloons, also on top of this, there have been very little 
balloons or kites which have had explosives attached to them and when 
they have been attached, these are very small homemade devices which 
rarely ever even explode. The non-lethal nature of the balloons and 
kites were originally addressed by Israel as a threat, but were never 
confronted in the past with airstrikes on Hamas or Islamic Jihad 
military positions.

When the balloon tactic was re-launched on August 10th, it was done so 
via the Hamas government in Gaza essentially turning a blind eye to such 
activities by Gazan youths and young men. The reason for the blind eye 
being turned to this activity, was due to Israel creating such an 
unbearable situation in Gaza and Hamas seeking for an easing of the 
conditions in which the people were living.

Even according to the Israeli news outlet ‘Walla’, who claimed to have 
seen the terms presented to the Egyptian delegation, which had travelled 
to both Gaza and Israel in order to negotiate a truce, reported that the 
demands of Hamas, were for Israel to allow more humanitarian aid and 
Qatari aid money to enter Gaza. So even by the admission of Israeli 
media reporting, Hamas are seeking better living conditions for the 
people of Gaza and from Hamas itself, it is calling for an end to the 
illegally imposed siege.

Israel responded to the pressure applied to it, not by rational 
engagement and a willingness to deliver an easing of the situation for 
civilians in Gaza, but instead by making it worse and setting new rules 
of engagement. The new rules of engagement were for Israel to respond to 
young people flying flimsy balloons over the separation fence, burning 
farmland, with airstrikes for 10 straight nights and then around 4-5 
A.M. in the morning from then on. Also Israel closed the sole 
humanitarian aid crossing, preventing fuel and now all but a limited 
supply of food and medical aid into Gaza. This form of collective 
punishment, a war crime under international law, has caused a crisis in 
Gaza hospitals and various other areas of life. Israel has also cut off 
all of Gaza’s fishing waters.

In response, there were new rules of engagement established by Hamas and 
other resistance factions, which included responding to Israeli 
bombardments of Gaza as well as attacks on Gaza fishermen. Until the 
fifth night of consecutive bombings of Gaza, using warships, drones, 
fighter jets, helicopters, artillery and tanks, the resistance factions 
did not fire a single rocket or bullet at Israel. After this only three 
out of five nights did the resistance actually respond to Israeli 
attacks. But now it seems as if Hamas threatening to expand its 
responses has effectively neutralised Israel’s larger scale bombings 
which were causing huge distress in Gaza, as Israel does not seem to 
want an escalation at this moment. The reason for a lack of desire for 
an Israeli large-scale onslaught is that they cannot risk any 
humilitiations at the hands of Gaza’s resistance factions at this time. 
Israel also understands the huge blow it would be dealt, in terms of 
casualties to its troops, if it was to attempt to actually attack 
strategic positions of real importance to the armed groups in Gaza, 
which would have to involve Israeli ground troops.

Israel has not yet even appeared to ponder allowing for an easing of the 
siege, but instead has collectively punished the civilian population of 
Gaza for two whole weeks now. Using its propagandistic cover of trying 
to make “balance” out of balloons versus thousands of tons of the most 
cutting edge munitions on the planet. Something that the media, silent 
on the suffering of Gaza’s civilian population, seem to have no problem 
printing. It begs the question as to whether the likes of the Guardian 
editorial staff, and that of other mainstream outlets, are hardline 
Zionist ideologues and believe what they are saying, or bare with them 
an orientalist mindset which allows them to quote the Israeli occupation 
forces verbatim, without reflection and without laughing at the almost 
comical nature of the excuses.

The situation on the ground makes it seem as if a military escalation is 
imminent, but that’s not where this horror story ends for Gaza’s 
residents. Covid-19 has now made its way to Gaza, with the first four 
cases being confirmed yesterday, outside of quarantine, warranting the 
first large-scale lockdown of its kind in Gaza since the 1987 Intifada 
(Uprising). With reportedly just over 100 ventilators and packed ICU’s 
rendering Gaza’s hospitals semi-functional during a pandemic, Gaza could 
now be hit by the virus like crazy.

Gaza is amongst the most highly populated places on earth, more densely 
populated than Tokyo and one could imagine how horrific the spread of 
the virus would be during a military escalation between Israel and 
besieged territory. The tens of thousands who would likely be displaced 
in the event of an escalation, even if temporarily, could be devastating 
for the spread of the virus and also any other contagious diseases.

The besieged coastal enclave has been rendered unlivable, as of the 
beginning of this year, according to experts at the United Nations. The 
horrors that await the population of 2 million, 52% of which are minors, 
is truly a horrifying image and what is worse is that, what can only be 
described as a racist Western media, won’t even give the Palestinian 
people the dignity of writing their articles correctly.

Any outlet, whether right-wing or left-wing, in the West, which is 
inaccurately depicting what is going on in Gaza, can only be assumed to 
be a racist outlet and this is the way this needs to be portrayed by 
anti-imperialists and anti-racists. The people of Gaza do not have the 
time to have us pretend like this isn’t a huge issue, if anyone is 
covering this up, they are to be held accountable and if they’d like to 
hide behind their own labels, so be it.

Racism is the reason that Gaza is still under siege and racism is the 
reason why Western media outlets do not report correctly on the matter 
correctly. If the likes of the Guardian and others, who claim to be 
anti-racist, were true to their principles then they would not allow for 
such laughable excuses for maintenance of the worlds largest 
concentration camp – which you are included within based upon identity 
purely and nothing else – to be printed.

-- 
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863.9977 https://freedomarchives.org/
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