[News] From Deir Yassin to Al-Ahli Hospital: Israel's legacy of killing Palestinians

[Anti-Imperialist News]

middleeastmonitor.com
<https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20231018-from-deir-yassin-to-al-ahli-hospital-israels-legacy-of-killing-palestinians/>
>From Deir Yassin to Al-Ahli Hospital: Israel's legacy of killing
Palestinians
Middle East Monitor
7–9 minutes
------------------------------

Israel’s propaganda machine has begun to work overtime to convince the
world of the occupation state’s innocence in the bombing of Al-Ahli Arab
Hospital
<https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20231017-live-updates-genocide-in-gaza-civilians-children-medical-crews-are-the-targets/>
yesterday. Complicit in the destruction of Gaza, Western leaders aided by
the media have also started to work round the clock to dutifully parrot the
lies, amplifying the fog of war. US President Joe Biden, who was the first
Western leader to repeat the gruesome Israeli lie about 40 beheaded babies,
dutifully trumpeted the Israeli narrative that a misfired Hamas rocket
killed 500 people.

The playbook is all too familiar. First blanket denial. Then blame
militants. As the truth emerges, Israelis cry “mistake”, “just an
accident”. When that fails to quell public outrage and people demand
accountability, Israel shouts anti-Semitism. And when all else fails,
critics are denounced as Nazis and fascists in their twisted narrative.
This course has been charted before. The same smokescreens used to obscure
the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh
<https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20230513-israel-military-apologises-for-killing-of-shireen-abu-akleh-a-year-after-shooting/>
are being deployed once again.

We don’t require a forensic investigation
<https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20220925-video-proof-that-shireen-abu-akleh-was-targeted-by-israel-researchers-say/>
– though one should be carried out by an independent body – to hold Israel
responsible for the bombing of Al-Ahli Arab Hospital. Israel has been
openly pre-justifying hospital bombing and school bombing before launching
its military campaign. It’s been pre-justifying war crimes, declaring with
no fear of accountability that it will impose collective punishment by
denying Gazans electricity, water and food.

Israel’s denial is not credible, because the occupation state has a long
history of committing atrocities and massacres against Palestinians. For
decades, the brutal realities of massacres were suppressed, details buried.
But slowly they came to light – stories of indiscriminate slaughter, rape,
torture and exile, of defenceless civilians. The brutal details of these
killings have been revealed over the course of time. Fortunately, in the
world of social media, lies and propaganda are harder to conceal. While
Israel still tries desperately to control the narrative, Palestinian voices
now ring out louder. Their stories and images expose Israeli lies in
real-time.

*READ: Endorsement is complicity
<https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20231018-endorsement-is-complicity/>*

A cursory glance at history shows how mass killing of Palestinians was a
strategy employed by Zionist military groups to ethnically cleanse
Palestinians. Israel’s potential ground offensive in Gaza raises a chilling
prospect – mass slaughter and ethnic cleansing, repeating the dark tactics
of the past.

One of the earliest and most notorious was the massacre at the Palestinian
village Deir Yassin
<https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20180409-remembering-the-massacre-at-deir-yassin/>
in 1948. As many as 250 people including men, women, children and the
elderly are said to have been killed. The aim of the atrocity was to sow
terror and fear to force Palestinians to flee. Some 750,000 Palestinian
<https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20170515-remembering-the-nakba/>,
three-quarters of the population, fled because of the terror campaign
unleashed by the Israelis.

A month after Deir Yassin, Israeli forces slaughtered up to 200
Palestinians in the coastal village of Tantura. It was part of a ruthless
ethnic cleansing campaign – Plan Dalet – to seize territory for a future
Jewish state. Tantura
<https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20230522-remembering-the-tantura-massacre/>
was one of 64 Palestinian villages lining the road between Tel Aviv and
Haifa. Once thriving coastal communities, all were wiped off the map –
except two. The inhabitants were expelled en masse, joining the hundreds of
thousands of Palestinians ethnically cleansed
<https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20170515-remembering-the-nakba/> from
their ancestral lands in 1948.

Israel’s seemingly never-ending drive to uproot Palestinians from their
homes by force of arms and threat of imminent slaughter resulted in another
massacre on 29 October 1956 in the village of Kafr Qasem
<https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20211029-remembering-israels-massacre-of-palestinians-in-kafr-qasem/>,
on the Israeli side of the 1949 Armistice (“Green”) Line. Soldiers went
door-to-door, spraying homes with gunfire. Forty-nine residents were
massacred in under an hour – men, women, children gunned down in cold
blood. The violence was calculated, intended to stoke terror, make
Palestinians flee for their lives.

According to Palestinian historians, the massacre at Kafr Qasem mirrored
the typical Israeli blueprint of terrorising Palestinians into fleeing. In
his book *Atlas of Palestine* (1917-1966), Dr Salman Abu Sitta
<https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/6-author/dr-salman-abu-sitta/> lists at
least 232 places where atrocities, massacres, destruction, plunder and
looting were carried out by the Zionists between 1947 and 1956. Almost
every one of 30 military operations were accompanied by one or two
massacres of civilians. There were at least 77 reported massacres, half of
which took place before any Arab regular soldier set foot in Palestine
during the 1948 Israeli-Arab war.

*READ: Gaza home housing 40 civilians bombed
<https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20231018-gaza-home-housing-40-civilians-bombed/>*

Decades of Israeli occupation birthed countless atrocities against
Palestinians, including horrors beyond their borders. In 1982, the Sabra
and Shatila
<https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20190916-remembering-the-sabra-and-shatila-massacre/>
refugee camps in Lebanon became a brutal killing field. Christian militia,
unleashed into the camps under Israeli protection, went on a 38-hour
rampage. They slaughtered over 3,000 Palestinian civilians in cold blood.
Rape, mutilation and torture preceded endless executions. Parents saw their
children die before facing the same fate.

Israel denied direct blame, but its fingerprints were everywhere. They lit
up the camps at night to aid the killers. They prevented desperate victims
from fleeing. UN resolutions declared Israel complicit in an act of
genocide. Then Defence Minister Ariel Sharon, found personally responsible
for enabling the bloodbath, faced no real consequences. The victims saw no
justice. It was one of countless episodes of Israeli leaders incubating
anti-Palestinian violence with impunity.

Israel’s violence against Palestinians extends far beyond isolated
massacres. Thousands have been killed over decades to maintain Israel’s
illegal occupation.

Past Gaza assaults bear names now synonymous with death – Operation Cast
Lead in 2008-2009
<https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20181227-remembering-israels-2008-war-on-gaza/>
left 1,400 Palestinians dead. Operation Protective Edge in 2014 killed
<https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20180708-remembering-the-2014-israeli-offensive-against-gaza/>
2,251 more. These attacks came on the heels of countless other operations
<https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20171114-remembering-israels-operation-pillar-of-defence/>,
each leaving hundreds dead and thousands more wounded.

The onslaught did not cease. During the 2019 Great March of Return
<https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20190330-remembering-the-great-march-of-return/>,
Israeli snipers gunned down 267 unarmed protesters
<https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20190330-israel-killed-267-palestinians-in-gaza-during-great-march-of-return/>.
Over 30,000 more suffered critical injuries. Children and medics were not
spared.

With the fog of war descending once more as Israel’s propaganda machine
lurches into motion, fabricating myths to shield the truth, following the
bombing of Al-Ahli Hospital, while Western leaders and media obediently
amplify Israel’s distortions, muddying reality, let’s not forget that
Israel’s legacy of killing and massacres.

*READ: US weapons expert debunks Israel’s denial of Gaza hospital strike
<https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20231018-us-weapons-expert-debunks-israels-denial-of-gaza-hospital-strike/>*

Just as in the past the truth will not be buried under this avalanche of
deception. People around the world see through the web of lies, and
recognise the regime’s brutality laid bare. The stories of those shelled
while seeking care at Al-Ahli cannot be erased.

Israel’s desperate myths may multiply, but the blood-drenched reality
remains. The propaganda will not whisk away the war crimes, nor inoculate
Israel from accountability.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not
necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.
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