<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
</head>
<body>
<div id="toolbar" class="toolbar-container"> </div>
<div class="container" style="--line-height:1.6em;" dir="ltr">
<div class="header reader-header reader-show-element"> <font
size="-2"><a class="domain reader-domain"
href="https://qudsnen.co/covid-hits-gaza-as-its-bombed-deprived-of-electricity-and-humanitarian-aid-and-media-silent/">https://qudsnen.co/covid-hits-gaza-as-its-bombed-deprived-of-electricity-and-humanitarian-aid-and-media-silent/</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">Covid Hits Gaza As Its Bombed, Deprived
Of Electricity And Humanitarian Aid And Media Silent<br>
</h1>
<div class="credits reader-credits">Robert Inlakesh - August 26,
2020<br>
</div>
</div>
<hr>
<div class="content">
<div class="moz-reader-content reader-show-element">
<div id="readability-page-1" class="page">
<div>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p> 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div> </div>
</div>
<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415 863.9977
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://freedomarchives.org/">https://freedomarchives.org/</a></div>
</body>
</html>