The UN says 77 percent of Palestinians killed in Israel’s relentless bombing campaign on the besieged Gaza Strip have been civilians.
A report by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs details Israel’s current assault, now it in its sixth day.
With over 150 killed, including an alarming number of women and children, and the death toll in Gaza rising by the hour, Israeli officials insist they are doing all they can to avoid civilian casualties.
Using precision guided missiles, the Israeli army claims it is only bombing people and infrastructure “affiliated with Hamas terrorism” — and the international community is buying it.
What is not being discussed, however, is who and what constitutes a Hamas affiliate.
Hamas is more than just a militant organization, it is the political party that was democratically elected in 2006 to govern the Gaza Strip and West Bank. Hamas’s control means that almost everyone and everything in Gaza can be considered a Hamas affiliate. This unchallenged loose definition has enabled Israel’s war architects to widen the definition of legitimate targets to include civilians and civilian infrastructure, including mosques, schools, hospitals, banks, electricity lines and residential homes, all of which have been targeted.
Aside from a weak condemnation issued by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, the international community has largely accepted Israel’s methodology, completely abandoning defenseless Palestinian civilians as they’re being maimed and slaughtered by one of the world’s most powerful armies.
Read the rest at The Electronic Intifada
Reblogged this on Blackness, Queerness & Flows of Survivance and commented:
This violence is not senseless, it is intentional. Human beings are being maimed by bombs, dropped by Israel and funded by you and I–we citizens of these United States. How is it that our bodies do not cry out at the ripping of another’s flesh? How dare we continue to celebrate the sweet swells of American summer while innocent people–long surviving in an Open Air Prison, without drinkable water–burn under the might of American technology, apathy and blind alliance toward our belligerent 51st state? My stomach turns. My soul is restless. Yet I am here, living, while someone’s father, daughter, mother, son, sister and abuela is dead. Hospitals destroyed. Schools–no more. We have no place for the living or the dying. This is the way of our 51st state–our last state in Apartheid.
July 14, 2014 at 9:28 amReblogged this on Blackness, Queerness & Flows of Survivance and commented:
This violence is not senseless, it is intentional. Human beings are being maimed by bombs, dropped by Israel and funded by you and I–we citizens of these United States. How is it that our bodies do not cry out at the ripping of another’s flesh? How dare we continue to celebrate the sweet swells of American summer while innocent people–long surviving in an Open Air Prison, without drinkable water–burn under the might of American technology, apathy and blind alliance toward our belligerent 51st state? My stomach turns. My soul is restless. Yet I am here, living, while someone’s father, daughter, mother, son, sister and abuela is dead. Hospitals destroyed. Schools–no more. We have no place for the living or the dying. This is the way of our 51st state–our last state in Apartheid.
July 14, 2014 at 9:28 am