Analysis
Demolitions, killings and air raids: An ordinary day under Israeli occupation
There was no comment whatsoever from the European Union and the United States on the extremely serious accusation brought by the ICJ: that the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem is illegal, is a de facto annexation and is an apartheid regime.
They’ve said nothing, not even to condemn it: the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice, the highest court on the planet, was met with indifference in a particular part of the world, the Western world.
There was no comment whatsoever from the European Union and the United States on the extremely serious accusation brought by the ICJ: that the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem is illegal, is a de facto annexation and is an apartheid regime. From Friday to Monday, Antony Blinken, the US Secretary of State, and Sven Koopmans, the EU Middle East envoy, chose to talk about other things entirely.
The former spoke again about the mirage-like Gaza ceasefire negotiations and the Israeli-Palestinian prisoner exchange: an agreement is “close to the goal line” but there are still “critical details,” he claimed.
The EU diplomat scolded Israeli PM Netanyahu for “rejecting the two-state solution.” Who knows, maybe this was intended as a very oblique way (an EU trademark) of hinting at the Hague Court's opinion.
Nothing changes in the Occupied Territories. In East Jerusalem, the al-Qunbar family was forced to demolish their own house in the Jabal al-Mukaber neighborhood because it had been built without Israeli permits, which are de facto impossible to obtain. Families have to either pay for a bulldozer or do it themselves, with all the cruelty that comes with having to tear down one’s own home. In the West Bank, a 20-year-old boy, Ibrahim Zaqeq, was shot dead by the Israeli army in Beit Ummar, between Bethlehem and Hebron. He took a bullet to the head during a military raid.
His sister Adala told Palestinian news agency Wafa that he had been freed from Israeli prison just a month ago. “The daily raids (in the occupied West Bank) have more than tripled in recent months. We have also seen an escalation in attacks by Israeli settlers,” journalist Nour Odeh reported from Ramallah. “While the International Court of Justice was reading its ruling on the occupation, settlers were attacking Palestinians in Huwwara, burning stores and fields. In the hills south of Hebron, they attacked a family. A woman was hospitalized.”
And then there is Gaza, which on Monday reached the death toll of 39,000 killed since October 7, 2023. At least 10,000 more are missing, but the fear is that the real numbers are much higher: with the health system collapsing, finding and identifying the dead has become an impossible task.
On Monday, after a night of devastation with at least 37 Palestinians killed, Israeli air strikes came everywhere. In Nuseirat camp, which has been particularly targeted in recent weeks, the bombing of the home of the Siyam family left three people dead and eight wounded.
Journalists on the ground reported on the destruction of several squares in Tal al-Hawa, southwest of Gaza City, with explosives. In the same town, on al-Jalaa Street, a gathering of people was hit. They may have been there for the distribution of water or food; there are no further details at this time. In Jabaliya, journalist Mohammed Abu Jasser was killed along with his wife and two children. At least 161 media workers have been massacred in Gaza since October 7.
Amid the same levels of destruction and annihilation, the doctors at Al-Awda Hospital extracted a live infant from the body of a slain mother, speaking of a “miracle,” according to journalist Hind Khoudary from Deir al-Balah. Ola al-Kurd was killed in Israeli shelling on Friday, which hit her home in the Nuseirat refugee camp. “The child still has no name. He lost his mother and his father is seriously injured.”
And as the Israeli army has announced the continuation of its military offensive on Rafah, saying it has “eliminated a number of terrorists in several clashes,” protests by the hostages' families and thousands of their supporters have returned to major Israeli cities. Ignored by Benyamin Netanyahu's government, they are calling for a prisoner exchange deal with Hamas.
Meanwhile, Monday brought the Israeli response to the drone launched on Tel Aviv from Yemen on Friday (which led to one dead and ten wounded). It had traveled 2,000 km without anyone intercepting it, whether US or Israeli defense. Retaliation for the drone attack – immediately claimed by the Houthi movement, which de facto controls the country – came in the form of Israel bombing the Yemeni port of Hodeidah. Israeli army spokesman Hagari claimed the raid was “in response to the hundreds of attacks against Israel.” A number of people reportedly died in the bombing of oil tanks and an electrical facility, in which the United States and Britain reportedly also took part. The Houthis vowed that they would respond in kind.
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/demolizioni-uccisioni-e-raid-giorno-di-ordinaria-occupazione on 2024-07-21