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The systematic oppression of the Palestinian People has once again led to rising tensions that, over the course of the past few days, erupted into "the most intensive" violence between the Israeli Occupation and Palestinian Resistance seen in years. The pattern is one that has been witnessed time and time again, and is destined to be repeated so long as this unjust oppression continues with international support and sanction.
Relentless oppression of the Palestinians by Zionist occupation forces accompanied by endless blatant human rights abuses, eventually leads to a particularly violent Israeli provocation that inevitably pushes the Palestinians to their limit of toleration, which of course leads to them retaliating with force, and this is always then immediately followed by a disproportionate Israeli 'defensive' response that always entails collective punishment of the Palestinian civilian population at large, and the Palestinians are blamed for rejecting peace and instigating the violence.
By now the current situation has already escalated into the biggest military exchange between the two sides since the 2014 'war', with the UN now warning that things are rapidly "escalating towards a full-scale war".
Hundreds of Israeli airstrikes from Monday night through Wednesday have left at least 53 Palestinians of the besieged Gaza Strip dead, including 14 children and 3 women, and injured at least 320 more. Over 1,000 rockets have also reportedly been fired towards Israel during the same time period, causing far less damage, although 6 Israelis have reportedly also been killed as a result of the violence. The latest series of rocket barrages launched by the Palestinian Resistance factions in Gaza is their boldest action in years, and the same can be said for the Israeli airstrikes, the initial bombardment on Monday night alone admittedly the heaviest Israeli attack since the 2014 war, with more strikes promised, and the Zionist forces continuing to deliver.
As always, Israeli leadership is describing its actions as a form of 'self defense,' a response to rockets fired at Jerusalem on Monday, and the western imperial media propagandists are all too happy to describe the Israeli assault that sparked the conflict as a defensive 'response' to rocket fire that followed violent 'clashes', when it was in fact the violent attacks against initially peaceful protesters and religious worshipers that instigated what is being described as the 'clashes' that finally led to the rockets being fired from Gaza. All the while any resistance to illegal occupation by the most powerful war machine in the Middle East by civilians armed with stones is labeled a 'conflict', long before any rockets are fired by resistance fighters. The western imperialist media refuses to recognize this simple truth.
What is taking place today did not start on Monday, nor did it even begin last month when recent protests in Israel intensified in response to the continued Illegal annexation of the West Bank by the Israeli Occupation and restriction of access to the historic Damascus Gate, what we are seeing now is only the resurfacing of the symptoms yet again of a violent, supremacist apartheid military occupation of the Palestinian People in blatant violation of international law, the systematic oppression of one subjugated people by a militarily superior oppressor. And it must be understood that the initial aggressor in this scenario is not and cannot ever be the oppressed and occupied people whose basic human rights are being systematically violated and denied, but rather the oppressor and occupier whose subjugation of the Palestinians from the time of the initial occupation until now has and always will be accomplished by violence, theft and denial of equal rights to the Palestinians, alongside enmity towards all Arabs that refuse to recognize this unjust and illegal occupation and systematic oppression as legitimate. When oppression is met with resistance, the ensuing collective punishment in the form of aerial bombardments of Palestinian targets is not 'defense', unarmed crowds throwing rocks at occupation forces that indiscriminately open fire on them during their peaceful worship cannot be accurately described as 'clashes', and a colonialist military occupation can hardly be deemed a 'conflict', just because a few remnants of resistance remain among the occupied Palestinians.
The 12 year military siege of Gaza and imprisonment of its residents in particularly horrific conditions is the most unjust and inhumane aspect of the subjugation of the Palestinians, and no amount of sporadic violence and acts of resistance from the enclave can ever justify the long train of human rights abuses and war crimes committed by Zionist forces against its residents on a regular basis. This entire besieged population has been and continues to be collectively punished for the 'crimes' of a few, and for any resistance of any kind by the Palestinian People as a whole. This is why Palestinians in Gaza resort to violence, not because they don't want peace but because their basic human rights are not being recognized and because there can be no peace for a people living under constant military siege. No one else would accept such living conditions for themselves, so why does the world act surprised when those who are forced to endure them for life periodically resort to violent resistance when the weight of the oppressor's hand becomes unusually heavy?
The Palestinian response was in no way unforeseen as it has been depicted in some media outlets and by Israeli leadership, as Hamas had actually given Israel a very clear and specific deadline to withdraw its forces from the al-Aqsa mosque which its forces had invaded and there brutally attacked hundreds of worshipers, and so the Israeli actions leading to the initial rocket fire can clearly be seen as an intentional provocation of war. So it always goes in these conflicts, as I've documented time and time and time and time again.
The recent series of Israeli provocations began on the last Friday of the Muslim Holy Month of Ramadan, when Zionist forces invaded the Mosque and violently assaulted worshipers, opening fire on unarmed worshipers who had been praying for peace, prompting many to defend themselves in any way possibly by throwing rocks or whatever items they could find at the armed occupation forces.
"Throughout the night, Israeli forces injured between 205-250 Palestinians and desecrated the third holiest site to Muslims, smashing through the windows of Mosques, attacking medical facilities and shooting women and children," independent journalist Robert Inlakesh writes.
The violent assaults on peaceful worshipers continued again on Saturday night into Sunday morning, when thousands again poured into the Mosque to worship, another 100 Palestinians were injured from this heinous brutality deemed 'violent clashes' that, if such aggression was endured by any other worshipers in their own most holy site during their worship on a religious holiday, would be widely condemned in the harshest of terms by the media for what it clearly was - a violent, brutal, aggressive assault.
Arabs prepared for the coming confrontation on Monday, 'Jerusalem Day', as Jewish extremists planned to March past the holy sites in honor of the 1967 capture of the city. Although the march was re-routed, occupation forces nonetheless launched a violent assault on the Mosque and the Arab crowds who, understandably and this time gathered with the purpose to defend their ground, put up a little more resistance, mostly by throwing stones,, causing injury to some Israeli police. Israeli forces used so much ammunition in the assault, however, that the Palestinians were able to collect more than enough empty tear gas canisters, stun grenades and rubber-coated steel bullets to shape them into an image of the Dome of the Rock and the word “Jerusalem”:
"Again this Monday, when Israeli forces injured at least 550 Palestinians in the Al-Aqsa site, 333 of which were hospitalized, according to the ‘Red Crescent’, “clashes” was how it was insultingly described yet again," Robert Inlakesh notes.
In reality, these were not two-sided clashes, one side had stones and whatever they could get their hands on to throw, the other side was a fully trained and militarized force. You can’t square this circle, if on one side you have 20 injured occupation forces who started the escalation by attacking worshippers in prayer, and on the other side you have 550 injuries to unarmed men, women and children, this is not simply a clash.
Israeli forces even attacked the women's prayer area, tossing grenades into groups of praying women.
By Monday evening, Hamas, the Palestinian resistance group governing Gaza, had issued an ultimatum giving Israel an hour – until 6 pm local time – to withdraw its forces from al-Aqsa and the occupied East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah. When the occupation refused and called their bluff, they fired over 100 rockets towards Jerusalem, the first time rockets had been fired at Jerusalem in years.
In Gaza, a Hamas spokesperson said that resistance fighters “fired rockets at occupied Jerusalem, in response to the enemy’s crimes and aggression against the holy city, and its abuse of our people in Sheikh Jarrah and al-Aqsa mosque.”
Israel then proceeded to respond to the measured response to their own violent provocations that had injured some 900 Palestinians in just three days with the largest aerial assault on Gaza since the 2014 war, killing 21 Palestinians, including 9 children.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Monday night: "The terrorist organizations in Gaza crossed a red line and attacked us with missiles at the entrances to Jerusalem. Israel will respond with great force." He then absurdly added, "We did not want to escalate, but those who chose to escalate will be hit forcefully."
If the Zionist occupiers had not wanted to escalate, they wouldn't have stormed al-Aqsa three days in a row, they wouldn't have continued moving forward with the planned 'evictions' of Palestinians in Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, and they wouldn't have authorized the largest military strike on civilian targets since the 2014 war.
They then proceeded to level several high rises, prominent civilian targets they know would provoke further retaliatory strikes by the Gaza-based Palestinian resistance groups.
https://www.ibtimes.com/west-bank-violence-gaza-air-strikes-palestinian-toll-mounts-3195374
If hitting two wasn't enough, they leveled the third civilian Gazan high rise on Wednesday, as the death toll continues to rise and number of Palestinians injured in the airstrikes soars to 400.
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On Tuesday, Zionist leadership made it clear that the assault on Gaza was only getting started, in comments that indicates a full-blown war on Gaza is in the works, or at least on the table if Palestinian resistance doesn't stop returning fire when fired upon, which it has insisted it will not do.
In a nationally televised address, Netanyahu said that Hamas and the smaller Islamic Jihad militant groups "have paid, and I tell you here, will pay a heavy price for their aggression."
He claimed that Israel had killed dozens of militants and inflicted heavy damage on hundreds of targets.
"This campaign will take time," he said. "With determination, unity and strength, we will restore security to the citizens of Israel."
He stood alongside Defense Minister Benny Gantz, a political rival, in a show of unity. "There are lots of targets lined up. This is only the beginning," Gantz said. The military said it was activating some 5,000 reservists and sending troop reinforcements to the Gaza border.
Israeli military spokesman Hidai Zilberman said that the Israeli army has its "foot on the gas" and that attacks on the Gaza Strip probably would intensify in the coming days. (source)
Embattled Prime Minister Netanyahu has insisted that Palestinians will "pay a heavy price for their aggression," but is unwilling to pay any price for his own aggression, unwilling to play by his own rules. Every military attack by Israel is labeled as 'defense', and every attack by Palestinians as 'terror’, no matter how many abuses and attacks the Palestinians suffer before finally responding with force. Violence is not the solution, but violence is exactly what Israeli actions have provoked, and considering Netanyahu is well known for attempting to provoke war when in a political pinch as he is now, and considering Israel has long been preparing for a third Gaza war, it is not unlikely that the Israeli provocations were in fact designed to do exactly what they have done, to provoke war. And for the first time in a long time, the Palestinians look to be fighting back with all they have, as protests accompanied by violence has broken out all across Israel as well as along the Gaza border fence. One Palestinian guided anti-tank missile fired from within the Gaza Strip blew up a military jeep near the border, but overall the damage suffered on the Israeli side has been small compared to the damage suffered by the Palestinians. The Palestinian death toll is now up to at least 65 (now 67), while 6 (now 7) have died on the Israeli side.
https://www.ktsm.com/news/international/gaza-teeters-on-the-brink-as-fighting-with-israel-escalates/
People in Gaza and Israel both are increasingly comparing the current string of violence with the 2014 Gaza war, and unless something changes fast, there seems to be no end to the violence in sight with another full-blown war the only outcome. And by the casualties of the 2014 war, we can see just which 'side' a war on Gaza benefits, and which 'side' always suffers the greatest in such 'conflicts'.
And now as the bombs continue to drop, the Gaza death toll continues to climb...
This is, however, just a continuation of the ethnic cleansing that has been taking place since the occupation began in 1948, a continuation of the long and often slow colonization of Palestine through war, occupation, and annexation of the illegally occupied territories of the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Tensions had already been escalating for weeks prior to the current escalation, as the number of Palestinians gathering in Jerusalem to protest the ongoing attempted annexation of the East Jerusalem Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood grew, to the ire of right-wing Zionist extremists intent on forcibly removing all Palestinian families in the neighborhood to take their homes and land. Sheikh Jarrah is only the latest in a long line of Palestinian neighborhoods to undergo this treatment, the illegal annexation of homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem just one integral part of the colonialist 'Greater Israel Project'. The Zionists have openly declared they will do the same across all of East Jerusalem until they have sovereign control over and ownership of all of Jerusalem. The Israeli settlers seeking to make the soon-to-be stolen land their own have always been very clear about what they are doing: "We take house after house," and they do it by force and at the expense of the owners of the homes and land they rob.
This is why Palestinians across the region are protesting, not because of this alone, but because this is but one of the many ways in which the Zionist occupation rears its ugly apartheid head each and every day. Last week Israeli forces shot 60 y/o Rehab Za'oul to death on the side of the street, later claiming it was to stop a stabbing attack, when video footage reveals that, although she was carrying a knife, she was nonetheless gunned down in cold blood and had posed no threat to the soldiers.
Not more than a few hours had passed before Israeli forces had then killed 16 y/o Saeed Yusuf Muhammad Oudeh , shooting the teenager to death after he allegedly tossed a molotov cocktail at them during a search for a suspect in a drive by shooting carried out by a Palestinian gunman. Another Palestinian was also shot in the back during the incident. Shootings of Israelis by Palestinians, as reprehensible and counterproductive as they are, follow a wave of supremacist Jewish violence against Palestinians in Israel, so the violence has been going both ways. As wrong as they are, such Palestinian attacks on Israelis are not, however, unprovoked. Bands of Jewish supremacists have, in recent weeks, taken to the streets in Jerusalem to harass, attack and even kill native Palestinians, publicly broadcasting their hatred of Arabs and intent to 'clean' Israel of all Palestinians.
Although not new, the most recent upsurge of right-wing Zionist rhetoric and violence is directly tied to the Israeli court decision demanding the expulsions of Palestinian families from the Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah. And even now as bombs are raining down on Gaza, residents of Sheikh Jarrah are being forcibly removed from their homes and dragged out of the neighborhood by Israeli forces. Mohammed El-Kurd and his family was removed from his home, in what appears to be an early expulsion in retaliation for the comments he made during western television interviews in which he insisted the Zionist annexation of his neighborhood was "forced ethnic displacement" and not 'eviction'.
“Now they use a supremacist, colonial judicial system that colludes with organizations to take our homes. Just because it’s legal doesn’t mean it’s moral or correct or historically just. What’s happening to us is ethnic cleansing.”
"Less than 24 hours after these interviews, armed Israeli soldiers marched El-Kurd and his family out of the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood," the Daily Beast reported.
They can call it 'defense' all they like, but it's plain for the world to see what's really going on here, and it's nothing more than expansionist military occupation, modern colonization and violent oppression, with the latest Israeli provocations sparking a war that will only further serve the Zionist agenda to ethnically 'cleanse' the land of all Palestinians, one victim at a time.
Since the initial writing of this post, during the brutal 11-day assault on Gaza, Israeli Occupation Forces managed to bomb several prominent media buildings, kill at least one journalist in his home, target health infrastructure, murder at least two Gaza doctors in their homes, bomb a monastery and a refugee camp, threaten to target a UN school, wipe out several entire Palestinian families while leaving over a thousand more homeless - many of these blatant war crimes documented in my subsequent posts here and here, where it is also documented that Israeli targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure during conflict with its enemies is a well established standard Israeli policy. Of the over 230 total Palestinian victims in Gaza during this most recent ‘war’, who were killed at a rate of one per hour, nearly half were women and children.
More info and historical context in my recent video compilation below: