Bloody Friday in Gaza’s Toll
by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org – Home – Stephen Lendman)
Great March of Return protests in besieged Gaza continued for the fifth consecutive Friday – Israeli ruthlessness unrelenting, the way it always is, brutalizing Palestinians, killing and injuring them unaccountably.
According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, three Gazans were killed on Friday, nearly 1,000 others injured, at least 178 from live fire.
Many suffered serious, life-threatening wounds, more deaths sure to come.
On Friday evening, Israeli warplanes terror-bombed central Gaza, as well as two Palestinian fishing vessels in port.
According to Palestinian media, they were expected to participate in an upcoming humanitarian freedom flotilla attempt to break the Israeli siege.
Since Good Friday, Israeli soldiers killed 45 Gazans, wounding thousands more – the world community doing nothing to stop the carnage, nothing supporting long denied Palestinian rights, nothing to hold Israel accountable for its high crimes.
UN Secretary-General Guterres and other world body officials have done little more than call on both sides to show restraint – as though both sides are equally matched.
Gazans armed only with their redoubtable spirit are no match against one of the world’s most powerful military killing machines – along with America, its most ruthless, most merciless, most contemptuous of rule of law principles.
The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) said Gazan casualties on Friday included scores of children, over a dozen women, six journalists and five paramedics.
Other reports said 18 medical personnel and journalists combined were wounded.
PCHR fieldworkers documenting the carnage were among the casualties, a statement saying:
“For the fifth week in a row and upon a decision by the Israeli highest military and political echelons, the Israeli forces used lethal force against the peaceful demonstrators, who posed no threat to the soldiers’ life.”
Demonstrators were “fully peaceful.” PCHR fieldworkers explained none were armed with weapons. Participants displayed Palestinian flags. They chanted slogans and sang songs. They flew kites and burned tires.
Israeli snipers opened fire against demonstrators threatening no one – repeat, no one. During five Friday Great March of Return demonstrations, not a single Israeli soldier or civilian was hurt.
No Palestinians were used as human shields as Israel falsely claimed. Entire families came out on Friday, including young children and elderly members.
Tens of thousands of Gazans acted on their own with no political encouragement.
Strip medical facilities are overwhelmed with casualties, their own personnel among them, targeted by Israeli snipers.
Resisting tyranny is a fundamental right. Israel considers it “incitement” or “terrorism.”
The Ziofascist state brutalizes Palestinians for not being Jewish, the hallmark of institutionalized racism – as vicious and lawless in Israel as any place else on earth.
Occupation harshness, colonialism, apartheid, and high crimes against peace define its longstanding ruthless reign of terror against millions of defenseless Palestinians.
There’s no end of it in sight – nothing by the world community to stop it, lots more bloody days to come.
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