Israel Terror-Bombs Gaza Ahead of 31st Straight Bloody Friday
by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org – Home – Stephen Lendman)
Palestinian rights don’t matter – not since UK Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour’s 67-word letter to British Zionist Federation’s Lord Rothschild.
His infamous declaration gave Britain administrative control of Palestine, accepted by the League of Nations in July 1922.
Before and after its 1948 establishment, world community leaders one-sidedly supported Israel. Today backing comes from the US most of all. It’s also from other Western nations, Russia and China.
Israel’s highest of high crimes, its apartheid ruthlessness, its contempt for Palestinians for praying to the wrong god are largely ignored.
Historic Palestine was illegally stolen and occupied, Israel incrementally seizing all land it wants for exclusive Jewish development and use.
The world community continues doing nothing to challenge, stop, and hold Israel accountable for its high crimes too egregious to ignore, including illegally besieging Gaza, the Strip a virtual war zone under suffocating blockade, its economy collapsed, its two million residents struggling to survive, enduring protracted humanitarian crisis conditions.
Predawn Thursday, Israeli warplanes terror-bombed dozens of Gazan sites. Maan News reported “extensive material damages in the targeted areas.” An IDF statement said the following:
“In response to the actions of Hamas, dozens of fighter jets, attack helicopters and other aircraft of the Israel Defense Forces conducted powerful overnight strikes on around 80 Hamas targets across the Gaza Strip.”
IDF terror-bombings, other state-terror, and daily persecution of defenseless Palestinians are virtually always premeditated, Palestinians wrongfully blamed for Israeli high crimes.
Rockets fired from Gaza nearly always respond to Israeli attacks, not the other way around, at most causing minor damage, harming no one.
Israeli aggression on Thursday represents a serious escalation of its undeclared war on Gaza. Will full-scale conflict follow? War minister Avigdor Lieberman urged it.
In mid-October, he called on other security cabinet ministers to approve another large-scale military operation in the Strip, so far not authorized.
Thursday terror-bombings represent the most serious escalation since Israeli summer 2014 aggression ended.
Haaretz, the Times of Israel, the Jerusalem Post, and other Israeli media falsely blamed Iran in Syria for the latest violence in Gaza, reporting the official fabricated narrative, citing the IDF as their source
General Aviv Kochavi was named its new chief of staff – subject to approval by senior Netanyahu regime appointments committee and cabinet members.
Years ago, he vowed a “crushing response” in Gaza. Is another war on the Strip more likely with him as IDF chief?
Hamas virtually never attacks Israel preemptively, only in response to repeated IDF aggressive provocations on Gaza. Israel holds its leadership responsible for attacks and other incidents it had nothing to do with.
On Saturday, IDF spokesman General Ronen Manelis said along with Hamas, Israel holds Damascus “and the Iranian Quds Force as the address for the latest outbreak of violence in the Strip” – a bald-faced lie.
Neither Syria or Iran has anything to do with Strip violence. Israel bears full responsibility, including for killing well over 200 defenseless Gazans since March 30, wounding more than 22,000 others, many seriously from live fire, toxic tear gas, and other state terror tactics – high crimes gone unchallenged or punished.
Yesterday was the 31st straight Great March of Return bloody Friday in Gaza, reportedly killing four peacefully demonstrating civilians, wounding 232 others, 180 from live fire, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
The wounded include 51 children, eight women, and eight clearly identified paramedics, willfully targeted for providing medical aid to the injured.
Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) fieldworkers stressed unarmed Friday demonstrators were peaceful, posing no threat to Israeli soldiers or civilians.
“This proves that Israeli forces continue to use excessive force against the protestors upon highest Israeli military and political echelons despite no danger or threat posed to the life of Israeli soldiers,” PCHR added.
As on previous Fridays, demonstrators, including women, children and entire families, raised Palestinian flags, sang national songs, set tires ablaze, “and gathered 300 meters away from the main border fence.”
Some threw stones, a few hurled Molotov cocktails, causing no harm to Israeli snipers, positioned well “behind barracks and sand berms, 70 meters away the border fence,” PCHR explained.
Israeli violence continued throughout the day after Friday prayers.
Thousands of Gazans demonstrated against the suffocating blockade and other fundamental human rights denied them, collective punishment against the Strip’s entire population, a flagrant international law violation.
Western and Israeli media fail to explain what weekly demonstrations are all about.
They’re dismissive of Palestinian pain and suffering, including throughout the Territories – reporting the official narrative, not challenging it.
A Final Comment
Russia fails to hold Israel accountable for its high crimes in Occupied Palestine nor its aggression in Syria – other than holding the Jewish state responsible for downing its IL-20 reconnaissance aircraft in Syrian airspace, killing its 15 crew members last month.
In response to IDF Thursday terror-bombing of multiple Gazan sites, Tass blamed Palestinians for Israeli aggression, saying it was “in response to missile attacks from the Palestinians’ side,” citing a fabricated IDF statement as its source.
My newest book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”
