Israel: A Nation State Equivalent of a Street Bully on a Rampage
by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org – Home – Stephen Lendman)
The same goes for the US and NATO on steroids – partnered with Israel, representing an unparalleled menace to humanity.
Since last weekend, Israel attacked Gaza multiple times, intensively on and off since Monday. IDF combat troops are deployed along its border, invasion to come if ordered.
Like three previous times since December 2008, it’s possible again, likely to be known by the weekend or sooner.
Gazans are repeatedly blamed for Israeli high crimes committed against them, what’s going on this week the latest example.
On Friday, Gazans will commemorate the one-year anniversary of their Great March of Return demonstrations for justice denied them – many thousands likely turning out en masse.
Does the Netanyahu regime intend mass slaughter of peaceful demonstrators? Will IDF snipers gun down large numbers with live fire, attacking others with toxic tear gas – despite them posing no threat to Israeli soldiers or civilians?
Will what happens on Friday be prelude to another Israeli preemptive war on the Strip, including days of terror-bombing schools, universities, hospitals, mosques, residential communities, and UN shelters – along with IDF combat forces attacking Gazans on the ground?
Whatever the Netanyahu regime does next, the suffering of two million Strip residents will continue.
Pre-dawn Wednesday, IDF terror-bombing continued – after hours of relative calm the previous day, creating the illusion of ceasefire.
At around 9AM Wednesday morning, an uneasy calm followed over night terror-bombing – to resume if ordered, what may happen during or following Friday’s Great March of Return commemoration.
According to the Arabic-language Asharq al-Awsat broadsheet, a temporary “calm-for-calm” Hamas/Israeli agreement was reached.
Hamas rejected the Netanyahu regime’s demand to halt further Great March of Return demonstrations, saying they’ll stop when Israel’s politicized/illegal blockade ends.
According to an unnamed Netanyahu regime official, “(t)here is no ceasefire agreement. The fighting may resume at any moment.”
Whatever Israel agrees to, if anything, isn’t worth the paper it’s written on, time and again saying one thing, doing something entirely different.
A permanent undeclared Israeli state of war on the Occupied Territories exists, on Gaza most of all. Small or larger scale hostilities can erupt anywhere in Occupied Palestine any time.
On Tuesday, IDF chief of staff general Aviv Kohavi ordered more combat troops to Gaza’s border – likely in preparation for whatever the Netanyahu regime intends in response to Friday’s Great March of Return commemoration.
A Final Comment
On Tuesday, the Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) said the following:
“Two million Palestinians are victims of Israeli airstrikes and collective punishment…” Since Monday, Gaza was struck by 66 IDF airstrikes in 12 hours overnight Sunday through pre-dawn Monday, dozens of civilians left homeless, their homes destroyed.
Israeli airstrikes terrorized the entire Strip, again overnight Tuesday, perhaps more to come. Locations targeted included “densely-populated areas throughout the Gaza Strip…on the (phony) pretext of having security service offices underneath or near them,” PCHR explained, adding:
“(E)xplosions reminded (Gazans) of the traumatic experiences they (endured during) three (Israeli wars of aggression in) 2008-2009, 2012, and 2014.”
“PCHR emphasizes that the continued Israeli attacks on populated residential areas and the use of weapons on the basis of collective reprisals constitute grave violations of the 1949 four Geneva Conventions, amounting to war crimes.”
“PCHR warns that the military escalation by the Israeli forces and the deterioration of the calm situation would exacerbate the difficult humanitarian conditions in the Gaza Strip, with the continued impact of the three devastating offensives and tightening closure for 13 years.”
Israeli attacks on the Strip, largely affecting defenseless civilians, are flagrant violations of Fourth Geneva and other core international laws.
The world community consistently does nothing to enforce them, leaving Israel unaccountable for high crimes of war and against humanity time and again.
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