The mass grave in southern Gaza where the bodies of Red Crescent workers and civil defence responders were discovered, 30 March. Photograph: OCHA/Red Crescent
Politicians want to normalise what’s happening in Gaza. Our moral outrage won’t let that happen
The more shocking the carnage becomes, the more people are punished for
speaking out. This just makes it clear how much is really at stake
Graphic images. Distressing footage. Blurred-out
posts that only clicking a consent button will reveal. For a year and a
half now, disclaimers have hung over what the world sees from Gaza.
Sometimes, the scenes stop me in my tracks as they are suddenly
recalled, like a nightmare forgotten but then vividly remembered. Except
without the relief that it was all a dream. Last week, I watched
footage that showed what appeared to be the shattered, headless corpse
of a baby. I have seen shredded body parts collected in plastic bags. Heard the screams of the dying and the silence of the dead, as cameras capture them piled together, some in entire families.
Israel’s assault on Gaza defies inurement. As time goes by, even as the
threshold for what is seen as intolerable increases, the graphic and
varied forms of killing continue to scale the hurdle of numbness.
All
the while, politics does one of two things. Either it smoothes over
this historic calamity, resorting to the bland language of
encouragements to return to the negotiating table, as if it were all
some regrettable falling-out that could be resolved if only heads cooled
a little, or the calamity is reversed. Calling for it to stop, rather
than being the most natural of human instincts, is now an impulse that
in some countries meets the bar of arrest or removal.
This narrative renders the people of Gaza, so ever-present on our
screens and timelines in their daily massacre, distant and remote. Gaza
has been deported to another dimension in which no rules apply.
Geographically it has been sealed off and wrenched away from the Earth.
Foreign journalists and politicians are not allowed in. Local journalists are killed. Foreign aid is blocked. Local relief workers are murdered.
International courts and human rights organisations speak with one
voice about the criminality of what is occurring. They are summarily
ignored or attacked by Israel’s sponsors.... READ MORE https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/apr/07/politicians-normalise-gaza-moral-outrage
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Did
you know that the Palestinians are the very first people in the world
to ethnically cleanse and mass murder themselves? I know it sounds
weird, but – as American and Israeli politicians keep reminding us –
these are “savages” that we are talking about here. Normal rules don’t apply, you’ve got to follow the Palestine Rules.
The Palestine Rules dictate you do the following: ignore
every international agency if that agency says anything remotely
critical about Israel. Certainly don’t listen to international aid agencies like Oxfam
when they argue that the government of Israel is “deliberately blocking
and/or undermining the international humanitarian response in the Gaza
Strip”. Nope, the fact that babies in Gaza are dying of malnutrition is
all their fault. The fact that children in Gaza are starving at the fastest rate the world has ever known is nothing to do with Israel, it’s the fault of those pesky Palestinians.
The
fact that there are an unprecedented number of child amputees in Gaza
is the Palestinians’ fault. Let’s be very clear here: if every single
Palestinian had fled the land they were born in back in 1948,
when Israel was founded, if they’d just completely renounced their
Palestinian identity, none of the horrors currently unfolding in Gaza
and the West Bank would be happening. Can’t argue with that logic, can you? ... READ MORE https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/30/us-investigation-gaza-mass-graves
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Disturbing reports continue to emerge about mass graves in Gaza in which Palestinian victims were reportedly found stripped naked with their hands tied, prompting renewed concerns about possible war crimes amid ongoing Israeli airstrikes, the UN human rights office, OHCHR, said on Tuesday.
The development follows the recovery of hundreds of bodies “buried deep in the ground and covered with waste”
over the weekend at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, central Gaza, and
at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City in the north. A total of 283 bodies
were recovered at Nasser Hospital, of which 42 were identified.
“Among the deceased were allegedly older people, women and wounded,
while others were found tied with their hands…tied and stripped of
their clothes,” said Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the UN High
Commissioner for Human Rights.
Al-Shifa discovery
Citing the local health authorities in Gaza, Ms. Shamdasani added that more bodies had been found at Al-Shifa Hospital.
The
large health complex was the enclave’s main tertiary facility before
war erupted on 7 October. It was the focus of an Israeli military
incursion to root out Hamas militants allegedly operating inside which
ended at the beginning of this month. After two weeks of intense
clashes, UN humanitarians assessed the site and confirmed on 5 April that Al-Shifa was “an empty shell”, with most equipment reduced to ashes.
“Reports suggest that there were 30 Palestinian bodies buried in two graves
in the courtyard of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City; one in front of the
emergency building and the others in front of the dialysis building,”
Ms. Shamdasani told journalists in Geneva.
The bodies of 12 Palestinians have now been identified from these locations at Al-Shifa, the OHCHR spokesperson continued, but identification has not yet been possible for the remaining individuals.
“There
are reports that the hands of some of these bodies were also tied,” Ms.
Shamdasani said, adding that there could be “many more” victims,
“despite the claim by the Israeli Defense Forces to have killed 200
Palestinians during the Al-Shifa medical complex operation”.
200 days of horror
Some
200 days since intense Israeli bombardment began in response to
Hamas-led terror attacks in southern Israel, UN human rights chief
Volker Türk expressed his horror at the destruction of Nasser and
Al-Shifa hospitals and the reported discovery of mass graves.
“The intentional killing of civilians, detainees and others who are hors de combat is a war crime,” Mr. Türk said in a call for independent investigations into the deaths.
Mounting toll
As
of 22 April, more than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza,
including 14,685 children and 9,670 women, the High Commissioner’s
office said, citing the enclave’s health authorities. Another 77,084
have been injured, and over 7,000 others are assumed to be under the
rubble.
“Every 10 minutes a child is killed or wounded.
They are protected under the laws of war, and yet they are ones who are
disproportionately paying the ultimate price in this war,” said the
High Commissioner.
Türk warning
The UN rights chief also reiterated his warning against a full-scale Israeli incursion of Rafah, where an estimated 1.2 million Gazans “have been forcibly cornered”.
“The
world’s leaders stand united on the imperative of protecting the
civilian population trapped in Rafah,” the High Commissioner said in a
statement, which also condemned Israeli strikes against Rafah in recent
days that mainly killed women and children.
This included an
attack on an apartment building in the Tal Al Sultan area on 19 April
which killed nine Palestinians “including six children and two women”,
along with a strike on As Shabora Camp in Rafah a day later that
reportedly left four dead, including a girl and a pregnant woman.
“The
latest images of a premature child taken from the womb of her dying
mother, of the adjacent two houses where 15 children and five women were
killed, this is beyond warfare,” said Mr. Türk.
The
High Commissioner decried the “unspeakable suffering” caused by months
of warfare and appealed once again for “the resulting misery and
destruction, starvation and disease and the risk of wider conflict” to
end.
Mr. Türk also reiterated his call for an immediate
ceasefire, the release of all remaining hostages taken from Israel and
those held in arbitrary detention and the unfettered flow of
humanitarian aid.
A
young girl is transferred from the Kamal Adwan hospital, in the far
north of Gaza to a hospital in the south of the enclave. (file)
Massive settler attacks in West Bank
Turning to the West Bank, the UN rights chief said that grave human rights violations had continued there “unabated”.
This was despite international condemnation of “massive settler attacks” between 12 and 14 April “that had been facilitated by the Israeli Security Forces (ISF)”.
Settler violence has been organized “with the support, protection, and participation of the ISF”,
Mr. Türk insisted, before describing a 50-hour long operation into Nur
Shams refugee camp and Tulkarem city starting on 18 April.
“The
ISF deployed ground troops, bulldozers and drones and sealed the camp.
Fourteen Palestinians were killed, three of them children,” the UN
rights chief said, noting that 10 ISF members had been injured.
In
a statement, Mr. Türk also highlighted reports that several
Palestinians had been unlawfully killed in the Nur Shams operation “and
that the ISF used unarmed Palestinians to shield their forces from attack and killed others in apparent extrajudicial executions”.
Dozens
were reportedly detained and ill-treated while the ISF “inflicted
unprecedented and apparently wanton destruction on the camp and its
infrastructure”, the High Commissioner said.
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