As two million starve in Gaza, British police beat up pensioners protesting against Israel
The entire population of Gaza is facing acute food insecurity according to multiple UN organisations. The situation is so bad that you can find video after video of emaciated people collapsing from extreme hunger.
Dr Mohammed Abu Salmiya, director of the Al-Shifa Hospital, said: "A significant number of civilians, and even medical staff, are arriving in a state of fainting or collapse due to severe malnutrition."
Israel is airdropping leaflets telling starving people who can barely stand to evacuate, instead of airdropping food. Israel justifies the situation by saying it can't allow food to reach Hamas. Starvation is being used as a weapon of war in violation of Article 54 of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions.
"The planes came and dropped many leaflets on us; the entire sky was covered with leaflets on the houses, the streets and everywhere, stating that we had to evacuate from certain areas. We are living on edge. We can’t sleep, eat or drink. There is no flour, no anything, and we are hungry. We are dying, and our children are dying of hunger," one Palestinian told CNN.
Around one quarter of the population of Gaza is at IPC stage 5 (catastrophic hunger) which is the highest level of food insecurity. The rest are at stage 3 (crisis) or stage 4 (emergency).
As the occupying power, Israel has a legal duty to ensure sufficient humanitarian aid reaches the civilian population, but it is ensuring the opposite. There is no defending this cruelty and any journalist not calling it out is complicit.
According to the WHO, about 71,000 children under 5 and 17,000 pregnant or breastfeeding mothers are expected to need treatment for acute malnutrition over the coming year. At least 57 children are believed to have died from starvation in Gaza so far. That figure probably goes much higher when you consider hunger will be a contributing factor with anyone who is sick or injured.
Palestinians are so desperate for food, they are rummaging through rubbish, and consuming animal feed and wild plants. They are forced to eat things when they are not sure if they are even edible, risking infection and poisoning.
The GHF sees food as power in Gaza and is wielding that power in the most sinister manner imaginable. There have been so many aid massacres since the GHF was established in late May that it is almost impossible to keep up.
The OHCHR says at least 875 Palestinians have been killed and thousands injured while seeking aid from the GHF. US and Israeli soldiers have admitted unarmed civilians are fired upon by soldiers who are often following orders from their superiors.
Around 100 Palestinians were killed or injured in the latest aid massacre which took place in the Zikim area on July 19th (these things are happening so frequently, there may well have been another massacre by the time you read this). Early estimates of the death toll ranged from 26 (Associated Press) to 32 (Gaza Health Ministry), but that number appears to have risen.
Some media reports suggest the death toll has increased to over 100, although that may be confusion between the number of dead and injured. Alternatively, it could be they're adding in deaths from other incidents during the same time period (which total at least 115 dead and many more injured). It appears some of those other incidents involved civilians seeking aid elsewhere.
Absurdly, the IDF says it fired "warning shots" again and all those civilians just mysteriously fell dead. Strangely, UNRWA managed to distribute food in Gaza without people falling down with mysterious bullet wounds.
In the deadliest incident, starving civilians approached a truck carrying 27 tons of aid northwest of Gaza. The soldiers decided this meant the civilians posed a threat and were apparently fair game. I mean come on, people are starving. Of course they're going to approach aid trucks. That doesn't mean you get to kill them!
Israel argued the areas where civilians were shot were active combat zones that Palestinians were warned not to enter, but declaring something an active combat zone does not allow you to shoot hungry civilians. Amazingly, western journalists mostly seem incapable of pointing this out.
Elements of the western press are still pushing Israel's propaganda in the name of "balance" as though it's plausible this keeps happening without genocidal intent. Any journalist doing press releases for the IDF should be considered a war criminal. Palestinian journalists are the only ones telling the unfiltered truth and this is why Israel keeps killing them.
I saw footage (that I unfortunately can't find) of one skinny teenager rejoicing as he returned to his young siblings with a sack of flour, having survived Israel's bullets. Every Palestinian has to make the calculation of whether to accept starvation for them and their families, or play Russian Roulette with the GHF. Imagine being an orphan and being compelled to risk gunfire so that your brothers and sisters can eat. That is the reality for Palestinian children.
We are witnessing unimaginable atrocities in Gaza and the British state has decided the best way to respond is to... assault old ladies who protest against this. We are seeing multiple police officers pile on frail old ladies, some of them former priests or magistrates or head teachers, and drag them away as "terrorists".
Imagine explaining to your grandkids, you did this to a 76-year-old woman because she objected to a genocide your government is participating in.
Audrey White is far from being the police's only victim in the recent anti-genocide protests. Multiple women of a similar age were dragged away in Liverpool as horrified onlookers chanted "shame". We have seen similar scenes in London and Cardiff.
My message to the police officers is that you don't have to "just follow orders". If I was ordered to do this sort of thing to elderly women, I would refuse, even if it meant facing disciplinary action. I would not assault these women to avoid getting told off by my boss because that would be the height of cowardice. I would rather be fired with my head held high.
If you prioritise obedience over integrity, ambition over humanity, you cannot call yourself a good person, can you?
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This has to change as a matter of urgency. Israeli rationale and excuses no longer work for ordinary people and that is why, unashamedly, governments crack down on public protest. I am SO angry and upset by world inaction. Where is our humanity? 😭
Any and all “leaders”, government personnel, anyone involved in this, explicitly or by doing nothing to stop it, should be jailed for life. And that would be the more humane side of what they deserve.