Gaza and Gazans Can’t Disappear
Do you sense that there is less and less news reaching us from the occupied Palestinian territories, expressly from Gaza? Do you feel what I fear: – that moral outrage by the world public has been spent? That those millions of creative, passionate calls for a ceasefire have been exhausted? Or, that there’s simply nothing new to report, nothing that could possibly supersede the last massacre, the last failed negotiation, the last thwarted aid delivery? More
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Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair
Do you sense that there is less and less news reaching us from the occupied Palestinian territories, expressly from Gaza? Do you feel what I fear: – that moral outrage by the world public has been spent? That those millions of creative, passionate calls for a ceasefire have been exhausted? Or, that there’s simply nothing new to report, nothing that could possibly supersede the last massacre, the last failed negotiation, the last thwarted aid delivery?
Or is it simply our urgent summer plans with the family, school graduations, respite from blistering cities, finding a job or keeping this one, repairing the patio? College students who challenged our morality with determined demands, who remained steadfast when our endurance waned, are absent. Police forces who brutalized and arrested protesters have shown their worth to their bosses. Colleagues fired for their audacity to support Palestinian rights are hardly mentioned. University presidents who survived political assaults and humiliation must feel relieved that nothing worse happened. Pro-Israel thugs who assaulted university encampments have slunk back to their dens. Alarmed Jewish citizens are assured of their safety, especially with a spate of new regulations speedily devised by companies and legislators to protect Israeli interests. While elsewhere lawsuits aim to smother activism by Palestinian and Muslim organizations in our democratic havens.
Some may be heartened by the resolve of nations outside the Israel-US-Europe axis. Scores of countries have stepped up to endorse the ICC’s decision to arrest Israeli leaders. South Africa and others press for compliance on ICJ’s ruling regarding Israel’s genocidal actions. In late May, BRICS+10 voted to sponsor a world conference on Palestine. A few governments newly recognize the nationhood of Palestine.
As for the besieged, bleeding, grieving and terrorized Palestinian camps and towns, far less news is seeping out from their shredded dwellings. Forget about mainstream media. If they are moved at all to report on Gaza, it will brief, and then only for another ghastly massacre —was it Nuseirat, Al-Shifa Hospital, the UN school, or a breadline waiting for precious food crumbs?
Increasing absence of information stems from Israel’s genocide agenda itself. Israeli forces have assassinated Palestinian journalists and threatened the staff of media companies, with many eventually withdrawing their correspondents from the field. Where Israel cannot censor foreign reporters, it bans them. For many months, live-feeds transmitted through Palestinians’ phones overcame barriers. Today, they are far fewer, probably because those citizen-journalists have vanished. Or Wi-Fi access from ‘Gaza’s killing fields’ is impossible.
While we desperately search for fragments of daily conditions of Palestinians, UN and other rights agencies offer synopses of their research:– hundreds of pages of data coldly summarizing deaths and deprivations, the breakdown of civil order, Israeli crimes of increasing magnitude and audacity, including how Israel tortures Palestinian prisoners. Among films documenting the past months’ torment is The Night Won’t End, a moving account produced by Al-Jazeera’s Laila Al-Arian. It captures what we already know but must re-know.
Official documentation of past crimes is surpassed by today’s revelations. Could conditions possibly worsen? Yes they could, and did.
American and European governments, despite mouthing justice and peace efforts, continue their wholehearted support of Israel. Promises of aid are pulverized into Gaza’s blood-soaked desert. The latest outrage: the Rafah crossing, Gaza’s thin lifeline for aid via Egypt, closed by Israel in May, as of this week is rendered non-functional due to massive Israeli military actions there. Israeli civilians have blocked other access routes and ransacked aid trucks. The US-constructed pier meant to deliver aid to Gazans by sea is broken and useless; there’s no information if it will ever be functional; it could be dismantled. As for the successive UN resolutions, passed with great effort and compromise, to censure Israel and force a ceasefire, we are told they are unenforceable. Look how the Israeli ambassador to the UN tore up the UN Charter inside the exalted chamber itself! As the majority of the world condemns it, Israel seems to double down, emboldened by the impotence of public protests globally, confident of their international backers. Israel seems more empowered than ever to heighten its campaign against Palestinians – apparently unrestrained. Except perhaps by Hamas fighters within Gaza who somehow manage to inflict serious casualties on Israeli troops and destroy tanks and personnel carriers.
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