By Michel Moushabeck / Truthout
Since last weekend I’ve been glued to the news and frantically checking on my family and friends in Gaza and the West Bank. I grieve for the loss of Palestinian and Israeli lives and I mourn with all those who lost loved ones and those who continue to suffer the consequences of the longest occupation in modern history.
This week’s violence did not start with Hamas’s October 7 act of armed resistance against Israel, which surprisingly shocked Israelis and the world. As a result of the attack — which some have argued is better understood not as an act of war but as an “open-air prison revolt,” due to the suffocating conditions of the never-ending siege of Gaza — Israelis have momentarily experienced what Palestinians have endured on a daily basis for decades. The nightmare that has unfolded is the direct and inevitable result of a decades-long policy of ethnic cleansing and apartheid.
Since taking office, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has moved quickly — together with his racist, far right, anti-Palestinian partners — to implement new policies that have escalated the violence. These new policies include intensified military raids and targeted assassinations of Palestinians labeled as threats by the Israeli state, stepped-up demolitions of Palestinian homes, and the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements on stolen Palestinian land.
It is heart-wrenching to see the images of death, massive destruction and demolition of entire residential neighborhoods in Gaza, including schools, hospitals, apartment buildings and mosques. As I write, Israeli missiles and airstrikes are pounding Gaza indiscriminately in violation of international law and human rights law….
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United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
Israeli Officials Now Promoting Impunity for Settler-Colonial Violence
Revealing New Evidence in Abu Akleh’s Killing, Al Jazeera Sues Israeli Forces at ICC
Standing up for Palestine is also standing up to save the west from the worst of itself
Netanyahu’s deliberate extremism has failed
Haaretz Editorial: Netanyahu Bears Responsibility for This Israel-Gaza War
After the truth-shower 