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Children so malnourished they’re losing their sight: Inside Israel’s aid blockade on Gaza
(www.independent.co.uk)
this post was submitted on 08 May 2025
236 points (98.0% liked)
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Absolutely horrendous. I've been following Bisan Owda on Instagram and it's absolutely awful what these people are going through at the hands of Israel.
This is unacceptably and I don't understand why nobody (no government that is) is doing anything about it.
I cringed so hard during the Canadian elections debate and our (now) prime minister Mark Carney refused to call this a genocide. I voted NDP because they said it in the debate with no shame.
But anyway we all have to stand up and protest. This is inhumane.
I don't want another enlightened Westerner to say anything about DPRK or Stalin when they excuse our own complicity in this.
Agreed, whats going on in Occupied Palestine is significantly worse than even falsified CIA documents of famine in eastern Europe. The intensive surveillance state of the IOZ is significantly greater than any intelligence agency the GDR, USSR, DPRK, or any other state socialist nation. Yet watch as liberals will either defend, deny, or attempt to compromise on genocidal occupation.
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Oh, I see. It's different when it's us.
It doesn't take a tankie to recognize rank hypocrisy. It does take honesty.
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Israel is a fascist ethnosupremacist settler colonial apartheid state committing genocide. Go be rabid Zionist somewhere else.
De-development via the Gaza Occupation
Between July 1971 and February 1972, Sharon enjoyed considerable success. During this time, the entire Strip (apart from the Rafah area) was sealed off by a ring of security fences 53 miles in length, with few entrypoints. Today, their effects live on: there are only three points of entry to Gaza—Erez, Nahal Oz, and Rafah.
Perhaps the most dramatic and painful aspect of Sharon’s campaign was the widening of roads in the refugee camps to facilitate military access. Israel built nearly 200 miles of security roads and destroyed thousands of refugee dwellings as part of the widening process.' In August 1971, for example, the Israeli army destroyed 7,729 rooms (approximately 2,000 houses) in three vola- tile camps, displacing 15,855 refugees: 7,217 from Jabalya, 4,836 from Shati, and 3,802 from Rafah.
- Page 105
Through 1993 Israel imposed a one-way system of tariffs and duties on the importation of goods through its borders; leaving Israel for Gaza, however, no tariffs or other regulations applied. Thus, for Israeli exports to Gaza, the Strip was treated as part of Israel; but for Gazan exports to Israel, the Strip was treated as a foreign entity subject to various “non-tariff barriers.” This placed Israel at a distinct advantage for trading and limited Gaza’s access to Israeli and foreign markets. Gazans had no recourse against such policies, being totally unable to protect themselves with tariffs or exchange rate controls. Thus, they had to pay more for highly protected Israeli products than they would if they had some control over their own economy. Such policies deprived the occupied territories of significant customs revenue, estimated at $118-$176 million in 1986.
- page 240
In a report released in May 2015, the World Bank revealed that as a result of Israel’s blockade and OPE, Gaza’s manufacturing sector shrank by as much as 60% over eight years while real per capita income is 31 percent lower than it was 20 years ago. The report also stated that the blockade alone is responsible for a 50% decrease in Gaza’s GDP since 2007. Furthermore, OPE (combined with the tunnel closure) exacerbated an already grave situation by reducing Gaza’s economy by an additional $460 million.
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Page 402
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The Gaza Strip: The Political Economy of De-Development - Third Edition by Sara M. Roy
Blockade, including Aid
Hamas began twenty years into the occupation during the first Intifada, with the goal of ending the occupation. Collective punishment has been a deliberate Israeli tactic for decades with the Dahiya doctrine. Violence such as suicide bombings and rockets escalated in response to Israeli enforcement of the occupation and apartheid.
After the 'disengagement' in 2007, this turned into a full blockade; where Israel has had control over the airspace, borders, and sea. Under the guise of 'dual-use' Israel has restricted food, allocating a minimum supply leading to over half of Gaza being food insecure; construction materials, medical supplies, and other basic necessities have also been restricted.
The blockade and Israel’s repeated military offensives have had a heavy toll on Gaza’s essential infrastructure and further debilitated its health system and economy, leaving the area in a state of perpetual humanitarian crisis. Indeed, Israel’s collective punishment of Gaza’s civilian population, the majority of whom are children, has created conditions inimical to human life due to shortages of housing, potable water and electricity, and lack of access to essential medicines and medical care, food, educational equipment and building materials.
- Amnesty International Report pg 26-27
Peace Process and Solution
Hamas proposed a full prisoner swap as early as Oct 8th, and agreed to the US proposed UN Permanent Ceasefire Resolution. Additionally, Hamas has already agreed to no longer govern the Gaza Strip, as long as Palestinians receive liberation and a unified government can take place.
Both Hamas and Fatah have agreed to a Two-State solution based on the 1967 borders for decades. Oslo and Camp David were used by Israel to continue settlements in the West Bank and maintain an Apartheid, while preventing any actual Two-State solution
How Avi Shlaim moved from two-state solution to one-state solution
‘One state is a game changer’: A conversation with Ilan Pappe
One State Solution, Foreign Affairs
Human Shields
Hamas:
Intentionally utilizing the presence of civilians or other protected persons to render certain areas immune from military attack is prohibited under international law. Amnesty International was not able to establish whether or not the fighters’ presence in the camps was intended to shield themselves from military attacks. However, under international humanitarian law, even if one party uses “human shields”, or is otherwise unlawfully endangering civilians, this does not absolve the opposing party from complying with its obligations to distinguish between military objectives and civilians or civilian objects, to refrain from carrying out indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks, and to take all feasible precautions to spare civilians and civilian objects.
Israel:
Additionally, there is extensive independent verification of Israel using Palestinians as Human Shields:
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Including Children (2013 Report)
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Palestinian children face unrelenting genocide, displacement, and systematic abuse throughout 2024
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Israel “Systematically” Uses Gaza Children as Human Shields, Rights Group Finds 2024
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Breaking The Silence - Testimonies from IDF Veterans
Deliberate Attacks on Civilians
Israel deliberately targets civilian areas. From in general with the Dahiya Doctrine to multiple systems deployed in Gaza to do so:
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The Dahiya Doctrine & Israel’s Use of Disproportionate Force
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‘A mass assassination factory’: Inside Israel’s calculated bombing of Gaza
Israel also targets Israeli Soldiers and Civilians to prevent them being leveraged as hostages, known as the Hannibal Directive. Which was also used on Oct 7th.
Adi Callai has written on the parallels in his article The Gaza Ghetto Uprising and expanded upon in his corresponding video
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You ignore the celevlbrating of deaths
Israelis celebrate the slaughter of Palestinians. So by your own logic Israelis deserve to be genocided.
This is another lie and even if it was true, the whole point is to not kill human shields. Israelis know this well when they use Palestinians as human shields.
B’Tselem: Israeli Soldiers use civilians as Human Shields
Israelis accused of 'human shields' tactic
The use of Palestinians as human shields by Israeli Defense Forces has been documented by human rights organizations
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_shields_in_the_Israeli%E2%80%93Palestinian_conflict
I even linked B'TSelem among the many other sources under 'Human Shields,' the lack of humanity and reading comprehension needed to justify and project the actions of Zionism is baffling
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Israelis started it, read some history. Palestinians are defending themselves from an ongoing ethnic cleansing and occupation that began before 1948.
You seem to wrongly assume that just because the invaders are Jewish that they are somewhat indigenous and somehow that justifies them committing a genocide. Never mind that nothing justifies a genocide not even if Israel's narrative was true. After all the Geneva Convention exists for a reason. The entire narrative is also false.
This is what two Jewish sources one historical and one modern had to say about the Muslim Conquest of the Levant:
In 638 CE the Byzantine Empire lost control of the Levant. The Arab Islamic Empire under Caliph Omar conquered Jerusalem and the lands of Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine and Egypt. As a political system, Islam created radically new conditions for Jewish economic, social, and intellectual development.[132] Caliph Omar permitted the Jews to reestablish their presence in Jerusalem–after a lapse of 500 years.[133] Jewish tradition regards Caliph Omar as a benevolent ruler and the Midrash (Nistarot de-Rav Shimon bar Yoḥai) refers to him as a "friend of Israel".[133]
Above quote is from Wikipedia, here's an article about it: https://www.academia.edu/5768249/Nistarot_Rabbi_Shimon_b_Yohai
And next is a quote from Ben-Gurion himself:
“The fellahin are not descendants of the Arab conquerors, who captured Eretz Israel and Syria in the seventh century CE. The Arab victors did not destroy the agricultural population they found in the country. They expelled only the alien Byzantine rulers, and did not touch the local population. Nor did the Arabs go in for settlement. Even in their former habitations the Arabs did not engage in farming…their whole interest in the new countries was political, religious and material: to rule, to propagate Islam, and to collect taxes…the Jewish farmer, like any other farmer, was not easily torn from his soil…Despite the repression and suffering the rural population remained unchanged.” [7]
An interesting post about the indigeneity of Palestinians reviewing a book by Israeli historian Shlomo Sand https://blogs.umb.edu/joinercenter/2012/10/09/review-of-shlomo-sand-the-invention-of-the-jewish-people-london-verso-2009-translated-by-yael-lotan/
The Zionist settlers aren't innocent victims here, they knew well beforehand what kind of response they will elicit from the locals:
[It is the] iron law of every colonizing movement, a law which knows of no exceptions, a law which existed in all times and under all circumstances. If you wish to colonize a land in which people are already living, you must provide a garrison on your behalf. Or else – or else, give up your colonization, for without an armed force which will render physically impossible any attempts to destroy or prevent this colonization, colonization is impossible, not “difficult”, not “dangerous” but IMPOSSIBLE! … Zionism is a colonizing adventure and therefore it stands or falls by the question of armed force. It is important to build, it is important to speak Hebrew, but, unfortunately, it is even more important to be able to shoot – or else I am through with playing at colonialization.
– As quoted by Lenni Brenner, in The Iron Wall: Zionist Revisionism from Jabotinsky to Shamir (1984), where the quotation is cited as being from “The Iron Law” copied from https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ze%E2%80%99ev_Jabotinsky
The Iron Wall Essay here: https://en.jabotinsky.org/media/9747/the-iron-wall.pdf by the same Zionist monster quoted above makes it clear that at least since 1923, Zionist settlers did not want peace and only wanted to dominate Palestinians through force.
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Odd response to such a wealth of information. It’s almost as though you don’t want to learn.
The western world and Israel started this, literally. Israel are the terrorists. Say it with me, Israel are the terrorists. You are a racist piece of shit and karma will come to your ass sooner or later.
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What the fuck are you saying? Genuenly I dont understand whatever nonsense you just spewed other than it being genocide apologia
My only solace in this is that fascism is coming for sick fucks like you. Enjoy the concentration camps, Zionazi.
You're just hoping to get raptured, because this is one of the End Times tidings, isn't it?
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Says the person who is cheering on a genocide.
You're on the wrong side of history here, dude. I hope for your soul's sake you will one day wake up and realize that, but I'm not holding my breath.
Ask yourself this: who's the side with the nukes and the advanced weaponry in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?
I'll give you 1 hint: it's not the Palestinians.