Gaza’s grinding obliteration continues unabated, with the latest large-scale atrocity an Israeli air strike which claimed more than 60 Palestinian lives.
Adding to the callous depravity of this particular attack is that the target of the bombing included a school in an area that Israel itself had proclaimed as a ‘safe zone’.
It was therefore crammed with thousands of displaced people desperately seeking some modicum of respite from the rain of death and destruction with which Israel has lashed Gaza and its people.
In a harrowing video of the aftermath, an eyewitness talked of “stepping on corpses”.
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It happened on Tuesday in the same area outside Khan Younis where more than 90 Palestinians were killed in another air strike on Saturday.
Israel, in the perverted logic of war, has attempted to justify the bombings by saying it was targeting Mohammed Deif, a senior Hamas commander. The utter senselessness of this approach is summed up by Deif’s status remaining unclear, despite the appalling death toll.
These continued assaults also highlight how ceasefire talks appear to have fallen into a regrettably leisurely pace. Where is the urgency to resolve a humanitarian crisis that is being livestreamed day by day? It is of course welcome that Taoiseach Simon Harris and Prime Minister Keir Starmer discussed Gaza when they met yesterday, but the international community needs to act, not simply talk.
Commentary around the attempted assassination of Donald Trump means that remarks made by President Joe Biden on Monday have not perhaps received the attention they deserve. He made the bizarre claim that he was “the guy that did more for the Palestinian community than anybody”.
The tragic counterpoint to Mr Biden’s self-delusion is that fragments of the bombs dropped on Khan Younis in recent days show them to be American. Yet Mr Biden still has the audacity to say he has been “very supportive of the Palestinians”. Facilitating the war by arming Israel while deigning to allow some aid to reach starving children is a cruelly peculiar way of being ‘supportive’.
According to the latest figures from Gaza’s health ministry, at least 38,794 people have been killed since the start of the war, with another 89,364 wounded.
US President Joe Biden has the audacity to say he has been “very supportive of the Palestinians”. Facilitating the war by arming Israel while deigning to allow some aid to reach starving children is a cruelly peculiar way of being ‘supportive’
A report published yesterday by Human Rights Watch has highlighted the role Hamas and its affiliates played in the horrendous October 7 attacks, in which around 1,200 lives and 250 hostages were taken.
HRW said Hamas’s actions met the international legal definition for crimes against humanity and war crimes. It said there were “reasonable grounds” to believe fighters had committed sexual violence. Hamas has rejected the report, but then again, it would.
Nonetheless, efforts for peace must intensify, even when it comes dropping far too slow.
