Will Israel pay a price for its latest Gaza massacre?
Ali Abunimah, Electronic Intifada, Apr 2 2018
Muslih Sheikh Khalil, al-Shifa Hospital, Mar 30 (Photo: Mohammed Asad)
Palestinians are calling for escalating global campaigns to isolate Israel after its army killed 16 people in the Gaza Strip and wounded almost 1,500 others. Meanwhile, Israel has rejected calls for an international investigation and its defense minister has commended soldiers on Friday’s slaughter. On Monday, the health ministry in Gaza announced that 29-year-old Fares al-Ruqab had succumbed to wounds he suffered after Israeli snipers opened fire into the territory Friday. Tens of thousands took part in Great March of Return rallies to demand their right of return to lands from which Palestinians were ethnically cleansed, and to protest Israel’s decade-long blockade of Gaza. That brought to 16 the number of Palestinians killed. The IOF injured almost 1,500 people, more than 800 of them with live ammunition, according to the health ministry. Dr Mohammed Ziara, a general practitioner at Gaza City’s al-Shifa hospital, posted pictures on Twitter that show devastating injuries sustained by protesters. Ziara told EI that the images were taken by surgeons at the hospital who treated the injuries. The images indicate IOF used “dum-dum” bullets that fragment in the body causing massive damage to tissue. Bullets that expand or fragment are banned under international law.
https://twitter.com/Medo4Gaza/status/980747909108060161
Over the weekend, Israel continued to try to portray victims of its violence as hardcore Hamas militants who had organized a violent invasion across the boundary.
The propaganda narrative collapsed as videos emerged documenting apparent war crimes, particularly the lethal shooting of Abd’al-Fattah Abd’al-Nabi, 19, as he ran away from the Israel-Gaza boundary fence. Abd al-Nabi was reportedly shot in the head. The IOF on Saturday tweeted a statement claiming full responsibility for the killings, asserting:
Everything was accurate and measured, and we know where every bullet landed.
But it quickly deleted the statement as emerging evidence gave the lie to its claims.
Moreover, the human rights group B’Tselem had warned in advance about Israel’s preparations and threats to “shoot-to-kill unarmed Palestinians.” B’Tselem had also warned about Israel’s efforts to spin its premeditated assault on civilians protesting the “disastrous reality in Gaza.” B’Tselem stated on the eve of the bloodshed:
Completely ignoring the humanitarian disaster in Gaza and Israel’s responsibility for it, they are couching the planned protest in terms of a security risk, framing the demonstrators as terrorists and referring to Gaza as a ‘combat zone.’
There were also shocking examples of public incitement. Israel National News/Arutz Sheva published an op-ed asserting that the “Palestinian leadership wants pictures of dead bodies littering the field and for once, in the interests of our people, we should give it to them.” Paula Stern wrote:
On Monday, B’Tselem responded to Israel’s aggressive spin, tweeting:
The demand for an inquiry has however become the centerpiece of the official international response to the Israeli massacre. Both the UN Sec-Gen António Guterres and the EU have called for an international investigation. These calls can be seen as cynical. They allow international officials to seem like they are taking a robust stance while avoiding any clear condemnation of Israel’s actions, as if what happened remains a mystery. Even though Pindostan predictably blocked any action by the UNSC, where Faschingstein holds a veto, an independent inquiry could be commissioned by the UNHRC, like the one into Israel’s 2014 assault on Gaza. That investigation documented extensive evidence of war crimes by Israel, but has resulted in no accountability. The complicity of the EU remains on full display. With robotically similar language, EU governments over the weekend expressed “deep concern” about the situation in Gaza, made no clear condemnations of Israel, and called for “restraint” from all sides, as if occupier and occupied are equal in power and responsibility.
https://twitter.com/margotwallstrom/status/980092134006063106
Expressions of “deep concern” are the international diplomatic equivalent of the empty “thoughts and prayers” routinely offered after mass shootings by Pindo politicians who intend to do nothing about the problem.
So why would the EU demand an investigation now if its only response in the past has been to do nothing at best, or more typically increase its level of rewards for Israel? A reasonable conclusion is that calls for an investigation are nothing more than an attempt to mollify public outrage at Israel’s premeditated slaughter. There is an immediate opportunity to test the EU’s seriousness, however. Israel has already stated that it will not cooperate with any inquiry, and its defense minister, Avigdor Lieberman praised the slaughter, stating:
From the standpoint of the soldiers of Tzahal, they did what had to be done. I think that all of our troops deserve a commendation.
An EU serious about human rights and accountability would not need to wait for a UN inquiry to robustly condemn Lieberman: at the very least it would impose diplomatic sanctions. Compare this with what happened in Salisbury in Britain a few weeks back. European governments now acting as if they need a UN inquiry in order to figure out what happened before the eyes of the world in Gaza last Friday did not wait for any solid evidence of Russian government involvement in the poisoning of former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in order to expel dozens of Russian diplomats. This double standard is reminiscent of the EU’s quick move to impose sanctions on Russia over its 2014 annexation of Crimea, even though the EU has refused for 50 years to take any effective action against Israel’s ongoing colonization of the occupied West Bank. The BNC is demanding an immediate arms embargo on Israel, but given the extent of the EU’s support for Israel’s war industry, this will only happen if grassroots pressure intensifies. In an encouraging sign, EU officials last year privately identified opposition from ordinary people disgusted with violations of Palestinian rights as one of the “biggest challenges” to their plans for an even tighter relationship with Israel.
In Response to Israel’s Latest Massacre in Gaza: Arms Embargo Now!
Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), Apr 2 2018
Evoking memories of the South African apartheid regime’s massacre of peaceful protesters in Sharpeville in 1960, Israel’s military committed a new massacre against Palestinian civilians as they were peacefully commemorating Palestinian Land Day, calling for an end to Israel’s brutal blockade of Gaza and asserting the UN-stipulated right of return for Palestinian refugees. Israel’s impunity for the murder of Palestinians, emboldened by the unprecedented level of support from the xenophobic Trump administration in Pindostan and the ongoing complicity of the EU, must come to an end. Supporting calls for an independent, international investigation, the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), the largest coalition in Palestinian society and the leadership of the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) for Palestinian rights, calls for effective accountability measures against Israel, particularly a two-way military embargo, as was imposed against apartheid South Africa. As tens of thousands of Palestinians peacefully marked Land Day on Mar 30 in the occupied and besieged Gaza Strip, what Gideon Levy calls “the Israel massacre forces” opened fire with live ammunition, rubber-coated bullets and tear gas, following deliberate plans to use “a lot of force.”As a result, at least 17 civilians were murdered and more than 1,400 injured, mostly from live ammunition. Almost half of the injured are youth. The murder and mass injury of Palestinian civilians in an area which Israel arbitrarily defines as its “buffer zone” was premeditated. Israel had announced the deployment of 100 snipers to target the protesters. Israel yet again used Palestinian civilians as guinea pigs in its weapons laboratory, testing its new teargas-firing drones. The export of Israeli military technology “field-tested” on Palestinians contributes substantially to financing Israel’s oppression of Palestinians and military aggression against other nations. The BNC welcomes the recent UNHRCR calling on states to ensure respect of international law, among others by preventing arms trade with Israel. We reiterate our call on people of conscience across the world to:
- Mainstream the demand for all private and public entities in your country to end all cooperation and/or trade with the IOF and Israel’s “security sector.”
- Join military embargo campaigns targeting Israeli military companies and other companies involved in the IOF and Israel’s “security sector.” Examples include the campaign against Elbit Systems, which tests its weapons on Palestinians; the campaign against the security company G4S, which trains Israeli police in enforcing Israeli apartheid; and the campaign to pressure Hewlett Packard to end provision of vital technology to the Israeli checkpoint system and the IOF imposing the siege on Gaza.
- Join or build campaigns against cooperation between Israeli police and police forces abroad, through which Israel’s tested doctrines and techniques of brutal repression of peaceful protests are exported to the world. An example is the JVP-led “Deadly Exchange” campaign.
- Join or build campaigns to end all transactions with Israeli banks and pressure international banks and investment funds, like HSBC and Axa to end their complicity in Israel’s human rights violations.
Niqnaq 