by Andrea Tucci,
While in the Gaza Strip children are dying of hunger (according to UNRWA, the United Nations agency that dealt with Palestinian refugees), 57 hunger-related deaths have been recorded since October. Many children eat only once every two or three days. Meanwhile, in Israel a “democratic” society was celebrated with barbecues the Independence Day , while around 60.000 children in Gaza continue to starve.
“Yes, I will starve the people of Gaza, it is our duty,” said MP Moshe Saada on Channel 14. Hate speech has spread across many Israeli television studios. In my view, this “incitement to genocide” reflects the slow but relentless moral decline of Israeli society, which may have destroyed any trace of peace and humanity, perhaps forever, legitimising such barbarity under the banner of “security.” However, a growing phenomenon is spreading beyond the circles of the radical left: the refusal to serve in the military. Alongside conscientious objectors, there are now people who refuse to enlist simply because they are fed up with war. In any case, it is clear that attitudes toward the conflict are changing.
In addition, 1.525 reservists and veterans of the Israeli Armored Corps signed a letter promoted by Colonel Matan stating: “Israel must do everything, even end the war, to bring the hostages home.”
Meanwhile, outside Israel, amid the inertia of international politics, individual and collective civil society initiatives are multiplying. On May 2, activists from the Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC), carrying humanitarian aid for the Gaza Strip, were attacked by Israeli drones off the coast of Malta, in international waters. May 9 was Europe Day, but also “the last day of Gaza,” as stated in another appeal that circulated in Italy on social media. The organizers urged people in the “Bel Paese” to break the silence and speak up about Gaza online, using the hashtags #ultimogiornodigaza and #gazalastday.
At the same time, an Israeli plan for the Gaza Strip, unanimously approved by the security cabinet, announced the expansion of the offensive and the conquest of the entire Palestinian territory. It includes the forced transfer of its inhabitants and the distribution of humanitarian aid — which has been completely blocked since early March — exclusively through private security companies selected by the Israeli government, excluding the United Nations and both local and international NGOs. Then, reaching the limits of the absurd, an Israeli travel agency has begun offering 800 usd per-person tours to the area bordering the Gaza Strip — the so-called Gaza Envelope — providing front-row seats, with pastries and drinks, to watch live as the Israeli Defense Forces bomb the Palestinian people.
The Nakba of 1948 is repeating itself, inexorably. But if Hamas are the only barbaric terrorists, why are Palestinian children, women, and the elderly being killed? What is their crime? It is clear that the only language spoken by those who proclaim themselves the bearers of the only democracy in the Middle East is that of a democracy that bombs, kills, and devastates indiscriminately everywhere, and as much as possible.
But how can there be Peace without Justice? Silence makes us complicit in this massacre.
It is time for each of us to act, together, online, so that the slaughter and the genocide may end.
Let us act now, we, who call ourselves civilised and democratic peoples, so that this injustice ceases, so that this is not truly the last day of Gaza.
Photo of the article: THE NAKBA/ The catastrophe – During the Arab-Israeli war between 750.000 and 900.000 Palestinian men, women and children were driven out of their homeland and an estimated 500 villages and towns were depopulated and demolished. In the same year the Israeli state was created.
