Don’t forget these names. Al-Muntaser Billah Abdullah (26 years old) and Yousef Asasa (37 years old) were executed last week by Israeli soldiers in Jenin in the West Bank. They were unarmed, kicked, and their deaths were filmed, and the video of the summary execution ends with a tractor excavator destroying a metal shutter, causing it to collapse on top of their bodies.
The Israeli army said what was expected: “They are individuals belonging to terrorist networks,” and what happened will be the subject of investigation. They kill first, pretend to investigate and then exonerate the murderers and war crimes. National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir celebrated: “The terrorists must die!” Any resemblance between this supposed “attack against terrorists” and the rule of law is merely an act. Israeli human rights groups confirm that torture practices have increased in prisons and that hunger is one of these practices. The Palestinians are the ideal victims: they are Muslims, Arabs, and terrorists without exception.
Settlers and army attacks in the West Bank recorded one of the most violent stages ever, with more than a thousand dead since October 2023, coinciding with the destruction of towns and “turning them into ghost towns,” in the words of Roland Friedrich, Director of Operations at UNRWA, the United Nations refugee agency in Palestine.
While the genocide is progressing more slowly in Gaza, Israel is rushing to demolish Palestinian homes in the West Bank. D9 military tractors, manufactured by Caterpillar in the USA, are used for a variety of tasks. In Palestine, caterpillars are considered a weapon of war in the service of colonial expansion.
Unfortunately, Amnesty International has every reason to say that the ceasefire “risks creating a dangerous illusion that life in Gaza is returning to normal”, but the reality is that this is not the case. The false waiting period in Gaza, allowed by the simulation of the peace process, allowed Israel to accelerate the destruction of the West Bank and the barbarism of the army and settlers, without deviating from the intention of annexing the territory and exterminating the population.
Sadly, Amnesty International’s Secretary General, Agnes Callamard, is as right as Roland Friedrich when she says that although Israeli forces have “reduced the scope of their attacks and allowed limited amounts of humanitarian aid into Gaza, the world should not be fooled. The genocide is not over. No, it is not over. Every day civilians die in Gaza, sometimes because they crossed a mysterious yellow line, sometimes because they deserved to be shot. Nothing more.” basic. Since October 7, 2023, two Israeli ministers have been repeating without dignity that the Palestinians are like animals and that Palestine does not exist. It was not expected that there would be any other reaction than denial and farce: “Israel is defending itself” and acting “in full accordance with international law.”
After all, we are talking about final colonialism, which has been widely accepted in the European chancelleries and in the Oval Office, and which must be ready by now. The most symbolic reaction is that of the German Chancellor. Friedrich Merz quickly lifted the restrictions imposed on arms sales to Israel, justifying this by stabilizing the situation in Gaza. On the other hand, Donald Trump is betting on a false peace in Ukraine, a peace that is nothing more than a concession to the stronger party, taking the gains into account, just as happened in Gaza.
It cannot be denied that the flotillas heading to Gaza coincided with a more intense moment of civil discontent, and that the announcement of the supposed peace plan, approved by the Arab countries in Egypt, amid the narcissistic glory of the American president, had the opposite effect. As Refik Hodžić, a writer and former spokesman for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, says, the investigation in Italy into the Italians who carried out the deadly safaris in Sarajevo “is not just about Bosnia’s past. It is a warning about the present.” A Guardian investigation two months ago revealed that a family in Gaza was killed by snipers from Chicago and Munich, drawn to the same ruthlessness in slaughtering civilians.
On October 25, Egyptian writer Omar El Akkad posted this post: “One day, when it is safe, when there are no personal consequences for calling a spade a spade, and when it is too late to hold anyone accountable, we will always be against this.” Does anyone doubt that Omar is right? It will be too late for all the victims.
(Transcript from Publico)