What ceasefire?
Despite the ceasefire, Israel continues killing Palestinians and restricting humanitarian aid — as expected.
Israel has never signed an agreement that it has not reneged on. The sham of the Gaza ceasefire is no different. Within the first 24 hours of the ceasefire going into effect, the Israelis killed 35 civilians and injured 72 others. At least nine civilians were killed and a further 35 injured within just the past 24 hours, according to the figures released by the Gaza Health Ministry on Wednesday. Five were killed in a drone strike in the Shuja’iyya neighbourhood while additional strikes in Jabalia in the north and Khan Yunis and Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip resulted in further casualties. Ceasefire or no ceasefire, the killings have continued.
Moreover, Israel has refused to allow the necessary agreed-upon aid inside the besieged enclave as its inhabitants still reel under the effects of two years of non-stop genocidal assault, during which the Israelis used every possible munition — with the exception of nuclear weapons — on 2.3 million Palestinians and starved hundreds to death as a result of their months-long, full-spectrum blockade. Of the 1,800 aid trucks meant to enter the enclave over the past three days, a mere 173 have been allowed in by the Israelis, who control all Gaza crossings.
On Tuesday, the Israelis announced the closing of the Rafah crossing, which was meant to remain open as part of the ceasefire deal, accusing Hamas of “not taking sufficient steps to locate the bodies of the hostages.” They also decided to reduce the amount of aid in retaliation, continuing the genocide by the weaponisation of aid, something the Israelis have done throughout the past two years.
Unsurprisingly, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum (a body that represents the captives’ families) — who were pretty much the only Israelis protesting the genocide in a society in which an overwhelming majority have shown unstinting support for mass extermination of Palestinians over the past two years — have called “on Israel and the mediators to halt the implementation of the cease-fire agreement following the violation.”
It was always clear that the only motivation for the majority of the supposed Israeli dissidents was getting their own from Gaza back. The genocide could continue thereafter.
The blockade on the new pretext, however, makes an already grievous situation even worse. “The risk of famine and malnutrition, and their devastating consequences, remains present in the Gaza Strip despite the entry into force of the ceasefire agreement,” Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor reported Tuesday. “The limited quantities of goods and aid allowed into Gaza represent only a fraction of actual needs and fall far short of addressing the severe food and supply deficit that Israel has deliberately imposed as a tool of genocide during two years of military assault and comprehensive blockade.”
Palestinian factions have repeatedly made clear the difficulty of locating the bodies of the Israeli prisoners, most of whom were killed in indiscriminate Israeli airstrikes. With the widespread devastation in the enclave, including the desecration of graveyards by the genocidal occupation forces, finding bodies will not be an easy task. Even the Red Cross has acknowledged it. Egyptian, Turkish, and Qatari teams have been reportedly aiding Palestinians in locating the remains of the Israeli prisoners. However, in these very early days of the ceasefire it has become clear that the Israelis will now use the pretext of bodies to continue strangling life in Gaza.
Meanwhile, Israel show no regard for the dead Palestinians. It handed over 45 Palestinian bodies on Wednesday via the Red Cross. All of them were unidentified, bearing visible signs of torture and blindfolding. The Red Cross, which raised a brouhaha over what it said was the parading of Israeli bodies during the previous ceasefire, has a history of dumping unidentified Palestinian bodies in Gaza. “While the Red Cross holds solemn official ceremonies when receiving the bodies of Israeli hostages, it delivers the bodies of Palestinian martyrs in blue bags tossed into trucks that lack the most basic elements of human dignity,” Ismail Thawabta, the head of the Gaza Media Office, said at the time.
The Israelis has been unambiguous since before the ceasefire went into effect that it did not plan to abide by it, and intended to keep its genocidal forces inside the enclave for the foreseeable future. They are living up to their criminal proclamations without consequences as usual. Thirty six violations of the ceasefire agreement by the Israelis have been recorded since the so-called “Gaza peace plan” went into effect on October 10.
Apart from the relentless murders of Palestinians that Israel continues to commit, its crushing control of aid in the enclave amounts to non-compliance with the ceasefire terms and continuation of the genocide.
“Israel’s control over the volume of aid, its non-compliance with the ceasefire terms, and its move toward further reductions not only constitute a breach of the agreement but also amount to the continuation of genocide by depriving civilians of their basic rights, chief among them food, water, and medicine, and by imposing life-threatening conditions,” the Euro-Med Monitor report added. “This ongoing policy demonstrates Israel’s determination to use starvation as a central instrument in its strategy to destroy Palestinian society in Gaza.”
By restricting the entry of humanitarian aid, the Israelis are not just violating the terms of the ceasefire deal, but it is in direct contravention of international law. “The entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza is not a privilege granted by Israel but a binding legal obligation under international humanitarian law, guaranteeing civilians in wartime an absolute right to receive such assistance,” the report added. “Any attempt to link food or medicine to political or security conditions constitutes a flagrant violation of fundamental rights, including the right to life, dignity, personal safety, health, food, and water.”
The last two years have made it abundantly clear that Israelis have no regard for international law, and that the Western champions of such laws are more than willing to completely disregard them when it comes to the genocidal state.
Last month, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) estimated that the Jewish supremacist genocide in Gaza has created “61 million tonnes of debris.” Moreover, “[a]bout 15 percent of this debris could be at relatively high risk of contamination with asbestos, industrial waste, or heavy metals if waste streams are not effectively segregated early on.”
Among the rubble are also remnants of unexploded Israeli ordnance. One such bomb exploded on Monday, leading to horrific injuries among several children:
Israel’s all-encompassing control of the Gaza Strip also dictates what machinery is permitted to enter the besieged enclave. To remove the astronomical debris, the municipality in Gaza will require hundreds of pieces of heavy machinery and specialised tools. However, Israelis did not allow any such machinery to enter the Gaza Strip during the six-week truce earlier this year. So far, the meagre number of trucks allowed into Gaza have not contained any machinery that could aid the removal of rubble.
Palestinians continue to live amid the rubble of their homes and inhale waste material that will ultimately have catastrophic consequences for their health, especially given their frail health and weakened immunity resulting from two years of engineered famine.
Growing their own food will also be an immense challenge for Palestinians in Gaza as the Israeli genocide has laid waste to the agriculture infrastructure and left the soil poisoned. “The loss of vegetation and compaction by military activity have affected soil structure and reduced its ability to absorb water, increasing runoff and flood risks, and reducing groundwater recharge,” the September UNEP report added.
The relentless bombardment with 2,000-pound bombs may have ceased for now, but the Israeli genocide of the Palestinians is yet to stop. The ceasefire plan has only ensured that the Palestinians cease fire, while the Israelis continue their genocide.
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Israel and it's supporter in the US are the cancer of the world.
Ziopigs