Berieved parents following attack on children at Shati camp

This is not an attack to stop rocket fire from Gaza. That may have been the pretext but what we see is a war on the Palestinian civilian population to force it to surrender. Israel has targeted civilians, especially children, homes, hospitals, universities, sewage treatment works, the only electricity generation plant, schools, TV stations,the beach and playgrounds. What it is saying to the Palestinian People is die, see loved ones die and live on the streets, be dependent on aid as quasi prisoners or surrender.

Gaza’s only power station in flames

Despite the attack now lasting longer than Operation Cast Lead, I have not heard a single Palestinian in Gaza either blame the resistance, ask for an end to the fighting or ask to leave to some other place. They are of course beleaguered but are also resilient.

The message is consistent and clear,they will not accept a ceasefire that keeps the siege in place and they support the resistance ‘to the last child’. This is not because they love death over life, as Islamophobes would have you think or as Israel claims, but because they have had enough of the occupation, siege, humiliation, living on aid and handouts, and with no prospect of the siege being lifted without major sacrifices.

Readers maybe a little sceptical about what I say. They could argue that they have to say this because if they did not, Hamas would kill them. They simply do not understand Palestinian society. What unites Palestinians is their fight for liberation from Israeli occupation. They may support Hamas or not but they will stand behind the ‘resistance’. Israelis need to understand this or continue to believe their deluded leaders that it is all to do with Hamas and that Palestinians loathe them.

Palestinians In the West Bank were cheering the achievements of the resistance even those that disagreed with them politically. Anyone who knows the makeup of Palestinian society and saw the recent demonstrations will understand that they came from across the political and religious spectrum.

Israel knows this but has presented its attack on Gaza as an attack on Hamas (Khamas), thinking Palestinians would be less concerned. It is interesting that despite the very active engagement of Islamic Jihad, Israeli spokespersons hardly ever mention them.

As the terror campaign, and that is what it is, continues and escalates and as casualties among Israeli forces mount, Israel is acting as a depraved animal. It is simply lashing out, using a most devastating arsenal of mainly American weapons. But Israel has failed to achieve either its military target of stopping the rockets or its political objective of toppling Hamas and bringing the PAs control back over Gaza. This despite this war lasting longer than the 2008/9 ‘Operation Cast Lead’.

Child dies terrorised in Gaza

Israel thinks that it can move Palestinians like cattle from one place to another, demolish their homes, attack their infrastructure, kill them, maim them and win. It relies on so called ‘International Community Support’. It has been nauseating to see Prime Ministers, Presidents and Foreign Ministers alike regurgitating Israeli Foreign Ministry propaganda. “Israel has a right of self defence”, “which other state would allow rockets to be fired at it”, “It is about terror tunnels”, “the only offer on the table us the Egyptian initiative” and now “Gaza must be disarmed”.

The objectives of this war appear to be ‘developing’. Today the tunnels, tomorrow, who knows. What is really worrying for the future is the edits city of the attack and the solid support, indeed joyous celebrations at the obliteration of children, it is enjoying at home. An analyst described it well, I thought when he said in Arabic, Israelis are living in a ‘moral coma’. They have lost their moral campus and allowed hatred to completely take over. Not even the images of tiny torts blown up into bits now troubles them.

Former Prime Minister, Sharon was in a coma for right years. For the sake of not only Palestinians and Israelis, But for all our sakes, I hope they wake up from their ‘moral coma’ without delay.