UNFORTUNATELY for Israel, some of the seven World Central Kitchen aid workers it killed in drone strikes in Gaza were white people.
However, Israel achieved its goal – the charity suspended its operations and a ship carrying hundreds of tons of desperately needed food turned around and returned to Cyprus.
The same day, Israeli forces withdrew from Gaza’s largest hospital, Al-Shifa, after a devastating two-week assault that destroyed the facility and killed hundreds of patients and medical staff. This week’s massacres are not isolated incidents but part of Israel’s systematic campaign to destroy aid delivery in Gaza, especially in the hardest-hit northern areas. Israel has:
- Maintained a crippling blockade on Gaza’s borders, severely restricting aid trucks, despite orders from the International Court of Justice (above) to facilitate humanitarian assistance.
- Enabled Israeli settler groups to stage protests blocking aid deliveries, with individuals like the extremist American-Israeli Andy Green taking a leading role.
- Systematically destroyed water, power, communications, and transportation infrastructure essential for aid distribution.
In addition, Israel has also assassinated more than 70 members of Gaza’s popular and tribal committees formed to help secure and distribute aid, including police officials and community leaders. Just three days ago, the committees announced they could no longer assist with food delivery due to the ongoing killings.
READ MORE: Scotland has taken a stand on Israel. How many will die before the UK does?
Israel is deliberately using starvation and aid obstruction as weapons of war in an apparent effort to force Palestinians to abandon their homes in northern Gaza – a grave violation of international law.
The UN reports that more than 1.1 million Palestinians in Gaza face severe food insecurity, with acute child malnutrition and multiple starvation deaths, overwhelmingly concentrated in the north.
The Israeli assault on Al-Shifa Hospital (above) left it severely damaged with hundreds of patients and staff killed. This attack on a protected medical facility was a grave violation of US and international law and has further crippled Gaza’s already overstretched healthcare system in the face of widespread malnutrition and a public health catastrophe. But let’s not kid ourselves. Israel has blockaded Gaza for 16 years, hoping to make life so unbearable that the people would leave and the prime real estate would become available to Jewish settlers.
B McKenna
Dumbarton
YOU have to have been living under a rock these past six months if you do not know that Israel is an out-of-control rogue state. It has murdered tens of thousands of civilians while flouting international humanitarian law and two orders from the world’s highest court to stop the genocide.
Now it’s trying to rope the US into a wider regional war with Iran by destroying the Iranian consulate in Damascus, which is legally owned by Iran, and killing two Iranian generals. Embassies and consulates are off-limits to attack but the US will let Israel get away with this, too.
READ MORE: A worldwide boycott of Israel is needed to stop its genocidal attacks
Israel can carry out these atrocities because it is supported politically, financially and militarily by the US as well as the UK and EU.
A leaked audio reveals that the UK Government’s own lawyers have said that Israel has breached international law and the UK must cease all arms sales to the country without delay but the UK is refusing to make this public. In addition, more than 600 UK lawyers have publicly warned the UK Government that it’s breaking international law by continuing to arm Israel.
But don’t expect this to change anything. BAE Systems is doing awfully well and the English Conservative and Labour parties are loathe to bite one of the hands that feeds it.
Scots need to realise that their international voice will never be heard inside this venal union.
Leah Gunn Barrett
Edinburgh
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