The slaughter in Gaza and the crisis of Israel on its 70th anniversary
24 April 2018
The continuing massacre on the heavily militarized border dividing the Gaza Strip from Israel is a calculated and deliberate war crime carried out by the Israeli government with the backing of Washington.
The death toll among unarmed Palestinians participating in the “Great March of Return,” which began on March 30, rose to at least 40 Monday with the deaths of two demonstrators who had earlier suffered grievous gunshot wounds.
One of them, Tahrir Mahmoud Wahba, was 18 years old and deaf. He had clung to life for 10 days after being shot in the head by an Israeli sniper during the mass protest of April 13. Another youth, Abdullah Muhammad al-Shamali, 20, died late Sunday night from wounds he suffered during last Friday’s demonstration.
The latest deaths follow the fatal shooting last Friday of four Gazan demonstrators, including 14-year-old Mohammed Ibrahim Ayoub.
In addition to the dead, some 5,000 Palestinians have been wounded in the protests from live ammunition, rubber bullets and gas attacks. Of these, 1,600 have been struck down by live ammunition, many of them suffering wounds that will leave them impaired for life.
Vastly disproportionate and highly lethal violence has been unleashed against the tens of thousands of Gazans who have gathered each Friday along the Israeli border fence not because of any imminent security threat their protest poses to Israel. Rather, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have been given shoot-to-kill orders in an effort to suppress the existential challenge posed to the Zionist state by the demand the demonstrations are raising: the right—recognized under international law and affirmed by United Nations resolutions—of Palestinian refugees and…