{"id":264341,"date":"2024-06-17T12:01:33","date_gmt":"2024-06-17T11:01:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=264341"},"modified":"2024-07-02T08:49:11","modified_gmt":"2024-07-02T07:49:11","slug":"the-day-the-west-defined-the-massacre-of-270-palestinians-700-wounded-as-a-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2024\/06\/the-day-the-west-defined-the-massacre-of-270-palestinians-700-wounded-as-a-success\/","title":{"rendered":"The Day the West Defined the Massacre of 270 Palestinians, 700 wounded, as a \u2018Success\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Middle East Eye – Jonathan Cook<\/p><\/div>\n

Israelis dance in the streets, the White House hails a \u2018daring\u2019 operation, Rishi Sunak expresses relief. How carnage in Gaza has become the new normal.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

12 Jun 2024<\/em> – Israel hasn\u2019t just crossed the Biden administration\u2019s pretend \u201cred lines\u201d in Gaza. With its massacre<\/a> at Nuseirat refugee camp at the weekend [8-9 Jun], Israel drove a bulldozer through them.<\/p>\n

On 8 Jun, an Israeli military operation to free four Israelis held captive by Hamas since its 7 October attack on Israel resulted in the killing<\/a> of more than 270 Palestinians, many of them women and children.<\/p>\n

The true death toll may never be known. Untold numbers of men, women and children are still under rubble from the bombardment, crushed to death, or trapped and suffocating, or expiring slowly from dehydration if they cannot be dug out in time.<\/p>\n

Many hundreds more are suffering agonising injuries \u2013 should their wounds not kill them \u2013 in a situation where there are almost no medical facilities left after Israel\u2019s destruction of hospitals and its mass kidnap of Palestinian medical personnel. Further, there are no drugs to treat the victims, given Israel\u2019s months-long imposition of an aid blockade.<\/p>\n

Israelis and American Jewish organisations \u2013 so ready to judge Palestinians for cheering attacks on Israel \u2013 celebrated the carnage<\/a> caused in freeing the Israeli captives, who could have returned home months ago had Israel been ready to agree on a ceasefire.<\/p>\n

Videos even show Israelis dancing<\/a> in the street.<\/p>\n

According to reports, the bloody Israeli operation in central Gaza may have killed three other captives<\/a>, one of them possibly an American citizen.<\/p>\n

In comments to the Haaretz newspaper published on Sunday, Louis Har, a hostage freed back in February, observed<\/a> of his own captivity: \u201cOur greatest fear was the IDF\u2019s planes and the concern that they would bomb the building we were in.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cWe weren\u2019t worried that they\u2019d [referring to Hamas] do something to us all of a sudden. We didn\u2019t object to anything. So I wasn\u2019t afraid they\u2019d kill me.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Israeli media reported Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant describing Saturday\u2019s operation<\/a> as \u201cone of the most heroic and extraordinary operations I have witnessed over the course of 47 years serving in Israel\u2019s defence establishment\u201d.<\/p>\n

The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court is currently seeking an arrest warrant for Gallant, as well as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for war crimes and crimes against humanity<\/a>. The charges include efforts to exterminate the people of Gaza through planned starvation.<\/p>\n

State terrorism<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Israel has been wrecking the established laws of war with abandon for more than eight months.<\/p>\n

At least 37,000 Palestinians are known to have been killed so far in Gaza, though Palestinian officials lost the ability to properly count the dead many weeks ago following Israel\u2019s relentless destruction of the enclave\u2019s institutions and infrastructure.<\/p>\n

Israel has additionally engineered a famine that, mostly out of view, is gradually starving Gaza\u2019s population to death.<\/p>\n

The International Court of Justice put Israel on trial for genocide back in January. Last month, it ordered an immediate halt to Israel\u2019s attack on Gaza\u2019s southern city of Rafah. Israel has responded to both judgments by intensifying its killing spree.<\/p>\n

In a further indication of Israel\u2019s sense of impunity, the rescue operation on Saturday involved yet another flagrant war crime.<\/p>\n

Israel used a humanitarian aid truck<\/a> \u2013 supposedly bringing relief to Gaza\u2019s desperate population \u2013 as cover for its military operation. In international law, that is known as the crime of perfidy.<\/p>\n

For months, Israel has been blocking aid to Gaza \u2013 part of its efforts to starve the population. It has also targeted aid workers, killing more than 250 of them since October.<\/p>\n

But more specifically, Israel is waging a war on Unrwa, claiming without evidence that the UN\u2019s main aid agency in Gaza is implicated in Hamas \u201cterror\u201d operations. It wants the UN, the international community\u2019s last lifeline in Gaza against Israel\u2019s wanton savagery, permanently gone.<\/p>\n

By hiding its own soldiers in an aid truck, Israel made a mockery of its supposed \u201cterrorism concerns\u201d by doing exactly what it accuses Hamas of.<\/p>\n

But Israel\u2019s military action also dragged the aid effort \u2013 the only way to end Gaza\u2019s famine \u2013 into the centre of the battlefield. Now Hamas has every reason to fear that aid workers are not what they seem; that they are really instruments of Israeli state terrorism.<\/p>\n

Nefarious motive<\/strong><\/h3>\n

In the circumstances, one might have assumed the Biden administration would be quick to condemn Israel\u2019s actions and distance itself from the massacre.<\/p>\n

Instead, Jake Sullivan, President Joe Biden\u2019s national security adviser, was keen to take credit for the mass carnage \u2013 or what he termed a \u201cdaring operation<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n

He admitted in an interview on Sunday that the US had offered assistance<\/a> in the rescue operation, though he refused to clarify how. Other reports noted a supporting British role, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe United States has been providing support to Israel for several months in its efforts to help identify the locations of hostages in Gaza and to support efforts to try to secure their rescue or recovery,\u201d Sullivan told CNN<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sullivan\u2019s comments fuelled existing suspicions that such assistance extends far beyond providing intelligence and a steady supply of the bombs Israel has dropped on the tiny Gaza enclave over the past few months \u2013 more than the total that hit London, Dresden and Hamburg<\/a> combined during the Second World War.<\/p>\n

A Biden official disclosed to the Axios website<\/a> that US soldiers belonging to a so-called American hostages unit had participated in the rescue operation that massacred Palestinian civilians.<\/p>\n

Additionally, footage shows<\/a> Washington\u2019s floating pier as the backdrop for helicopters involved in the attack.<\/p>\n

\n

According to Axios, citing a U.S. administration official, the American hostages unit in Israel assisted in the release of the four Israeli captives in Gaza.<\/p>\n

Footage published by an Israeli occupation soldier confirms Israel's use of the American temporary pier in central Gaza\u2026 pic.twitter.com\/GJJp1ZSA7T<\/a><\/p>\n

— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) June 8, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n