Destroying a people

Destroying Palestinian society

Killing with impunity

Written by Pierre Stambul in France, 23 December 2023
Co-director of French Jewish Association for Peace (Union juive française pour la paix)
First published in French in the January 2024 Courant Alternatif (#336), which is a French monthly made by Organisation Communiste Libertaire (France)

These lines are written on December 23 2023, when the threshold of 30,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza was crossed. We are witnessing a war of annihilation against the Palestinian people. Enjoying total impunity granted by Western leaders and protected by Joe Biden’s veto, the occupier no longer even pretends to want to annihilate Hamas.

Turning Gaza into a heap of ruins

One by one, the hospitals in Gaza can no longer function. Mohammad Abou Salmiya, director of Al Shifa Hospital, was arrested. The famous Hamas « tunnels » under the hospital turned out to be as credible as Saddam Hussein’s « weapons of mass destruction, » which served as a « pretext » for the destruction of Iraq. The Palestinian Red Crescent, whose teams remained in the north amid the rubble, was also attacked.

The occupier chooses its victims using artificial intelligence. Poet Refaat Alareer was killed on December 6 with part of his family. His last verses were prophetic: « If I were to die, let it bring hope, let it be a tale. » In Gaza, poets are killed, in Jenin, the Theater of Freedom’s management is arrested. Since Palestinians are « human animals » as Israeli Minister Yoav Galant explained, their intellectuals are inevitably terrorists.

Witnesses to the ongoing genocide are inconvenient. On December 15, the occupier killed Samir Abu Daqqa, who worked for Al Jazeera. Sixty-six (66) journalists have been killed in Gaza since October 7th. Strangely, Reporters Without Borders only counted 13.

One of the churches in Gaza was also bombed. Among the victims were worshipers and refugees. The Pope was « troubled ».

Since the beginning of the Israeli attack, the French Cultural Institute in Gaza has been bombed. One hundred twelve (112) French or dual nationals were able to leave Gaza before November 14^th. However Palestinian employees of the French Consulate were not allowed to leave. One of them was killed in Rafah. France (weakly) protested. 90% of the population has left their homes and 70% of the infrastructure is destroyed. Israel systematically bombs the places where its army had ordered the population of Gaza to take refuge. This is the case in the two large southern cities: Khan Younis and Rafah.

Agricultural land has been ravaged and equipment destroyed. In the port of Gaza, there are only 7 boats left. There were 96 before the war.

Here is the testimony of a resident of Nuseirat

« The occupying army is in Khan Younis. The soldiers ask the population to move to Rafah.

But people don’t want to: they know there is no more shelter, they will be outdoors, and completely at the mercy of the mini-helicopters which I will talk about below. So they try to move back to Deir-al-Balah and Nuseirat, and so there, the number of displaced people, already aberrant, is constantly increasing. I

sraeli army surveillance is carried out by many tiny helicopters: quadcopters. Of various sizes, very maneuverable, spying with cameras and photos, spotting faces, able to carry explosive charges or be equipped with automatic weapons. Just as the killing towers were, they are controlled from well-protected control centers. These devices slip up to the windows. The soldier addresses the people, gives orders, demands the opening of the windows. And documents with a live camera all movements.

Families still in Khan Younis do not want to go and settle in the rectangle, entirely naked and without any infrastructure, declared a « safe zone » by the Israeli army (this zone, Al-Mawasi, extends from the edge of the Khan Younis governorate to Rafah, along the coast, over a width of about 2 km). They fear too much that, there, they will be entirely visible, including their faces. They know quadcopters are extremely dangerous. They have been seen in action at Kamal Adwan Hospital.

These quadcopters are hundreds above the Gaza Strip. I saw about twenty flying around my house. « 

Gaza before October 7th

The media, faithful to the occupier’s discourse, relayed an image as terrible as false of Gaza. No, it is neither a population of fanatics ready to die for the cause, nor people subjected and terrorized by the dictatorship of the bearded ones. All opinions are freely heard in Gaza. You get into a shared taxi and immediately the discussion begins: « Long live Hamas. » « Down with Hamas, they are corrupt. » There are about ten political parties expressing themselves legally in Gaza, including Fatah. It is common in families to have people in different political parties. On the other hand, the Salafists who had tried to appear at the time of the cartoon affair were repressed with great violence by the Hamas government.

Civil society has a hostile attitude toward political parties. It reproaches the parties of defending their own interests and indulging in division.

Gaza is a highly educated society. There is 1% illiteracy compared to 35% in neighboring Egypt. There are 100,000 students in 6 universities and 21,000 graduates every year, while you have to pay for university and sometimes very expensive. As there is very little wage labor, graduates often accept to work for free: « we cannot let our society collapse. One day the blockade will end and as we will have experience, we will have a job« .

The great strength of Palestinian society is the hundreds of small and large associations that prevent society from collapsing. There are local associations that provide pre-school and extra-curricular education, neighborhood associations, popular committees in refugee camps, associations for psychological support (as bombings traumatize the population). There are traditions of mutual aid, relief for orphans, widows, and the wounded. There are families of prisoners. There are associations that help the maimed and the disabled (350 dead and 10,000 « limped » often amputated during the peaceful Gaza borders protests of 2018-19).

There are many women’s associations that denounce patriarchy and domestic violence. There are several sports associations, including women’s ones.

Seventy-five percent (75%) of the population are refugees (72% have the UNRWA card). In rural areas, the Mokhtars (traditional leaders) ensure social cohesion.

There are major associations, for example the PCHR (Palestinian Center for Human Rights) which lists all the violations of human rights by the occupier but also by the two rival governments. There is the UAWC (Union of Agricultural Work Committees) or the PARC (Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees) which ensures the transition between poor peasants and the population.

Can Gaza society disintegrate?

So far, after each wave of bombings, farmers put their fields back into production, rebuild their greenhouses and chicken farms. Unconfiscated fishing boats return to the sea. And the population returns to craftsmanship, trade, and educating children.

But this time, the destruction is irreparable. Famine sets in. The population of the north left without warm clothes, without equipment.

The testimonies we receive are very worrying: « When aid trucks are on the move, they can be attacked, and their cargo stolen. In Deir-el-Balah, the police, having taken place in a truck, opened fire and killed the thieves. It must be understood that there are thousands and thousands of hungry families. Road cutters resell the loot at 200% of the price… Understand that we are in a famine situation.

Powerful families, relying on 2000, 3000 people, organize themselves into mafias. The police cannot control the whole. In Deir-al-Balah, the police entered a shelter school and came out with many people arrested.

Netanyahu said it: we will bring the Gazans to eat each other. « 

How to resist?

In Nuseirat, in the center of the Gaza Strip, the house of the French Jewish Association for Peace (Union juive française pour la paix) correspondent in Gaza has become the refuge of hundreds of people, driven out by the destruction of their homes or buildings. The money sent made it possible to buy tents, warm clothes, children’s shoes, blankets. A collective canteen could be organized. A bakery was planned. Nylon had to be found to protect against moisture, some jerrycans of water and a truck of rice was needed. This whole business was interrupted on December 22nd. The Israeli army ordered all these refugees to leave. For where? For now, our correspondent was able to go to his daughter’s house. For how long? It’s raining and it’s cold in Gaza.

Another team of the Ibn Sina association had to leave the Jabalia camp (north of the Gaza Strip, everything was destroyed there) for Rafah. It was able to organize sessions of psychological assistance to children, collective meals, the arrangement of shelters. It is now busy building latrines because refugees do not have any.

And now?

History has shown (the Amerindians, the Aborigines, …) that peoples can be defeated and reduced to situations where they are no longer in a position to claim their rights.

So far, the Palestinians have benefited from the fact that their society has not collapsed, that they are as numerous as the Israelis between the sea and the Jordan. And they hoped that the solidarity movement would be strong enough to force complicit governments to sanction the occupier.

The fascists in power in Israel are determined to provoke a new Nakba, a new ethnic cleansing. The destruction of Gaza is accompanied by a generalized attack by settlers and the army against the West Bank. Thousands of deaths don’t matter to them.

It doesn’t matter that the Palestinians have sworn they would not leave, as was done in 1948. It doesn’t matter that no country is willing to welcome new refugees.

By totally destroying Gaza, by spreading terror in the West Bank, they « overturn the table ». Zionists have always had two priorities: maximum territories and an ethnically pure state. Gaza has gone back 75 years with hundreds of thousands of people outside or under tents and social ties destroyed.

A majority part of the planet disapproves. But those with military or financial power let it happen.

Arab countries do not use either the diplomatic weapon or the oil weapon.

In Israel, there is no rupture of the home front in sight. There are the families of Israelis held in Gaza who protest. But they have no way of imposing a halt to the killing. Television regularly gives voice to people who burst out laughing about the deaths in Gaza and who have « integrated » the fact that babies are also targets to be destroyed. After Yoav Galant (« the Palestinians are human animals »), the deputy mayor of Jerusalem went further by proposing to « bury alive » the Palestinians. Without sanctions, there is nothing to hope for from Israeli society.

In the world, the extreme right, in full ascension, has found in Israel a model. Biden and liberal Europe, despite their public opinion, support and protect the fascists in power in Jerusalem. Between 4000 and 5000 French people fight with impunity in the Israeli army. The support for Palestine continues to be repressed.

This support for genocide implies the definitive destruction of « human rights » as they were defined after 1945. Certainly, they have been regularly violated but the West continued to invoke them to denounce Russia, Iran, China.

The destruction of Gaza announces a generalized law of the jungle. The societies of Western countries and the Arab world now have a major responsibility. The defeat of Palestine will be our defeat too.

Pierre Stambul, December 23, 2023