Constanty Gebert is 1 of the most active apologets of Israeli aggression in the Gaza Strip. Published in “Gazeta Wyborcza” by him under the title Gaza: Proportionality accounts and conscience accounts is simply a review of the most popular manipulations by which Israeli allies effort to justify the crimes committed by Israeli troops in the besieged Palestinian enclave.
"It is not known how many people were killed"
Gebert starts his text by saying that it is not truly possible to find how many people have been killed so far as a consequence of Israeli bombings in the Gaza Strip due to the fact that “the Gaza Ministry of wellness is controlled by Hamas and tends to inflate numbers and to indistinguish civilian and military victims of subsequent clashes." This conviction gained popularity after 27 October in its public address expressed by American president Joe Biden.
Neither Biden nor Gebert indicated any evidence of an inflating of the number of victims by Gaza officials, possibly assuming that the information about Hamas ruling there would make the reader instinctively respect the data as unreliable. However, Hamas has been in control of the Gaza Strip for more than 15 years, and in the erstwhile 4 wars with Israel, there have been no reports of situations that could undermine public assurance in the wellness ministry. The reliability of these accounts was besides confirmed by UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini.
Hamas' control of the ministry is limited. His staff consists mostly of doctors without organization affiliations, as well as persons from the Hamas-competitive Fatah group, which holds power in the West Bank. The institution liable for the administrative functioning of hospitals is the Palestinian Authority, and it, not Hamas, pays salaries to officials and doctors employed by the ministry.
In response, outraged by Biden, the staff of the Ministry of wellness of Gaza published a list of 6747 victims of Israeli bombings containing accurate information on names, names, genders and individual recognition numbers of the killed. The list extends to 212 pages.
We know that out of the 10,500 victims of Israeli attacks, 7100 were women and children, but a precise description of what part of the remaining 3400 are Hamas fighters is impossible. It could aid to let independent observers, journalists and humanitarian workers into the Gaza Strip to look into the situation on the ground. However, Israel has ruled out this anticipation from the outset, allowing only its soldiers to enter Gaza.
Would the presence of independent observers be able to change the position of Gebert and another followers of Israel? For many years, the UN, and in peculiar UNRWA, the agency liable for providing assistance to Palestinian refugees, has been under fire by criticism from the Israeli lobby, which seeks to take the credibility of these institutions due to their alleged bias and politicisation. During a fresh discussion on Al-Jazira television, the Israeli diplomat even argued that schools operating under the auspices of the UN in Gaza "teach jihad children".
UNRWA seeks to guarantee the employment of as many local specialists as possible to mitigate the effects of mass unemployment among Gaza residents. Before the war broke out, 46 percent of them had no permanent jobs. However, the fact that an organisation whose statutory intent is to supply humanitarian aid is to activate Palestinians is simply a testament to the unreliability of its (most Western) representatives.
Israel's aversion to the United Nations does not surprise us if we consider that it is simply a state that was most frequently condemned in resolutions adopted by the General Assembly in 2022. Although the UN is composed of 193 countries, more than half of the 28 resolutions afraid Israel. And this is not the latest trend.
Significantly, Gebert uses the word "start" to describe the ongoing events, suggesting that the people of Gaza, seeking refuge in schools, hospitals, churches or mosques, were fighting Israeli fighters of American production, which had so far dropped bombs on Palestinians with a full mass of nearly twice as large as those dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August 1945.
Questioning the number of victims of ongoing bombings has a circumstantial function, consistent with Israel's interests: reducing the scale of force it uses in revenge for the attack on Hamas's military wing on October 7. Convincing the public that the havoc that Israeli air strikes are causing is not as large as many human rights experts and organizations claim would let Israel to further intensify its violent military action without having to worry about criticism and expanding force from abroad.
“This is the nature of war”
Gebert argues that, although the "order of magnitude of losses cannot be undermined", they were "inevitable and completely predictable" due to the fact that fighting in an area built up naturally absorbs a large number of civilian casualties.
For example, the conflict of Grozny, during which the most intense bombing run took place in the post-war past of Europe. As a consequence of intense air strikes, 27 000 civilians were killed. The author besides points to the conflict of Mosul, giving a dubious number of civilian casualties, reaching "up to 25 thousand", although the UN speaks of 2521, and the American press agency Associated Press, which analysed the content of reports by a number of NGOs – by 9 to 11 thousand. Gebert besides omits the fact that the conflict of Grozny lasted 74 days, and the conflict of Mosul lasted 9 months and 4 days.
Only during the first phase of the attack, preceding the 27 October land invasion, the number of civilian casualties among Palestinians was over 7,000. It is now even more frightening to consider that it only covers victims that have already been found and identified, while many bodies are inactive under the rubble of collapsed buildings.
Gebert sheds crocodile tears over Palestinian victims, treating them as the inevitable price the Palestinians must bear so that Israel can rebuild its image of military power, which is expected to defend him from further attacks of the genus of October 7. To justify mass execution of civilians, the publicist uses the most common excuse of Israeli diplomacy, which is the alleged usage of them by Hamas as "living shields".
The intent of this communicative is to shift work for the deaths of defenseless people who die as a consequence of Israeli air strikes, to Hamas, who uses an extended network of underground corridors, although the law of war remains ruthless in this matter: it is the attacker's work to make efforts to minimise civilian losses.
"Yesterday Dresden, present Gaza"
Gebert points out that “no war in which they were not attacked is known, and on purpose, enemy civilians”. As an example of the losses that enemy civilians must endure in the name of historical justice, he states among others the bombings of Dresden, whose brutality is known to all reader of the canonical fresh Slaughterhouse number five by Kurt Vonnegut. The air strikes then carried out by Allied forces took the lives of a immense number of civilians, not necessarily proportional strategical successes.
It is ethically questionable to justify genocide with war crimes from the past for which no 1 has been held accountable. The fundamental problem with this analogy is, however, that Gebert, trying to convince the reader to look at the Israeli bombings in the Gaza Strip by the prism of the Allied Dresden bombings, seeks to find the Palestinians on the same side of past as the Nazis during planet War II.
This communicative aims to build the image of Palestinians as a "personalization of evil" that seeks to repeat the atrocities which the Jews experienced at the hands of the Nazis at a time erstwhile they were the most susceptible and persecuted number in Europe.
This task would consequence in a complete erosion of the world's compassion towards the Palestinians, which in turn would enable Israel to deal with them as brutally as the Israeli decision-makers will. The fact that Israel is absolutely convinced that it is participating in the Manichean minute of past proves the words of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who in his entry on the X portal convinced that the current war is “a conflict between children of light and children of darkness.”
Gebert paradoxically perceives the interior diversity of the people of Gaza, indicating that not all support Hamas. In fact, he asks if the invasion is justified in view of this fact? However, this question leads him to a completely ridiculous conclusion that only people who are equally categorically "depressing their own country for having armed forces at all" have the right to criticize the invasion.
These words are in a situation where Palestinians face specified an unimaginable cruelty that Craig Mokhiber, acting manager of the fresh York Office of the UN Commissioner for Human Rights, resigns his office in the face of his own helplessness. According to Mokhiber, events in Gaza are “manual case of genocideIt’s okay. ”
The conditions that Gebert imposes on critics of the Israeli invasion are all the more astonishing that the author of these words alone is incapable to condemn the massacre in the Jabbalia exile camp, which claimed the lives of at least 195 people (saves the scale of the massacre by writing about the "several" victims). In his opinion, the ‘insufferable court’ should talk in this case.
Israeli commanders more credible than the UN?
Gebert, who questions the credibility of the number of victims reported by the Ministry of wellness in Gaza, confirmed by the UN, does not have the slightest problem to take as a good coin the words of the Israeli army, which in the past frequently went to lies, in peculiar at the time of intensifying the conflict.
Using only the latest examples, on August 7, 2022 the Israeli military launched an air strike at the al-Falujah cemetery, belonging to the mosque at the Jabalia exile camp. As a result, 5 children aged 4 to 16 died. Fifteen-year-old Nadhmi Abu Karsz came to the cemetery that day to visit his dead mother's grave. The Israeli military blamed the Palestinian muslim Jihad attack, placing a evidence on their X (previously Twitter) evidence to allegedly prove that the Palestinian group's rocket was liable for the deaths of children.
9 days later, an Israeli soldier in an interview with the paper ‘Haarec’ admitted that Palestinian muslim Jihad was not behind this attack, and Amnesty International's study states that the organization found no evidence of any Palestinian military organization in the area of the cemetery at the time of the attack. Israel's defensive forces have not confirmed or denied that they were active in the attack.
A fewer months earlier, on May 11, 2022, the Israeli military shot down the legendary Palestinian writer Sharin Abu Akila, who reported on that day the clashes at a exile camp in Janin, North West Bank. At the time of her death, she was wearing a vest with “PRESS” and a helmet. The bullet that killed her hit the exposed part of her neck right under her ear.
Israeli troops blamed the death of a writer on Palestinian militants, as evidenced by video footage of a Palestinian shooting from behind the building's corner. The then Israeli Prime Minister, Naftali Bennett, repeated the military's words. The preliminary investigations conducted by The Washington Post, The Intercept, Haarec and the Israeli human rights organization B’tsel have shown that it is impossible for the material to depict the killer of Abu Akila, due to the fact that the place from which the Palestinian militant fires is fired is respective 100 metres distant and separated by walls and buildings from the place where the writer died.
Later investigations conducted by “Bellingcat”, “Associated Press”CNN, Al-Jazira, "The Washington Post", "The fresh York Times", an al-Hak organization in collaboration with the Forensic Architecture investigation Group, as well as the United Nations advanced Commissioner's Office on Human Rights has shown that the Israeli military stands or "with advanced probability" is behind the assassination of Sharin Abu Akila.
Two days after the execution of an Israeli journalist, police raided the ceremony conduct carrying Abu Akila's coffin. The ceremony celebrations held in East Jerusalem, where it came from, were beaten with sticks by policemen, and those carrying the coffin nearly dropped it. 33 people were injured.
Two weeks ago, on October 26, 2023, during an attack on a exile camp in Janin, the Israeli military destroyed an installation commemorating the writer they had placed at the scene of her death.
And these are just incidents from the last year. Above all, however, there should be doubts about the fact that Israeli commanders mention the findings of military intelligence. The same 1 who did not know about the coming attack a period ago, which proved to be the bloodiest day in Israel's past since the 1973 war, and present claims to be able to accurately find Hamas bases. specified a vast gap in the efficiency of intelligence activities should light a red light in the heads of observers on the ongoing events.
Hamas at the hospital, Hamas in the ambulance
Israeli troops, followed by Constanty Gebert, consistently keep that the Hamas command center is located under Al-Szifa Hospital, the largest in the Gaza Strip. The facility, which was expected to offer assistance to 700 patients, presently receives about 5,000 people. The workers, of whom 150 have already been killed, work even 72 hours a day.
Due to the overflow of the infirmary and the deficiency of equipment, medical personnel are forced to execute any of the surgery on the floor, frequently without anesthesia. The worsening sanitary conditions have led to many patients struggling with severe post-operative wound infections that endanger their lives.
As a consequence of the cut-off of the Gaza Strip from electricity by Israel, 18 of the 35 hospitals are out of use. Any further attack on al-Shirf infirmary limits the anticipation of providing assistance to another victim in a situation where another 35 wounded arrive all hr as a consequence of bombings. At the same time, 15 people lose their lives.
The real nonsubjective of the attacks on Al-Shifa infirmary is, contrary to Israel's statements, to bring about a complete collapse of the Gaza wellness system. What strategical function would be the demolition of solar panels that supply the electricity essential for the operation of the facility? A fewer days before this attack, an Israeli jet bombed an ambulance carrying seriously sick people to receive specialist assistance in Egypt. 15 people died. The Israeli army stated that this ambulance “was utilized by Hamas.”
Al-Shirf infirmary medical personnel have repeatedly demanded that independent, bystanders appear on site, who would find whether the Israeli army's claim that Hamas base was under the infirmary was true. The desperate appeal failed. Bombardment continues.
"The demolition of Hamas is simply a warrant of Israel's security"
Gebert considers that the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip, whose stated intent is to destruct Hamas, is simply a condition for Israel's lasting security, as Hamas seeks to destruct the State of Israel. But even under-regarded war watchers can easy see that, given the disproportionateity of civilian losses to those committed to Hamas, the Israeli attacks are aimed alternatively at implementing the rule of collective responsibility.
The author of this article, which portrays himself as an in-depth analyst of the region, does not seem to announcement a clear trend emerging from the past of Israel's attacks on the Gaza population.
For whenever Israel assumed attacks, the request to weaken Hamas’ military capabilities was given as a target. In the Israeli war jargon, the cyclical bombings of the besieged Palestinian enclave were over time baptized with “ lawn trim”. Their effectiveness is measured by the fact that they have always absorbed a large number of civilian casualties, and Hamas has grown stronger.
According to many experts, although the Israeli army should not have much problem defeating the Al-Kassam Brigade, or Hamas' arm, the full demolition of Hamas is virtually impossible. It's a very complex organism that, in addition to armed combat, operates in many fields of social life. To destruct him, Israel would gotta kill many hundreds of thousands of people. Not only in Gaza, but besides in the West Bank and confederate Lebanon.
However, if Hamas were to defeat in a magical way, another organizations stand in line to take over the palm of the primacy of armed resistance: Palestinian muslim Jihad, the People's Liberation Front of Palestine, the Democratic Front of the Liberation of Palestine, the Mujahedin Brigade, the People's opposition Committees and recently established groups, specified as the West Bank of the Lion Cave.
If we look at the past of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, 1 dependency should peculiarly attract our attention: as long as there is occupation, the Palestinians will proceed to effort to resist. The little effective peaceful action is, the more popular force will become.
“Peace is gone due to the fact that the Palestinians do not want it”
Gebert argues that the failure of the 2000 and 2008 peace negotiations was the consequence of Israeli peace plans being rejected by the Palestinian side, repeating the phrase popular among Israeli diplomatic representatives: "Peace is not there due to the fact that Palestinians do not want it". Unfortunately, he does not mention the reasons why Palestinians rejected Israeli demands.
In 2000, at the invitation of the then president of the United States, Bill Clinton, representatives of the Israeli government and Palestinian Authority met at Camp David, residence of the American head of state.
In order to realize the reasons for the failure of these talks, not only should we look at the proposals put forward by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who was then in office, but besides put in place a key context, namely the business of the Palestinian territories, initiated by Israel's triumph in the war of June 1967, which was written on the pages of past under the name "six-day war".
On June 5, Israeli troops attacked the military positions of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq. utilizing the component of surprise and eliminating an crucial part of the air arsenal of neighbouring arabian states, Israel took over the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Sinai Peninsula and Golan Hills in six days.
Six months later, on 22 November, the UN safety Council unanimously adopted Resolution 242 calling for Israeli forces to retreat from the territories seized during the war. Israel returned the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt, but to this day continues the illegal business of the remaining territories under global law.
The proposals made by the Israeli side in 2000 not only did not supply for Israel to comply with the content of the safety Council resolution, but expressed the anticipation that the Palestinians would accept the annexation of part of the West Bank. Israel proposed that the future Palestinian state include 73% of the West Bank and the full Gaza Strip.
23% of the occupied Palestinian territories would be under Israeli control. The area belonging to the Palestinians would yet grow to 92 percent of the occupied West Bank, but, crucially, would not include the most crucial parts of East Jerusalem, a place where the Palestinians see the capital of their future sovereign state.
Within Israel, the Al-Aksa mosque complex would be the 3rd most crucial place of worship for Muslims, after Mecca and Medina. The mosque, along with its neighbouring sanctuary called the Dome on the Rock, is simply a symbol of the top spiritual and political importance for Palestinians. Israel besides wanted them to renounce the Shay Yarahs, part of East Jerusalem, which in the course of the First Israeli-Arab War managed to defend the subordinate king of Jordan to the arabian Legion. It was 1 of the fewer arabian successes in this war.
In addition to territorial concessions, Israel refused to recognise the right of Palestinian refugees to return, which was guaranteed by Resolution 194 of the UN General Assembly. During the First Arab-Israeli War, Israel, which disembarked about 750,000 Palestinians, refuses to be responsible, standing in the position that allowing refugees to return would be dangerous for the "demographic balance" of the judaic state.
In addition, Israel demanded control of the Palestinian Air region and part of the Jordan border, the right to deploy its troops to Palestine in crisis situations, the usage of the waters of the West Bank and the right to manage water resources and the full disarmament of Palestine (except for paramilitary safety structures).
Looking at Israel’s conditions, we can realize why the author and Ghassan Kanafani, an activist of the People’s Liberation Front of Palestine, asked an Australian writer who wondered about the reasons for refusing diplomatic proposals, replied: “You don’t truly mean peace negotiations. You mean surrender, surrender."
**
Jakub Polański – translator curious in mediate east topics. He collaborated with the Polish edition of the diary “Le Monde Diplomatique”, “Theoretical Practice” and NGOs.
