Dispatch #112 White Lesbian Age 71 Considers Biden Not Convinced That Enough Palestinians Have Been Killed by Israel

Oct. 29th 2023  

981 Days Since Inauguration of First Woman Vice-President

114 Days Until the 2024 Presidential Primaries Begin 

492 Days Since Supreme Court Ruled Women Don’t Have Human Rights

At least 8,005 Palestinians – including 3,324 children -- have been killed in the Israeli carpet bombing on Gaza since October 7th according to the Gaza health ministry. Injured Palestinians number 20,242. Number of Gazans missing or who remain buried under the rubble is unknown – more than 1500 persons are reported missing.

At his 25 October press conference Biden offered these stunning and dehumanizing remarks: “I have no notion that the Palestinians are telling the truth about how many people are killed. I’m sure innocents have been killed, and it’s the price of waging a war. But I have no confidence in the number that the Palestinians are using.” As human rights observers, United Nations officials, and scholars of genocide are raising alarms about thousands of Gazans dying due to Israel’s indiscriminate and relentless bombardment, Biden’s comments reveal the pitiless quality of his feelings for the Palestinians. 

The World Has Never Cared About Gaza’s Suffering: Gaza is being obliterated, and no global power is doing anything to stop it.  www.thenation.com/article/world/the-world-has-never-cared-about-gazas-suffering/   This essay by Ahmed Nehad – freelance writer and translator living in Gaza -- was published on 27 October. Below inserted [*] show figures as of 29 October.  

Twenty days on, the Gaza Strip has borne the brunt of over 12,000 tons of explosives. This translates to an average of 33 tons of explosives for every square kilometer of Gaza since October 7.

Israel has slaughtered around 6,000 [*8,000] Palestinians, including more than 2,300 [*3,300] children, with over 1,500 [*?] people still under the rubble. It has injured more than 16,000 [*20,200] children and women and men left to teeter on the edge of life, with almost no hospitals left to seek treatment, and almost no treatments available if they do manage to get to a hospital.

Israeli bombs have demolished residential blocks, including my own. My home, like so many thousands of others, stands no more. Around 1.4 million Gazans have been displaced. Gaza is being obliterated, and no global power is doing anything to stop it.

For the past 20 days, the world has appeared fixated on one haunting question. It has seemingly resolved that the answer is to obliterate Gaza from the map. But one question lingers globally: How do we do it? How do we annihilate Gaza? No one has proposed that Gaza should not be wiped out.

Standing as the voice for my kin, comrades, and the denizens of Gaza, I table a most modest proposal: Institute a cease-fire. This isn’t a plea to end the genocide in Gaza. Instead, I present a method, more economical, less chaotic, and exponentially more effective. Cease the aerial onslaught and destruction.

We, the people of Gaza, will take it from here.

We will recover our dead from beneath the debris, knowing that even with aid, thousands more are destined to perish. Grief will consume many in the wake of lost homes, cherished memories, and shattered dreams. Epidemics of ancient diseases will claim lives amid the ruins of our graveyard of a city. Others will suffer from the aftereffects of the lethal gases and chemicals from phosphorus bombs, missiles, and other arsenals—weaponry Israel is conveniently field-testing in Gaza for its future endeavors.

Some will return to their semi-standing homes, seeking solace but finding death as the weakened structures collapse. Numerous others, surrounded by this overwhelming death, will surrender to the despair and take their own lives.

A mere handful might endure, conveniently turning into subjects of study for Western academia who seek to soothe their consciences by championing justice from the safe confines of their ivory towers, having borne witness to our annihilation.

A cease-fire. Now. Grant us the luxury of one last hug. Our end is nigh, rest assured.

‘You Think of Dying at Any Time’ Gaza residents say Israeli airstrikes come mostly without warning and hit indiscriminately, leading to the feeling that death is imminent and inevitable.  www.nytimes.com/2023/10/28/world/middleeast/gaza-israel-airstrikes-palestinians.html When they hear Israeli fighter jets overhead, some utter the Muslim proclamation of faith and give their loved ones around them what could be a farewell kiss. Children have taken to writing their names on their hands or arms, so if they are killed, their bodies will be identified and not buried in the mass graves for unidentified bodies.

Other people have posted last testaments on social media, seeking to settle any debts or unresolved disputes and asking people for forgiveness to clean the slate in case they die.

This week the U.N. secretary general, António Guterres, said the “appalling attacks by Hamas” on Israel could not justify “collective punishment of the Palestinian people,” adding that he was concerned about clear violations of international humanitarian law. “The relentless bombardment of Gaza by Israeli forces, the level of civilian casualties, and the wholesale destruction of neighborhoods continue to mount and are deeply alarming,” Mr. Guterres said. “Protecting civilians does not mean ordering more than one million people to evacuate to the south,” he added. “And then continuing to bomb the south itself.”

William Schomburg, the head of the International Commission of the Red Cross mission in Gaza, said that of all the many conflicts that Gazans have lived through, the current situation is “exponentially more difficult.”

Gazan friends and colleagues have told him that the sense of hopelessness, fear and uncertainty felt now was unparalleled.  “When this conflict ends,” he said, “those invisible wounds, those scars, the trauma that will come from this, that impacts young and old alike will tragically be felt for a very long time.”

Ms. Qarmout, the writer, said she believed Israel’s airstrikes were meant to inflict pain and take revenge on Palestinians. The smell of death hangs throughout many neighborhoods, with so many bodies under the rubble unable to be recovered. That smell itself, she said, “creates this feeling of bereavement.”

She cited a belief among some in war zones that people don’t hear the rocket that kills them. “You just explode,” she said.  “Perhaps despite all the cruelty, this is a mercy.”

“I still think that the Palestinians constitute the moral litmus test of our time.” June Jordan’s moral remonstrance, articulated more than 40 years ago, remains prescient today.