First, some housekeeping. I’m still struggling to get the paid side of things working over at Beehiiv, so until I get that sorted I’m only going to send out the premium content via Substack. I’m hoping to have it all fixed before Thursday’s instalment of Three Days Away, but we shall see…
Not having been to Israel or Gaza I’ve used external images throughout this newsletter, all via creative commons licensing.
This week is a total departure from my usual material, in that I’m writing about a place I’ve never been, and circumstances I can’t even begin to imagine. It’s very much not travel, nor development. But I am so horrified by the headlines I woke up to this morning that I can’t keep my mouth shut.
You may have read that, among the tens of thousands of civilian deaths caused by the Israeli Defence Force in the past six months, at least seven aid workers were killed yesterday while trying to deliver aid in Gaza. The murdered were volunteers with World Central Kitchen, a truly humanitarian effort with no political ties, no historic connection to the region (ie very much not Hamas however the IDF want to spin it), a charity that has spent the last fourteen years responding to humanitarian disasters around the world, from the front lines of wars to hurricane relief.
They don’t have a horse in this particular fight, nor in any other. According to statements from WCK, the charity had coordinated their movements with the IDF, and the murdered aid workers were travelling in marked vehicles identifying them as such. As has become all too common in the past six months, an allegedly safe route for people and goods was bombed by Israel.
The IDF’s response to the attack of 7 October is, by any measure, disproportionate. That Netanyahu’s government is prioritising the destruction of Hamas over the return of the hostages says a lot. Bibi’s far-right coalition had been struggling for months in the face of ongoing protests before the war began, and while Netanyahu is hardly soaring in the polls right now he is at least hanging onto his job. (Yay for self-interest, amiright?)
But you don’t need me to tell you that. In January, the International Criminal Court ordered Israel to prevent the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, enable humanitarian assistance, and punish those perpetrating genocide. In response, Israel accused the ICC of anti-Semitism. The day after the ICC ruling, Israeli protesters blocked aid trucks from entering Gaza, while sustained bombing around the Khan Younis medical centre led to the collapse of services at Nasser Hospital.
Israel’s war on Gaza has been filled with record-breaking statistics, from the amount of bombs dropped per square metre to the highest daily death rate of any twenty-first century conflict.
Media and aid workers, usually subject to some form of protection from the fighting forces during time of war, have been consistently and directly targeted. At least 165 aid workers from UNWRA alone have been killed since 7 October. When asked for assurances that their journalists would not be targeted by airstrikes while reporting the conflict, the IDF told Reuters and AFP that they couldn’t guarantee not targeting journalists. [Note: that’s not ‘can’t guarantee unintended crossfire’, that’s ‘can’t promise we won’t hit you on purpose’.]
Is it at all surprising then that 95 journalists have been killed covering the conflict (so far)? That makes it the deadliest conflict for media since the Committee to Protect Journalists started collecting records in 1992. In case you need reminding, that means that Afghanistan, Rwanda, huge chunks of the Balkans conflict, the second Iraq invasion — all conflicts that took years — killed fewer journalists than the IDF have managed to knock off in six months.
And yes, I know I’m writing here about journalists and aid workers, and not the more than 32,000 Palestinians killed. I just can’t get my head around that scale of civilian suffering, how many people have been slaughtered and how ghastly life must be on the ground for those who remain. Partly because I am all too aware of the extent to which my own government is to blame.
With both the UK and the US facing elections this year, and with the ‘left-wing’ parties in both countries’ governments at long last waking up to the fact that their silence/complicity on Palestine is in the process of costing them serious votes, we’re finally beginning to see statements of condemnation appearing on the lips of our politicians. Which is all good and well, but have any of them considered that an easy way to end the conflict would be to cease the sale of arms to a country ordered by the International Criminal Court to stop committing genocide?
Seems like an easier place to start than peace talks, and would certainly get quicker results…
The situation is utterly sickening and soul-destroying, just despair after despair, their actions are disgusting & exploitative. It's just horrendous.
What a brave piece. A dear friend who volunteered with WCK on the Polish border with Ukraine has lost a friend in this tragedy - just an unnecessary part of the larger unnecessary and horrific Gaza tragedy.