Four Palestinian men walk through an area largely shattered by Israeli shelling in the city of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip. There is no indication that they are doing anything other than carrying weapons or putting one foot in front of the other, as humans do when moving from one place to the next.
Suddenly, there was a direct air strike on the pedestrians, killing two of the men. The third person continues walking, but is quickly blown away as well. The fourth fell to his knees and was defeated by another blow.
The episode, which reportedly took place in February, was depicted in Israeli drone footage released by Al Jazeera in March. Watching defenseless men being systematically shot down from the sky in a fanatical display of firepower brings to mind the collateral murder video released by WikiLeaks in 2010. In this video, more than a dozen Iraqi civilians are ceremoniously massacred by American soldiers in helicopters.
In the Khan Younis case, the four's “crime” that merited an immediate death sentence appears to have been their presence in one of the Israeli military's so-called “killing zones” in the Gaza Strip, the subject of recent revelations. It became. Israeli newspaper Haaretz. Although the article specifies that there is “no written order” in the Israeli military's “rulebook” governing kill zones, it is well established that they are a very real phenomenon with little systematic oversight. It is clear that “Ultimately, the boundaries of these zones and the precise operational procedures will depend on interpretation by the commander in that particular area,” the newspaper said.
Speaking to Haaretz, one Israeli reserve officer described the project as follows: …as soon as someone comes in [a zone]Orders are given to shoot people, mainly adult males, even if they are unarmed. ”
So much for the world's “most moral army.”
In other words, Palestinians can be massacred just because they happen to be in an area that has been arbitrarily designated as a “kill zone” by an Israeli commander or someone else.
And if killed in a “kill zone” they are likely to be marked as “terrorists” by Israel, which certainly plays a role in inflating the “bad guy” casualty numbers in the war at the moment. . By mid-March, more than 13,000 Palestinian children had already been killed.
Of the more than 32,000 Palestinians estimated to have been killed in Gaza over the past six months, the Israeli military claims that some 9,000 were “terrorists,” according to Haaretz. Even many military commanders have not been convinced. One of the officers who previously served in Gaza commented to the newspaper: [military] There were deaths in areas where the military operated. ”
It is not unknown that the Zionist political-military establishment uses the terms “Palestinian” and “terrorist” more or less interchangeably. In fact, 75 years of perverse propaganda have tried to convince the world that the victims of Israel's continued terrorism are actually the ones committing the terrorism.
Now victims of the “kill zone” can also become terrorists. Never mind that regarding the incident of four pedestrians in Khan Younis, a senior Israeli military official told Haaretz: The areas they were walking in did not endanger our troops. ”
The article goes on to cite the same officer's speculation that many civilians in Gaza died after entering areas that the military had apparently already abandoned, perhaps in hopes of finding leftover food. There is. They were recognized as people who could harm our troops and were shot. ”
An Israeli military spokesperson flatly denied the “kill zone” reports. Yet, at the end of the day, the Gaza Strip is literally a bloodbath zone where murder is prohibited. How else do you explain the massacres in Palestinian hospitals and UN shelters, of people waiting in line for food aid while children starve to death?
Indeed, Israel has long boasted of its ability to carry out surgically precise airstrikes and targeted killings. But even if the Israeli military's tally of 9,000 “terrorist” deaths had any basis in reality, it would not explain the more than 23,000 “collateral murders,” to use WikiLeaks' phrase. difficult.
Of course collateral has nothing to do with it, unless Israel is simply targeting civilians squarely, but after all, that's what genocide is, right?
After six months of apocalyptic war, today Gaza is a cluster of “killing zones” within a larger killing zone. And it will certainly be difficult to break Israel's current monopoly on terror as it continues its efforts to normalize total depravity.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of Al Jazeera.