RNA - Despite mounting concerns from the international community - including Israeli-American actress Natalie Portman - Israeli soldiers reportedly killed at least four Palestinians and injured hundreds on Friday alone as the March of Great Return continued for the fourth straight week in Gaza.
Snipers with the Israeli forces are still shooting Palestinians who are protesting Israeli occupation at the fenced border, even as human rights advocates worldwide have denounced Israel's "horrifying use of live ammunition against unarmed protesters." The Gaza Health Ministry says 729 Palestinians were wounded Friday - more than 150 of them by live fire!
Where is international conscience and UN investigation when the Zionist regime itself admits its shooters killed a 15-year-old Palestinian boy - bringing the death toll to 39? An investigation by human rights groups revealed on Friday that Israeli soldiers have also deployed tear gas on the family encampments that are located several hundred meters away from the border fence. They went to a peaceful demonstration in Gaza and came back with serious health issues and critical injuries – entire families, children playing, women making bread, young men playing soccer.
The Israeli violence on Friday elicited a fresh wave of concerns from human rights advocates but that was all really. Despite reiterating calls for Western governments to contact their representatives at the UN to demand action, they are all doing the opposite; either giving lip service or looking the other way, or worse blaming Palestinian families for camping along the border.
No doubt the whole saga has been a game of shame for Israel’s once die-hard supporters and fans. On Friday, a representative for Natalie Portman said in a statement: "Recent events in Israel have been extremely distressing to her and she does not feel comfortable participating in any public events in Israel, and that she cannot in good conscience move forward with the ceremony."
Strange enough, even Portman’s statement couldn’t encourage the child-killers of Israel to come to their senses. Instead, Israeli politicians are now demanding that her citizenship be revoked because “she is using her platform to shit on Israel."
Considering the above, reading the tea leaves, the one question that comes to mind is this: What next?
Well, for the start, and under the UN Charter, the Palestinians have the right to peaceful protests and the right of return to their ancestral home. The same Charter maintains that Palestinians can use peaceful protests to speak out against Israel's brutal repression.
Some might say the peaceful protests are not working as Israel and its American patrons are not allowing the Palestinians to deal with legal issues and International Law for the right of return at the International Court of Justice, and/or hold those who killed the peaceful protests to account at the Criminal Court of Justice in The Hague.
Indeed, they are right to also argue that exposed resistance on Gaza border will give the biggest violator of International Law further chance to play victim and to play a more devastating role in key affairs of Palestinians at the UN and occupied Palestine.
According to Fars News Agancy, at any rate, International Law says the criminal occupation of Palestine and the illegal blockade on Gaza should not be swept under the carpet under any circumstances. When the UN identifies crimes such as these it needs to act too, regardless of who the perpetrators are. The same law says when all else fails the long-suffering people of Palestine have every right to take up arms and fight back from both Gaza and the West Bank.
As the recent violence along the Gaza border suggests, Israel uses military force to maintain its oppression of Palestinians. It targets peaceful protesters and their families with tear gas grenades, rubber-coated bullets and live ammunition, and carries out mass arrests, house demolitions and extrajudicial executions. This brutality lies at the heart of Israel’s systematic violations of Palestinian rights, amounting to serious breaches of international law, and war crimes.
This systematic violence and destruction continues as Palestinians have been left alone, betrayed by governments even by Muslim states like Saudi Arabia. As the resistance group of Hamas and its leaders have stressed on and on, the only solution to defend the Al-Aqsa mosque and to prevent Israelis from murdering more peaceful protesters and their families is for the Gaza Strip and the West Bank residents to take up arms. The people of Palestine are pushed by the world silence, inaction and betrayal to resort to nationwide military force to defend themselves. Even the PA politicians who once pinned some dim hopes on the peace talks have now been pushed by the Israeli genocide and Donald Trump's overt support for the genocidal regime in Tel Aviv to see this naked reality.
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