Gaza seized the initiative: Might vs willpower

I write as we watch the news of Palestinian fighters from the besieged and starved Gaza Strip having crossed into Israel and taken control of military vehicles.

According to the UN, prior to the recent events, more than 200 Palestinians had been killed by Israel, almost a quarter of them children. This is in addition to the desecration of Muslim and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem and other occupied Palestinian communities.

Gaza has endured a harsh economic blockade for more than 17 years. Palestinians are lynched by the illegal colonisers in cities like Huwara and Hebron. The burning of Palestinian cars, homes and businesses, under the protection of the Israeli occupying army and with direct support from racist Israeli ministers have become daily occurrences.

Additionally, more than 5,000 Palestinians continue to languish in Israeli jails. The racist Israeli government has introduced new harsh measures, including extended isolation, limited family contact, restricted access to medical treatment, among other limitations. This does not even account for the 1,200 individuals held under administrative detention, which means imprisoned without charge or trial.

The international community’s silence has granted Israel impunity and has perpetuated the normalisation of the Israeli occupation’s apartheid, imposing a way of life that Palestinians are forced to endure and tolerate.

This background sets the stage for Palestinians to, for perhaps the first time, take the initiative and raid the posts that kept Gaza under siege for nearly two decades.

With this in mind, it is disheartening to witness the biased coverage by some networks including Fox, CNN, and MSNBC, who have all displayed their hypocritical handling of today’s events by ignoring the policies and abuses of the 75-year Israeli occupation and dispossession of Palestinian lands.

Read: Israel to continue bombing Gaza ‘even at the expense of harming its detained citizens’: Report 

They have, without hesitation, referred to the Palestinian struggle for freedom from apartheid, from blockade, from the defilement of their holy sites, destruction of their homes and the threat to their lives as “terrorist attacks”. Adding that Israelis taken as prisoners of war in the struggle are “hostages”.

Meanwhile, the same media industrial complex never ascribed the term hostage to Palestinian men, women and children kidnapped, half naked in the middle of the night from their bedrooms by the Israeli occupation army. They never referred to the 1,200 administrative detainees as hostages – even though they are held for years without charge.

This blatant double standard becomes evident when comparing the Gaza coverage with that of Ukraine. If residential towers and homes filled with sleeping families were to be targeted in Kyiv, instead of Gaza, we would undoubtedly witness relentless headlines, slow-motion replays of the implosions, and listen to lectures on “Russian brutality” against civilians. However, since it is happening in Gaza, to Palestinian victims instead of white Europeans, and the weapons destroying the towers and homes are most likely American made, it is accepted as “collateral damage” that Western media neither acknowledges nor discusses.

Israel had described its daily incursions in the West Bank camps and towns, and earlier wars on Gaza as “mowing the lawn.” The Palestinian lawn, however, has grown back stronger, resisting the Israeli lawnmower and rejecting its Palestinian Authority agents.

The Israeli prime minister’s threat of severe vengeance adds nothing new, as vengeance has been an integral part of the Zionist philosophy. Palestinians experienced this vengeance in Deir Yassin and numerous other unknown villages in 1948, during the defenseless camp massacres in Beirut in 1982, and in the continuous “lawn mowing” in Gaza and the West Bank.

Palestinians are well aware that their actions against the Israeli guard posts of the largest open-air prison might come at a significant cost. They face the greatest technology by the most rudimentary weapons system. Palestinians realise they have no match to the American supplied Israeli military might. However, the latest battle has also demonstrated the unmatched bravery of the Palestinian fighters who went fishing for Israeli soldiers hiding inside the most expensive and most sophisticated military tanks.

READ: ‘A betrayal’: Spain slams EU’s decision to freeze aid to Palestine

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.