Israel’s Attacks on the Truth-Tellers

Israeli forces have reportedly killed around 700 people in Gaza since rebooting its genocide a little over a week ago. A single day, March 18, saw more than 400 people killed. A lot of them were children.

The following day, a Bulgarian man was killed in Gaza. He was a staff member of the United Nations, and he died when an Israeli tank opened fire on a U.N. compound. U.N. officials have claimed the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) knew the premises well. Six other staff members—people from Palestine, France, Moldova, North Macedonia and the United Kingdom—were severely injured by the attack. This is not the first time Israeli forces have targeted U.N. personnel. Last year there were dozens of Israeli attacks on U.N. troops in Lebanon, one of which allegedly involved the use of the incendiary chemical white phosphorus.

As a consequence of Israel’s recent attack on the U.N. compound in Gaza, the U.N. is going to withdraw about a third of its 100 international staff members based in the enclave. This will make life even harder for the people on the ground, who are starving as a result of Israel blocking aid from entering Gaza, and it will make it harder for the U.N. to do its work.

The U.N. has been critical of Israel’s actions in Gaza since October 7, 2023. Only last week it released a report detailing over the course of 49 pages how Israeli forces have used sexual violence against both male and female Palestinians, while they have also specifically and systematically assaulted women’s healthcare. It is worth reading some of the quotes the authors gathered for their report.

“I saw a pregnant woman who was shot and killed as she was approaching the hospital. She was left there bleeding. Nobody managed to rescue her as the hospital was under siege by the Israeli forces. She was found in a decomposed state about 20 days later.”

– A witness from al-Awda hospital in Gaza

“Giving birth in Gaza is like giving birth in the Middle Ages. There is no access to neonatal, prenatal or post-partum care. Basic equipment for childbirth, such as forceps, is not available, nor are crucial drugs such as hypertension medication to treat common and serious conditions such as preeclampsia. As a result, maternal morbidity, stillbirths, and miscarriages have increased.”

– Obstetrician in Gaza

“You sons of bitches, we came here to fuck you, you and your mothers, you bitches. You ugly Arab we will burn you alive you dogs.”

– Writings left by members of the Israeli Security Forces in a women’s shelter in Gaza

As Roqayah Chamseddine has written for Splinter, two journalists were slaughtered by Israeli forces in Gaza on Monday. They died within hours of one another, but the attacks on their lives were separate incidents. Their names were Mohammad Mansour and Hossam Shabat. Mansour’s wife and child were killed, too.

Mansour and Shabat have become statistics. They are, as of the time of writing, two Palestinian people out of 62,614 to be killed since October 7, 2023, at least according to the official figures. They are two slain journalists out of 208.

Before he died, Shabat wrote a message to the world. He left instructions to his colleagues that it should be released in the event of his death, which, he understood, was a highly likely outcome of this war. Shabat was 23 years old.

“I ask you now,” Shabat wrote, “do not stop speaking about Gaza. Do not let the world look away. Keep fighting, keep telling our stories—until Palestine is free.”

Israel’s barbarism is, of course, not confined to Gaza. The situation in the West Bank is getting worse, as illegal Israeli settlements have expanded, Palestinian homes have been destroyed, and refugee camps housing displaced Palestinians have been raided. Settlers are free to do violence with impunity, and, this week, one person to experience this violence was Hamdan Ballal, one of the Palestinian directors of the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land, which, fittingly, details Israeli settler violence in the West Bank.

Ballal was reportedly attacked by around 20 people wearing masks and armed with rocks, sticks and knives, before being taken away by the Israeli military. According to a post on X by his co-director Yuval Abraham, he spent the night handcuffed in a military base, where he was beaten. He was released the following day.

These stories of terrible violence from this past week—the killing of two more journalists; the killing of a U.N. staff member; and the beating and detainment of an Oscar-winning documentarian—share something in common. They are attacks on people who tell the truth about Israel’s crimes. While enjoying a large degree of impunity on the world stage, Israel would, nonetheless, prefer for its atrocities to remain hidden to the greatest possible extent. So international media outlets are blocked from entering Gaza, and the journalists, U.N. personnel and filmmakers that are in the Occupied Territories are targeted.

But, despite the violence, intimidation and murder, there will always be people telling the truth about what is happening to the Palestinians. The rest of us, taking heed of Hossam Shabat, must listen to them. We must not look away.