Palestinian officials are accusing Israeli forces of carrying out “execution-style” killings in Gaza after the discovery of a mass grave containing at least 30 decomposing bodies. Some of the victims were blindfolded with their hands tied behind their backs with zip ties. The bodies were found on the grounds of a school in Beit Lahia. Al Jazeera spoke to one man who helped discover the bodies.
Palestinian man: “Inside the schoolyard, we were shocked to find the dead bodies. Those are Palestinian civilians, blindfolded and handcuffed at the back. The dead bodies were kept inside black plastic bags.”
The discovery of the mass grave comes as the death toll in Gaza has topped 27,000. At least another 66,000 have been injured. The group Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor is now estimating that more than 25,000 Palestinian children have lost one or both parents in Gaza over the past four months.
If you are asking for a devil’s advocate argument, we could start with the fact that the Jews weren’t exactly known for detaining, torturing, and mass executing their own.
Hamas in 2014 allegedly tortured and killed 23 Palestinians under the cover of the Gaza conflict then by Amnesty.
That’s not the only time they’ve executed Palestinians for alleged “collaboration.”
You also have the fact that the Jews didn’t torture and kill hundreds of German civilians including women and infants to kick off a retaliation.
While I think Likud show a disguising disregard for civilian life and suspect a number of their party would like to carry out a one sided genocide, I also think the “it’s the same thing as the Holocaust” is a pretty gross statement.
It’s also probably prudent to not jump to conclusions in what’s actually taking place during the fog of war. I strongly suspect Israel is committing war crimes under the current administration, but I also remember the 2008 Goldstone report where they were accused of doing so after not participating in the process at all and then years later the person spearheading that inquiry said that had they known at the time the information they learned since, they would have had a different position towards the Israeli operations.
Time has a way of revealing a lot of details that are lost in the moment, there’s probably unprecedented propaganda on both sides of this conflict, and while we should err on the side of humanitarian concerns in directing foreign policy and negotiations, the process of investigating allegations is extremely important.
But to be frank, the knee jerk “this is identical to Nazi Germany killing the Jews” is ignorant as shit. You can’t just ignore the existence of Hamas and the fact it controls the region with its own war crimes (which, as has been the case for ISIS/ISIL and al-Queda, are often directed at their own dissidents with greater scope and violence than foreigners).