The beginning of this week’s horrors in Palestine

It’s Monday, so we have news that Israel is bombing Yemen again. In this Deutsche Welle English report, (1) Netanyahu is quoted as saying, “Whoever attacks us, we attack them. Whoever plans to attack us, we attack them.”

His actual policy is more like: When we feel like attacking somebody, we attack them.

This is reckless hubris on Israel’s part. But as long as Trump 2.0 continues to fund Israel’s wars and genocide, Israel isn’t yet experiencing the full impact of the blowback on Israel.

But Israel also found time to bomb one of the remaining functioning hospitals in Gaza, a reported here by France 24: (2)

I’m sure Israeli hasbara (information operations) would spin this by saying, look, after all this time there was still a hospital there to bomb, so that shows the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) are obviously The World’s Most Moral Army.

Middle East Eye notes, “Four journalists were killed in the attack, including Mohamed Salama, a contributor to Middle East Eye who had produced numerous video reports since the start of the Israeli genocide in Gaza in October 2023.” (3)

His most recent exclusive report exposed that the body of a 10-year-old boy- killed while trying to receive aid at the controversial Israeli- and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) - had yet to be recovered. Salama also worked with Al Jazeera.

Amira Hass warned late last week:

My friends in Gaza will likely soon be ordered to "evacuate" from their makeshift shelters and be "absorbed" into the southern part of the Gaza Strip – just as my parents were once "evacuated and absorbed": my mother to Bergen-Belsen, my father to a ghetto in Transnistria.

The army's flattened language of lies pollutes every report, every discussion. This is not my exhausted, starving friends' problem. It is ours, the Israelis'. So is the outcry of the willfully blind and hard-hearted who insist: "You should never compare."

The Minister of War, Israel Katz, made a promise, and he's keeping it: The mission of moving and transporting, concentrating and crowding, compressing and crushing hundreds of thousands more human beings into a tiny scrap of land in Gaza's south is going ahead, undeterred by protests, condemnations or historical parallels. (4)

She emphasizes that the discontent among Israelis about Netanyahu’s war polices and his drive to make Israel a straight-up authoritarian regime are not, for the most part, directly opposing the wars and genocide:

The Kaplan Street protesters have one remaining lever to derail the decisive plans of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, plans bound up in the Putin-style regime overhaul: a mass refusal to participate in these campaigns of destruction and expulsion.

And Haaretz in an editorial reports on the openly criminal rhetoric that leading officials are using:

The barbaric destruction [of the West Bank village of al-Mughayyir] was a response to an attempted terror attack near the settlement of Adei Ad, in the course of which a civilian suffered minor injuries, the army said. At the scene, IDF Central Command head Maj. Gen. Avi Bluth said every West Bank village should "know that if they commit a terror attack, they will pay a heavy price, and they will experience a curfew and siege." (5)

Collective punishment such as targeting an entire city or town in retaliation for an attack somehow associated with it is a clear war crimes. Not that Benjamin Netanyahu’s government or the US Republican Christian Zionists supporting his current policies care in the least about international law.

The general stated openly that the actions would target not the shooter, who fled, but the entire village.

Bluth went further, saying that in addition to efforts to find the shooter, the army is undertaking "shaping actions" aimed "to deter everyone, not only this village but every village that tries to raise a hand against any of the residents. The village carries out an attack. No problem. You want the spotlight, we can turn on a spotlight." This isn't about a specific incident, it's a declaration of collective punishment.[my emphasis]

This is not some drunk in a bar shooting off his mouth. It’s the general heading of IDF’s Central Command. And the editorial concludes:

Bluth is importing to the West Bank the pattern of action the IDF is employing in Gaza – flattening to the foundations. Israel is marching with its head held high to the international court in The Hague, and along the way is accusing anyone who dares point a finger at it of antisemitism.

Notes:

(1) What's driving the renewed escalation between the Houthis and Israel? DW News YouTube channel 08/25/2025. <https://youtu.be/dEaVEtJWdYw?si=KpRddIA_aIhj6KON> (Accessed: 2025-25-08).

(2) At least 20 killed, including five journalists, in Israeli strikes on Gaza's Nasser hospital. France 24 08/25/2025. <https://www.france24.com/en/middle-east/20250825-at-least-15-killed-including-four-journalists-in-israeli-strikes-on-gaza-s-nasser-hospital> Accessed: 2025-25-08).

(3) Israel bombs Khan Younis hospital, killing journalists and rescue worker. Middle East Eye 08/25/2025. <https://www.middleeasteye.net/live-blog/live-blog-update/israel-bombs-khan-younis-hospital-killing-journalists-and-rescue-worker?nid=427184&topic=Israel%2527s%2520genocide%2520in%2520Gaza&fid=547431> (Accessed: 2025-25-08).

(4) Hass, Amira (2025): Europe and Arab States Are Asleep. Soon, Anything That Moves in Gaza City Will Be Killed. Haaretz 08/228/2025. <https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2025-08-22/ty-article-opinion/.premium/europe-and-arab-states-are-asleep-soon-anything-that-moves-in-gaza-city-will-be-killed/00000198-ce07-dc9d-abd9-dfdf235f0000?gift=105876fd8aec4a6886a3295e89bf42d8> (Accessed: 2025-25-08).

(5) Uprooting Thousands of Trees in the West Bank, Israel Is Marching to The Hague With Its Head Held High. Haaretz editorial 08/25/2025. <https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/editorial/2025-08-25/ty-article-opinion/after-razing-gaza-the-idf-is-uprooting-thousands-of-trees-in-the-west-bank/00000198-ddc3-d4c6-afdf-dddf59370000> (Accessed: 2025-25-08).