Israel has killed more than 300 people in the past week alone. A new round of ground invasion has started in northern and southern Gaza, which is targeting the rubble left by the previous aerial and ground assaults on the Gaza Strip. In this invasion of what Israel calls Operation Gideon’s Chariot, Israel tends to finish its project of annihilation of the Palestinians, while its allies are providing strategic and technical support, along with politically protecting it.
More than a year has passed since the Israeli assault started, with speculations all around the world that the heinous disregard for human life might lead to a drastic change or result at the end of the world; the latter was what I felt when my screen was lit within the middle of the night with the bomb explosions and human voices in the background.
During the same genocide, I was sitting on a chair attending a seminar on mental health awareness conducted miles away from Palestine. The speaker’s words echoed through and through when he said that every life taken in Gaza is a testament that all humanity has died with it. He ended the seminar on the lines:
“Each man’s death diminished me
For I am involved in mankind
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.”
The funeral tolling of the bell is a slow, rhythmic sound, marked by pauses, that signifies the death of a person. This toll serves as a reminder to the listener that their own life is also at stake. The bell tolls every day, many times, on our phones and digital devices, warning us that the massacre that we enable today will engulf us tomorrow. Mankind has been created in unity. Each suffering experienced by one person amplifies and impacts everyone on the planet. The butterfly effect is not only true in the case of environmental changes but also in psychological experiences.
The aggression we allow for the Palestinians is the aggression that we accept for ourselves
Today, we are scrolling through our phones and acting as spectators to the bloodshed of Palestinians. Every death, every tear shed in Palestine, diminishes all of us because we are involved in mankind. Every human, once born, becomes an inevitable part of the universe and establishes a connection with the cosmos. The disruption of this connection is the death of mankind.
Beyond statistics and numbers, the thousand Palestinians diminished to just a digit have lives, aspirations, families, and futures. I die in my relatively safe house while a body falls in Gaza because my existence is connected to the girl in Gaza who aspires to grow up and build a life which is her “inalienable right.”
Mohammed el Kurd, a Palestinian writer and poet, emphasises that the lens through which we see Palestinians is the lens through which we see ourselves. Even more, the aggression we allow for the Palestinians is the aggression that we accept for ourselves. If one tyrant remains unchecked, it emboldens all the other tyrants desiring to act in the same way. The manifestation of this concept is already clearly happening in the world.
In the Indian attacks on Pakistan, a child was the first “casualty” of war, and the response from the Indian side was that he must have been a potential terrorist. This is alarming, but not surprising because expressions like this were abundant in the Western media while justifying the deaths of Palestinian children. The world has been watching silently, some shaking their heads in disapproval, some succumbing to guilt, but none helping or moving towards protecting the children who belong to all of us, because we forget that the shrapnel and bullet pierced through the Palestinian child’s skin will reach our children too.
The complete disregard of international law is yet another precedent that Israel has set for the world. Now, a powerful entity can attack the weaker; targeting civilian sites, hospitals, schools, and universities, and labeling it the greater good. The systems that claim to uphold the values of freedom and are aimed at protecting human dignity are unable to stop a genocide unfolding in front of our eyes. If this continues, the cycle goes on. Today, it is Palestine, then Kashmir (which is currently being burned by the partner in crime of Israel), then another country, another society, and another population led to destruction.
The surveillance system practiced and perfected in the West Bank and Kashmir, was used against the Bangladeshi by their government. The Israeli drones will be used against us too, rather it has been used. One such example is the Israeli drones hovering over Pakistan.
UN reports that the blockade of Gaza is putting 14,000 babies at risk. Israel is using systemic starvation in an attempt to kill the Palestinians. The lack of basic resources is not only murder but humiliation, which is the longest-serving ideology and tactic of the Israeli authorities against Palestinians, both in the West Bank and Gaza. The aim of the Zionist entity is the complete annihilation of a population, the erasure of its DNA, and the traces of its culture. The colonial project of murder, loot, and rape is in continuation and if the people do not use their power to stop it, this cycle will go on. Today, it is the Palestinians, tomorrow, we will be the sheep at the altar.