Binoy Kampmark
Destroying cultures and eradicating the legacies of a people is a game the parochial and the dim-witted delight in. While this should be shunned and punished in international law, a general discomfort of purpose seems to trouble the friends of Israel as the state goes about its business of ruining what vestiges of living might exist in the Gaza Strip. As Israel’s warriors of vengeful virtue go about demolishing one of the last parts of Gaza that has any infrastructure worth mentioning, the usual ceremony of impotent effusion and concern is registered across the networks of the world.
By the end of October 2024, Corey Scher and Jamon Van Den Hoek noted that the Gaza Strip had been subjected to “one of the most intense bombing campaigns of the twenty-first century, driving widespread urban damage.” With a focus on northern Gaza, the authors noted that 191,263 (three-fifths) of all buildings were either damaged or destroyed. In such outlets of sober discernment as Lawfare, we find the authors aghast that the operations in Gaza eclipse those of more recent operations of levelling mayhem, be it the destruction of Mariupol in Ukraine, where 32 percent of the buildings were destroyed or damaged, or the Syrian town of Aleppo, an ancient city victim to a war that saw damage to 40 percent of its buildings during three years of remorseless conflict.
In language so corrupted it conveys the opposite of what is intended, Israel has again used the term “humanitarian zone” in areas it repeatedly bombs, whose residents are being consistently killed. Leaflets dropped over Gaza City on September 7 made the bold and mendacious claim: “From this moment it is announced that the al-Mawasi area is a humanitarian zone and steps will be taken to provide better humanitarian services there”. (They were evidently not up to scratch before.) The Gaza Ministry of Interior could only capitalise on this in a statement. “We call on citizens in Gaza City to beware of the occupation’s deceitful claims about the existence of a humanitarian zone in the south of the Strip.”
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