200 days of genocide: Palestinian resistance prevails over Israeli occupation

By Iqbal Jassat 

Gaza’s killing fields, courtesy of the genocidal settler colonial regime in Tel Aviv, have now entered the 7th month, without any reprieve for the besieged territory of millions of people.

According to reports, 3,025 massacres have been perpetrated by the murderous regime between October 7, 2023, and April 23, 2024, with at least 42,510 innocent civilians mercilessly butchered, including 15,780 children, which includes those presumed dead under the rubble. 

On average, 212 people have been killed per day, incl. 79 children and 50 women, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor reported on Tuesday, marking 200 days of the no-holds-barred onslaught on Gaza.

Gaza government office also released a statement on Tuesday, sharing grim statistics of the 200 days of war. An estimated 7,000 are missing under the rubble and more than 76,000 are injured.

Most of the public infrastructure has been destroyed in the besieged strip, including 70 percent of residential properties, all universities, and 33 out of 36 hospitals. In the occupied West Bank the Israeli army and settlers have killed 486 Palestinians and injured more than 4700 in the past 200 days.

In addition, Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu's evil famine strategy has formed part of his war cabinet's tactic to starve to death millions of Palestinians.

To compound the apartheid regime's criminal conduct, the corruption-laden Netanyahu falsely implicated the UN agency for Palestinian refugees as aiding and abetting "terrorists", resulting in the suspension of funding and a halt of its humanitarian aid to Palestinian refugees. 

Sadly, baseless allegations against UNRWA saw a shameful rush by Western governments to cut $450m funding at a time when "people were dying in droves", as described by news media. 

Months later, however, the world is now told that Israeli allegations have not been proven.

An inquiry – a rigorous one - led by former French foreign minister Catherine Colonna, supported by three well-respected research institutes, concluded that there was no evidence for the claim that significant numbers of UNRWA employees have Hamas or Islamic Jihad ties.

That this decisive conclusion by the Colonna inquiry refutes Israel's false claims, it is left to be seen whether Western governments will revert to funding UNRWA, thus striking a blow to Netanyahu’s malicious war aims. Or will they continue to drag their feet, as is the case now? 

In Numbers: 200 days of Israeli genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza

Israeli genocidal war on Gaza launched on Oct. 7 last year completed 200 days on Tuesday, leaving behind a trail of death, destruction, displacement and starvation.

If they fail to recommence funding, Palestinians may not be faulted for believing that the West remains hostage to the Netanyahu regime's lies and vengeful genocide. 

Concurrently another significant report has been issued castigating Israel’s bloody assault on Gaza’s medical institutions and the denial of healthcare. The author is a South African doctor, Tlaleng Mofokeng, the UN's Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health. 

In her scathing report, Mofokeng emphasized her difficulty in gathering data on the number of people needing medical evacuation due to the destruction of civilian infrastructure.

But she has been absolutely clear that the world is witnessing “genocide” in Gaza.

"Not only is Israel causing irreparable harm against Palestinian civilians with its bombardments, but it and their allies are also knowingly and intentionally imposing famine, prolonged malnutrition, and dehydration,” she was quoted as saying.

At a press conference in Geneva, Mofokeng did not mince her words when she said that as a practicing medical doctor, she bears witness, that the very practice of medicine is under attack. 

"This has been a war on the right to health and underlying determinants of health. The healthcare infrastructure in Gaza has been completely obliterated and the right to health has been decimated at every level,” she said.

"Not only is Israel killing and causing irreparable harm against Palestinian civilians with its bombardments, it and their allies are also knowingly and intentionally imposing famine, prolonged malnutrition, and dehydration."

Interestingly, students at many US universities, including the prestigious Columbia University, have emerged as a potent force demanding an end to complicity in Israel's war on Gaza. 

They have been protesting for days on their campuses despite the heavy-handedness of US police.

Professor Sami Al-Arian's observation about these raging protests on university campuses across the country sums it up perfectly:

“What's happening across US university campuses is unprecedented. I lived four decades in the US, 28 years of which were in academic settings. During my time, it was a very challenging struggle to present an anti-Zionist narrative,” he wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

“But the passion, courage, humanity, creativity, and determination displayed these days by students across US campuses make me proud. The Zionist grip on US society is weakening and waning.”

By all accounts, it is abundantly clear that despite various attempts by the apartheid regime to garner and maintain global support for its terrorism in Gaza, it has turned out to be a dismal failure. 

Indeed, enormous resources allocated by Israel to overwhelm news coverage of the horrendous genocide from the false perspective of "Israel's right to defend itself from terrorism", has been a fundamental pillar of Netanyahu’s goal to remain in power. 

As author Ralph Nader points out, throughout history, military empires have reduced their victims, their subjugated, and their abducted to a state of “The Others.” The political and mass media institutions usually follow suit by supporting their empire’s predatory policies with slanted coverage.

Remarkable therefore that alongside the armed resistance by Palestinian freedom fighters to withstand 200 days of relentless bombings, the images of Gaza’s devastation and eyewitness accounts by medics, journalists and displaced families, have not allowed the Zionist regime to escape global outrage. 

Iqbal Jassat is an executive member of Media Review Network, Johannesburg, South Africa.

(The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of Press TV)

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