[🇧🇩] Israel and Hamas war in Gaza-----Can Bangladesh be a peace broker?

[Saif]

Gaza children fly kites to escape horrors of offensive

Metres away from the concrete and steel fence separating the Gaza Strip from Egypt, 11-year-old Malak Ayad flies a paper kite high in the sky -- a welcome distraction from the horrors of Israeli offensive.

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Gaza children fly kites to escape horrors of offensive

Members of a Palestinian family leave Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip with personal belongings yesterday. The United States has warned Israel against expanding its military operation into Rafah, where over a million Palestinians are sheltering, without a plan to protect civilians. Photo: AFP

Metres away from the concrete and steel fence separating the Gaza Strip from Egypt, 11-year-old Malak Ayad flies a paper kite high in the sky -- a welcome distraction from the horrors of Israeli offensive.

"Every day I play with my brothers and cousins with kites next to the Egyptian border," said the Palestinian girl, displaced from Gaza City with her family to the southern city of Rafah.

"When I do, I feel free and safe," she added, gently manoeuvring her kite, which she calls "Butterfly", back and forth across the border with a white string.

Her cousins and friends run along the fence trying, in vain, to get their kites to take flight, but a loud explosion in the distance makes them stop in their tracks.

"Quickly, the (Israeli) bombardment is getting closer," said Malak's uncle Mohammed Ayad, 24, urging the children to leave the area.

Malak quickly obeys, reeling in her kite and folding it, then rushes back to a tent where her family is taking shelter in the nearby Khir area.

"Playtime is over. When air strikes begin we run back home," Malak said, trembling with fear.

Israel's campaign to destroy Hamas has killed at least 32,782 people, mostly women and children, according to the Gaza health ministry.

Malak Ayad and her family are among 1.5 million people, most of them displaced by the offensive, now living in Rafah, where Israel has vowed to carry a ground offensive as it pursues its campaign against Hamas.

Despite the offensive and the fear that grips her, Malak seems to be happy to fly her kite and dreams of life as it was before the offensive broke out on October 7.

"My kite flies to Egypt everyday while we are here trapped in Gaza," said Malak, who wears a bracelet featuring the Palestinian flag.

"I don't know when we will be able to return home," she said, adding that her mother told her that her school has been hit by the Israeli army and "destroyed".​

 

[Saif]

‘Entire families dead’

A journalist working for CNN said the scene at Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Hospital yesterday “feels like a horror movie” after Israeli forces withdrew, ending their two-week siege of the facility.

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'Entire families dead'
Journalist describes scene at Al-Shifa Hospital after Israeli troops withdraw, ending their two-week siege

A woman reacts as she stands next to a wounded Palestinian lying on a bed at Al Shifa Hospital after Israeli forces withdrew from the hospital and the area around it following a two-week operation in Gaza City yesterday. Photo: REUTERS

A journalist working for CNN said the scene at Gaza City's Al-Shifa Hospital yesterday "feels like a horror movie" after Israeli forces withdrew, ending their two-week siege of the facility.

"Bulldozers crushed bodies of people everywhere around and in the yard of the hospital," said Khader Al Za'anoun, a staffer with Wafa, the Palestinian news agency.

Al Za'anoun said people had arrived at the complex to search for missing family members.

"Many families are looking for their loved ones and cannot find them. Some of them even know they were killed but their bodies are missing," he said. "We found entire families dead and their bodies are decomposed in houses around the hospital."

Al Za'anoun said survivors at the complex were malnourished.
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People who are alive inside the hospital are suffering from starvation…​

"People who are alive inside the hospital are suffering from starvation as they were given one bottle of water a day to share for six people," he said. "I'm looking around me and I can't believe what I see."

In a statement confirming their withdrawal from the hospital, Israel's military said its troops had killed terrorists while preventing harm to civilians.

"Injured and dead bodies fill the hospital grounds," Captain Mahmoud Bassal said yesterday. "There are bodies buried in the hospital yards."

More than 30 wounded people were transported from Al-Shifa to the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital east of Gaza City, Bassal said.

Images from the area showed widespread destruction with charred and pockmarked buildings inside the complex.

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of people demonstrated in Jerusalem on Sunday evening against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government and against exemptions granted to ultra-Orthodox Jewish men from military service, in scenes reminiscent of mass street protests last year.

Protest groups organised the rally outside parliament, the Knesset, calling for a new election to replace the government, reports Reuters.

Israel's N12 News said it appeared to be the largest demonstration since the offensive began. Haaretz and Ynet news sites said it drew tens of thousands of people.

Netanyahu's cabinet has faced widespread criticism over the security failure of the Hamas attack on southern Israel.

"This government is a complete and utter failure," said 74-year-old Nurit Robinson, at the rally. "They will lead us into the abyss."

Israel's offensive in the Palestinian enclave has aggravated a longstanding source of friction in society that is also unsettling Netanyahu's coalition government - exemptions granted to ultra-Orthodox Jewish seminary students from service in the country's conscript military.

With a March 31 deadline looming for the government to come up with legislation to resolve a decades-long standoff over the issue, Netanyahu filed a last-minute application to the Supreme Court last week or a 30-day deferment.​

 

[Saif]

With the UNSC ceasefire, Israel is exposed and isolated

However, US did make it clear why Washington did not vote in favour of the affirmative resolution—because it does not provide for “condemnation of Hamas.”

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With the UNSC ceasefire, Israel is exposed and isolated

US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield raises her hand to abstain during a Security Council vote, paving the path for the first successful resolution calling for a ceasefire in the war on Gaza, at the UN Headquarters in New York on March 25, 2024. PHOTO: REUTERS

After months of relentless slaughter of Palestinians—in the worst genocide we have seen in recent history—the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution was issued demanding an immediate ceasefire without linking this to any other matter, such as the release of Israeli detainees. This resolution, which bears the number 2728, is a positive development on the US position in particular, as they prevented the issuance of a ceasefire resolution from the UNSC since the beginning of the war in Gaza using the veto. Today, the US position has changed, as it abstained from voting and spoke openly about the resolution being consistent with that of the Biden administration. They did make it clear why Washington did not vote in favour of the affirmative resolution—because it does not provide for "condemnation of Hamas." Despite some gaps in the resolution, such as providing for a ceasefire in Ramadan, it marks the beginning of a serious shift in the international position.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was angered by Washington's abstention, which shows that he is aware of the dimensions of this international shift against him. He described the US decision to abstain as "a retreat in the position of the United States," affecting military operations and influencing efforts to release the detainees, according to Netanyahu's office, which led to the decision not to send senior Israeli delegation to Washington, DC to discuss the subject of ground operation in Rafah, which would have been at the request of President Biden.

Netanyahu's stance and reaction to the US administration surprised many and was met with a lot of criticism in both Israel and the US. Some Israeli opposition leaders have accused Netanyahu of damaging the strategic relationship for personal reasons. Senior figures in the US also spoke with the Hebrew website Walla News that Netanyahu chose to create a crisis with the US for domestic political reasons. His reactions are indeed strange, especially with an ally that has provided voluminous support. Even after the resolution, the Biden administration is reportedly set to greenlight an $18 billion sale of F-15 fighter jets to Israel.
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With each day that this war drags on, Israel also loses its own international status and increasingly becomes isolated. There will come a time when Netanyahu's intelligence may betray him and he will find himself to be the biggest loser on a personal level—and that will be irreversible, causing a major defeat for Israel on the international stage.
​

But if we return to the decision, what angers Netanyahu and many Israelis is not that this resolution will be applied immediately; the US said itself that the resolution is not binding—unlike the majority of countries that consider Security Council resolutions binding and enforceable. Regardless, the resolution has opened the door to very negative changes in Israel's position in the international scene. If Israel ignores the resolution, the UNSC will return to meeting again and adopt more burdensome and more severe resolutions that may turn into a snowball. The resolution underpins Israel's international isolation and encourages many countries to take sanctions against Israel by stopping the supply of weapons and ammunition and reviewing forms of cooperation. This will undoubtedly create great international pressure on Israel, which has come on the opposite side of the international community and is now being seen as a rogue state.

The Israeli government also believes that the resolution will encourage Hamas to harden its positions and not make concessions in the negotiations. If it will receive a ceasefire free of charge, this means increasing the terms of negotiation or insisting on the demands it makes, especially ending the war, withdrawal of the Israeli military, and also facilitating the return of the displaced to their homes, and specifically, the release of thousands of prisoners and detainees. Netanyahu's position to not send the head of the National Security Council and the minister of strategic affairs to Washington, DC to discuss completion of the war means that Netanyahu does not want to coordinate with the US on the issue of Rafah and the stalled negotiations on the exchange of hostages and prisoners. This should be alarming for the Biden administration. Netanyahu's undiplomatic stance should have consequences and possibly US sanctions.

But on the other side of possibilities, Netanyahu may benefit from the escalation of the crisis with Washington and even from international pressure by marketing himself as the custodian of Israel's interests, the only one who is able to withstand international pressure, including those coming from allies and friends. However, the clash with the US administration will create a rift in the ruling coalition, where Benny Gantz, a member of the War Council and the head of the "official camp," rejects this policy. The cracks within the Israeli society will intensify the opposition and demands to overthrow his government and go to new elections urgently.

Another problem with the geo-strategic dimensions is the deepening of the rift and disagreement between the Israeli government and Jews in the US, who see Netanyahu as a threat to the idea of the "Jewish-Democratic" state, and view the alliance with the US as one of the pillars of Israel's survival, resilience, strength, and military and economic superiority.

Netanyahu can manoeuvre as an expert in crisis management, but what Israel is going through carries existential risks as it loses its war in Gaza: this large volume of killing innocents, extermination and destruction, raising the ceiling of its cruel goals, and the sheer inability to achieve them by means of war. They say Hamas is destroyed in northern Gaza, but won't let food enter the area. Israel's talking points are talking points to justify a genocide. With each day that this war drags on, Israel also loses its own international status and increasingly becomes isolated. There will come a time when Netanyahu's intelligence may betray him and he will find himself to be the biggest loser on a personal level—and that will be irreversible, causing a major defeat for Israel on the international stage. The state will lose that false aura woven by the Zionist and Western propaganda that portrays Israel as an oasis of democracy, Western norms and values. This process has already begun among international public opinion. The genocidal war in Gaza has exposed, irrevocably, Israel and its falsity.
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[HR=3][/HR]

His Excellency Youssef SY Ramadan is the ambassador of Palestine to Bangladesh.​

 

[Saif]

Israeli offensive caused damage of $18.5bn: WB

The World Bank says the Israel-Hamas war has caused damage of around $18.5 billion to Gaza’s critical infrastructure, according to a new report published Tuesday.

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GAZA'S CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE
Israeli offensive caused damage of $18.5bn: WB

Ambulances carrying the bodies of staff members of the US-based aid group World Central Kitchen, arrive at the Rafah crossing with Egypt in the southern Gaza Strip yesterday, two days after a convoy of the NGO was hit in an Israeli strike. Israel's armed forces chief Herzi Halevi called the attack a "grave mistake", which he blamed on night-time "misidentification". Photo: AFP

The World Bank says the Israel-Hamas war has caused damage of around $18.5 billion to Gaza's critical infrastructure, according to a new report published Tuesday.

This is equivalent to 97 percent of the combined economic output of the West Bank and Gaza in 2022, the World Bank said in its interim damage assessment, which covers the period between the onset of the conflict on October 7 and the end of January.

The report, produced with the United Nations and the European Union, found structural damage affected "every sector of the economy," with more than 70 percent of the estimated costs due to the destruction of housing.

Israel's military has killed at least 32,975 people, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.

The Israeli military's heavy aerial bombardment in the aftermath of the attack, and its ongoing ground operations inside Gaza, have reduced many areas of the territory to rubble, creating an estimated 26 million tons of debris.
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An estimated 84pc of Gaza's health facilities have been damaged or destroyed: report​

"For several sectors, the rate of damage appears to be leveling off as few assets remain intact," the Bank said.

Beyond the structural damage, the report also found that more than half of Gaza's population were on the brink of famine, with the whole population "experiencing acute food insecurity and malnutrition."

An estimated 84 percent of Gaza's health facilities have been damaged or destroyed, while three quarters of the population have been displaced by the fighting, leaving more than a million people without homes.

The report, created using remote data collection sources, found that Gaza's water and sanitation system had "nearly collapsed," and was delivering less than 5 percent of its pre-war output.

100 percent of Gaza's children were out of school due to the collapse of the education system, while 92 percent of its primary roads were either destroyed or damaged, according to the World Bank.

The report called for "an increase in humanitarian assistance, food aid and food production; the provision of shelter and rapid, cost-effective, and scalable housing solutions for displaced people; and the resumption of essential services."​

 

[Saif]

Israel announces opening of aid routes into Gaza

The move comes hours after the United States warned of a sharp shift in its policy over the Gaza war

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Israel announces opening of aid routes into Gaza

The move comes hours after the United States warned of a sharp shift in its policy over the Gaza war

Photo: AFP People wave Palestinian flags as they protest in support of Palestinians amid the ongoing war between Israel and the militant Hamas group in the Gaza Strip, outside an event attended by the US vice president on April 4, 2024, in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Israel announced on Friday that it would allow "temporary" aid deliveries into famine-threatened northern Gaza, hours after the United States warned of a sharp shift in its policy over the Gaza war.

In a tense, 30-minute phone call on Thursday, US President Joe Biden told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that US policy on Israel was dependent on the protection of civilians and aid workers in Gaza, the first hint of possible conditions to Washington's military support.

Just hours later, in the middle of the night in Jerusalem, Israel announced it would open more aid routes into blockaded Gaza.

Israel's war cabinet authorised "temporary" aid deliveries via the Ashdod Port and the Erez land crossing, as well as increased deliveries from neighbouring Jordan at the Kerem Shalom crossing, Netanyahu's office said.

The White House quickly welcomed the moves -- calling them "at the president's request" -- and saying they "must now be fully and rapidly implemented".

Israel has come under mounting international pressure over the toll inflicted by its six-month war on Hamas, and drawn increasingly tough rebuke from main backer Washington.

Since the October 7 attacks that launched the war, Israel's retaliatory campaign has killed at least 33,037 people, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, and sparked warnings about catastrophic hunger.

Palestinians in northern Gaza have had to survive on an average of just 245 calories per day -- less than a can of beans -- since January, according to Oxfam.

Charities have repeatedly accused Israel of throttling aid and targeting convoys, with the dangerous work of trying to stem a famine underscored this week by an Israeli strike that killed seven humanitarian workers distributing food in Gaza.

"The strikes on humanitarian workers and the overall humanitarian situation are unacceptable," Biden told Netanyahu, according to a White House readout of their call.

Biden also "made clear that US policy with respect to Gaza will be determined by our assessment of Israel's immediate action" to improve the humanitarian situation.

Longtime Israel supporter Biden is facing growing pressure in an election year over his response to the Gaza war -- with allies pressing him to make the billions of dollars in military aid Washington sends dependent on Netanyahu listening to calls for restraint.

US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby acknowledged Biden's "growing frustration" with Netanyahu, but reiterated that US support for Israel's security was "ironclad".

'Concern' over Rafah plan

Netanyahu has vowed to destroy Hamas, including in Gaza's southern city of Rafah, while pledging to move more than one million civilians in the city out of harm's way first.

Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin said the deadly strike on the World Central Kitchen staff had "reinforced the expressed concern over a potential Israeli military operation in Rafah, specifically focusing on the need to ensure the evacuation of Palestinian civilians and the flow of humanitarian aid".

In a call to his Israeli counterpart Yoav Gallant, Austin also "discussed the threat posed by Iran and its proxy activities", according to the Israeli army.

Israel was blamed for an air strike on Monday on the Iranian consulate in Damascus that killed seven Revolutionary Guards, two of them generals.

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed in a social media message posted in Hebrew that "with God's help we will make the Zionists repent of their crime of aggression against the Iranian consulate in Damascus".

The Israeli military said that after a "situational assessment, it was decided to increase manpower and draft reserve soldiers".
It also said "leave will be temporarily paused for all combat units".

Netanyahu faces intense domestic pressure from the families of the Israeli hostages still held in Gaza, and from a resurgent anti-government protest movement.

War cabinet member Benny Gantz, a centrist political rival of Netanyahu, has demanded that a snap election be held in September, a call rejected by the premier's right-wing Likud party.

The bloodiest ever Gaza war began with Hamas's Hamas attack on October 7 that resulted in the deaths of 1,170 Israelis and foreigners, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Palestinian militants also took more than 250 hostages on October 7, and 130 remain in Gaza, including 34 who the army says are dead.

Amid the heightened tensions, Israeli security services said they had foiled a plot to kill the far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who heads the Jewish Power party, and to strike other targets.

'Food for our families'

In Gaza, relentless Israeli bombardment has reduced much of the territory to rubble, collapsed the hospital system and forced 2.4 million Palestinians to endure dire shortages of food, water, fuel and other basic supplies.

In Gaza City, Palestinians slept overnight near an aid delivery spot, hoping to receive a bag of flour.

"We sleep on the streets, in the cold, on the sand, enduring hardship to secure food for our families, especially our young children," one man told AFP. "I don't know what else to do or how our lives have come to this."

Medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has accused Israel of systematically destroying Gaza's healthcare system, describing scenes of carnage beyond the abilities of any hospital.

The medical charity said children were turning up at hospitals with gunshot wounds from drones, while many patients were crushed under rubble then suffering severe burns.

"No healthcare system in the world can cope with the volume and type of injuries, and the medical conditions, that we're seeing on a daily basis," said Amber Alayyan, MSF deputy programme manager for the Middle East.​

 

[Lulldapull]

Gents, the IDF is using AI to kill Palestinians on an industrial scale. I wonder how this ‘Lavender’ functions? Is it using facial recognition? Is it using behavioral data? How is AI determining who to kill?

 

[Saif]

Gaza ceasefire talks make 'significant progress': Egyptian media

Talks in Cairo aimed at brokering a truce between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip have made "significant progress", Egyptian outlet Al-Qahera reported Monday

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Gaza ceasefire talks make 'significant progress': Egyptian media

A person holds a handful of spent bullet casings above a bigger pile in Khan Yunis on April 7, 2024 after Israel pulled its ground forces out of the southern Gaza Strip, six months into the devastating war sparked by the October 7 attacks. Israel pulled all its troops out of southern Gaza on April 7, including from the city of Khan Yunis, the military and Israeli media said, after months of fierce fighting with Hamas militants left the area devastated. Photo: AFP

Talks in Cairo aimed at brokering a truce between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip have made "significant progress", Egyptian outlet Al-Qahera reported Monday.

The state-linked outlet reported "significant progress being made on several contentious points of agreement", citing a high-ranking Egyptian source.

Egypt, Qatar and key Israeli ally the United States have mediated previous rounds of negotiations, but a workable agreement to end the six-month war has remained elusive.

Al-Qahera reported that Qatari and Hamas delegations had left Cairo and were expected to return "within two days to finalise the terms of the agreement".

US and Israeli delegations were due to leave the Egyptian capital "in the next few hours" and consultations were expected to continue over the next 48 hours, the outlet added.
Hamas's unprecedented attack on October 7 resulted in the deaths of 1,170 people, mostly civilians, Israeli figures show.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants also took more than 250 Israeli and foreign hostages, 129 of whom remain in Gaza, including 34 the army says are dead.

Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed at least 33,175 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.

Israel has faced growing global opposition to the war, with the outcry intensifying following an Israeli drone strike that killed seven aid workers -- most of them Westerners -- for the US-based food charity World Central Kitchen on April 1.​

 

[Saif]

How the unjustifiable war in Gaza is justified

Propaganda in the media is a prevalent practice during war.

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How the unjustifiable war in Gaza is justified
Debunking propaganda in the Western media

People outside The New York Times building, New York, protesting against the newspaper's coverage of Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza, on December 11, 2023. FILE PHOTO: AFP

"Ramadan is the best time to kill them. They're weak and tired," said Almog Cohen, a member of the Israeli Knesset, urging Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to attack Rafah and massacre the Palestinian people. This critical statement, which shows the extent of dehumanisation, has been conspicuously absent from Western media coverage. Due to the extensive control exerted by the Zionist lobbies within the Western media, they lean towards omitting information regarding the Israelis' inhumane school of thought, and engage in corroding the image of Palestinians. This critical statement is among the numerous pieces of information withheld by Western media outlets from their wider audience. Yet, it is essential to recognise that the concealment of such news contributes to the propagation of propaganda, influencing public opinion in a misleading manner.

Disinformation, dehumanisation of victims, and protecting the perpetrators are all important processes that are used in the construction of narratives in mainstream media publications. Especially during times of war, propaganda in the media is a prevalent practice. By using the Western media as their megaphone and pawn to repeat their words, carry out their directions, and most importantly, engage in defamation, intimidation, and the embellishment of falsehoods, Western politicians have legitimised bias, as the truth.
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The persistent association of Hamas with ISIS is a part of a deliberate attempt by the Western media to depict all Palestinians as "terrorists." This narrative makes it easier for people to sympathise with Israel, and desensitises them towards Palestinians.
— Nada Yousef Ramadan​

The first type of propaganda in the genocide in Palestine is disinformation. Images of affected newborns in Gaza were released by The Times of London with the title, "Israel releases pictures of mutilated babies," to allege proof of the October 7, Hamas attacks. The Western media, far from fact-checking, parroted the Israeli propaganda, claiming the possession and verification of harrowing images of "babies" murdered by Hamas. The Times mentioned in their article, that they refuse to publish images of Israeli infants with mutilations because they were "too graphic." Later on, an investigation by Haaretz, found that no babies were beheaded during the October 7, Hamas attacks.

The media engaged in "pre-attack legitimacy," purposely broadcasting content with the intention of either convincing their audience that a certain act of assault ought to take place or assisting viewers in comprehending that an attack is on the horizon. Everything started as soon as the events of October 7th occurred, when an official US statement quickly described the Hamas attacks as an "unprovoked terrorist attack." The "unprovoked" component reverberated through the media, and was repeatedly used by politicians. Both of these combined serve to convince the audience that Hamas carried out a heinous terrorist attack, with no underlying reason other than sheer ruthlessness and inhumanity.

This "pre-attack" rhetoric prepares the audience to view the Israeli attacks in response as acts of "self-defense." In reality, the international community has been ignoring the citizens of Gaza for many years—the fact that they live in an open-air prison—and the decades-long misery that the Palestinians have been living through. Establishing pre-attack legitimacy, the second component of propaganda is essentially the process of justifying the overt and unjustifiable Israeli aggression, in a twisted way of making the attacks "acceptable" to the general public. Take for example, BBC which released information alleging that hospitals were being utilised as Hamas tunnels, the day before a hospital in Gaza was bombed.

The third phase of propaganda served to dehumanise the victims. The Western media has, for the most part, focused on the victimhood of Israelis, while entirely ignoring the Palestinian side. The bias was crystal clear, as commonly liberal magazines pursued large-scale reporting of the victims of the October 7 attacks, in abundance, while ignoring the Palestinians, who were also being killed in a genocidal campaign. Stories spotlighting the families of October 7 hostages by Hamas received unilateral attention compared to all the families whose lives were also shattered by Israel's grueling response.

In the first few months of war, it was evidently clear that this was going to be disastrous for the civilian population in Gaza; the Israeli government had cut off the Gaza Strip, which prevented the delivery of fuel, food, and water as well as the supply of electrical power. Israeli fighter jets began their bombardment of the besieged region; whole neighborhoods were soon reduced to rubble. For months, none of these received the attention of Western media outlets. On the other hand, false information—including accounts of Israeli civilians being burned and decapitated, women being raped—were spread by top politicians in the West, including the president of the US.

It would not be too far-fetched to question whether the objective of the Western media has been to liken Hamas to well-known terrorist groups, such as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The persistent association of Hamas with ISIS is a part of a deliberate attempt to depict all Palestinians as "terrorists." This narrative makes it easier for people to sympathise with Israel, and desensitises them towards Palestinians. As a result, the global society as a whole has been more bent to assume that Israel is the victim, which in return normalises the mass murder of Palestinians. Despite the historic pace with which Palestinians have been murdered, the conflict of Israel-Palestine is somehow still up for debate, due to the normalisation of genocide itself.

Protecting the perpetrators, the fourth stage of the propaganda can be witnessed in the Western media's coverage of Israeli and Palestinian lives lost in the conflict. Israelis are described as "killed," while Palestinians are said to have "died." Take for example, a headline in The New York Times: "How Gaza Civilians Have Fared After Israel Has Asked Them to Flee." The article itself, published on March 19, 2024, delved into how nearly 2 million Palestinians are facing "forced starvation" as a direct consequence of the Israeli government's actions. It is, therefore, diluted at best and dishonest at worst, to suggest that people in Gaza are "faring." The phrase, Israel "asked" them to "flee," almost criminally underplays the ground reality. It seems as though the Israeli Army are nicely asking Palestinians to evacuate, when the reality is that they are killing them wherever they themselves are telling them to go. The language itself reeks of preconceived bias and reveals the hidden propaganda that is ensconced in the Western media's coverage of the genocide.

On the other hand, due to the proliferation of social media, many users in Gaza have become "self-proclaimed journalists." In an effort to counter the false narratives and demonstrate the real horrors, Gazans have made this effort by utilising their social media accounts to broadcast real-time images, videos, first-hand accounts of those who have been injured, and stories of families who are dealing with terrible losses. Motaz Azaiza, Plestia Alaqad, Bisan Owda, and Saleh Al Jafarawi are just a few of the names that will live on in this historic moment for public service journalism.

At the end of the day, the Western media will never properly refer to what's happening as a genocide; rather, they still believe it all started on October 7, 2023. But in fact, there have been massacres in Gaza in 2021, 2018-2019, 2014, 2012, 2008-2009, the battle of the Jenin refugee camp in 2002, the massacre at the Ibrahimi mosque in 1994, the slaughter at the Al-Aqsa mosque in 1992, the massacre at Sabra and Shatila in 1982, and a lengthy list of previous assaults going back to 1948.

Despite the Western media's inclination towards aligning with Israel, countries such as Bangladesh who have shown their constant support for Palestine serve as a source of inspiration for Palestinians, bolstering their resilience and fostering optimism over the eventual liberation of Palestine. The Palestinians will forever be commemorated as the individuals who have consistently reminded the global community of their presence and unwavering determination to oppose oppression by colonialism. Palestinians will be remembered as individuals who were previously prohibited from flying their flags, which caused them to substitute watermelons instead, partly due to their remarkable resemblance to the flag. Palestinians will continue to be symbolised as the "Al-Badawi" olive tree—which is situated in Bethlehem, Palestine—which means "The Great One," and is believed to be 5,000 years old. No matter what happens, Palestinians will resist; they will remain in Gaza because Israelis are aiming to wipe out a people whose strength against oppression is as deeply ingrained as the roots of the Al-Badawi olive tree.​

[HR=3][/HR]

Nada Yousef Ramadan is pursuing International Relations at the American University in the Emirates, UAE.​