Diamonds and Cold Dust: Slaughter at Nuseirat
The ashes had barely settled on a Rafah tent camp incinerated by an Israeli airstrike before the next, gorged massacre presented itself for posterity’s gloomy archive. It was intended as a golden operation and had been months in the making. The rescue of four Israeli hostages, the killing of three others (bound to happen for the expertly inclined), and the massacre of over 274 Palestinians at the Nuseirat refugee camp were the end result.
The logistics that led to the bloodbath had been rehearsed with detail verging on the manic. Many a vengeful mind was at play. Two buildings were constructed for training purposes. Participants involved the special counter-terrorism unit Yamam, Israel’s internal security agency Shin Bet, and members of the Israeli Defence Forces. An enormous casualty rate would have already been contemplated given the remarks of IDF spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari. “We understood that in those apartments with those guards, daytime will be the ultimate surprise.”
The lies barely have time to fledge. First, the numbers. Hagari could only count “dozens”, and “knew of less than 100”. He conceded to not knowing how many of such a reduced number were civilians. Israel’s Foreign Minister, Israel Katz, was happy to soften the carnage in attacking his country’s detractors. “Only Israel’s enemies complained about the casualties of Hamas terrorists and their accomplices.”
Then came the praise, manifold, effusive. The Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant cooed with satisfaction, calling the effort “one of the most extraordinary operations”. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu merely offered the following morsel: “Israel does not surrender to terrorism.”
Furthermore, no civilian trucks, claimed the IDF, were used in the operation. Yet undercover vehicles were apparently deployed, one very much resembling those used by Israel to traffic commercial goods into Gaza; another being a white Mercedes truck packed and stacked with furniture and miscellaneous belongings typical of the dislocated and dispossessed. Disgorged from the latter, Palestinian eye-witness accounts noted men in plainclothes and some 10 heavily armed soldiers ready for mischief. The commencement of firing signalled the start of the butchery.
The UN Special Rapporteur of the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, was certain. The IDF, she stated with exasperation, had “perfidiously” hidden “in an aid truck”. This constituted “‘humanitarian camouflage’ at another level.” While expressing relief at the rescue of four hostages, the enterprise “should not have come at the expense of at least 200 Palestinians, including children, killed and over 400 injured by Israel and allegedly foreign soldiers.”
In time, it became clear that the mission, venerated for its secrecy and praised for its planning, had not caught the Hamas guards responsible for three male hostages by surprise. They duly engaged the Yamam operatives. “Immediately, it became a war zone,” reservist brigadier general Amir Avivi told The Washington Post. The Israeli air force commenced indulgent fire. Death reigned at Nuseirat for some 75 minutes, concealed by the now standard refrain by the IDF: “Aircraft struck dozens of military targets for the success of the operation.”
Other, more tormented descriptions seemed closer to the mark. The Intercept noted the observations of a Palestinian witness by the name of Suhail Mutlaq Abu Nasser. “The area turned to ashes… I couldn’t find my wife and started calling out to those around me to ensure they were still alive.” The account goes on to document the use of armed quadcopter drones, the presence of tank tracks, the hovering of Apache attack helicopters, the targeting of homes by missiles. Camp resident Anas Alayyan was also convinced that the entire military operation by Israeli forces did not fall short of a mass execution.
There is a pattern here, a murderous ratio justified by that most elastic yet horrific of reasons: self-defence. The hostage rescue will go down a treat in Israel. The names of those captured by Hamas on October 7 will be anointed in Israeli mythology: Noa Argamani, Almog Meir Jan, Andrey Kozlov, Shlomi Ziv. But at what cost to those around them?
In addition to the slaughter, some indication of the aftermath is provided by Al Jazeera. “The wounded were taken to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah, an already overwhelmed facility.” Medics are found to be in utter despair.
The scale of killing on this score also raises troubling issues with Israel’s closest ally. Despite some political grumbling in the ranks, the Biden administration remains steadfast in support. The deaths in Rafah were still excusable because, in the words of US State Department spokesperson, Matthew Miller, Israel had not engaged in “a military operation on the scale of those previous operations [in Khan Younis and in Gaza City].”
The hefty death toll of Palestinian civilians in the Nuseirat operation was of lesser concern to President Joe Biden than the welfare of Israeli hostages. Speaking in Paris, Biden welcomed “the safe rescue of four hostages that were returned to their families in Israel. We won’t stop working until all the hostages come home and a ceasefire is reached.”
The sanguinary episode at Nuseirat is hard to stomach, even by Biden’s rubbery standards. It stands to reason. The entire operation had the buttressing of what the New York Times reported to be “intelligence and other logistical support” from the United States. Two Israeli intelligence officials also confirmed that “American military officials in Israel provided some of the intelligence about the hostages rescued Saturday.” And let us not forget murderous military hardware, readily supplied from US defence companies. It follows that the lives of Israeli hostages, dubbed “diamonds” by their rescuers, are invaluable, the precious stones of Israeli-US policy. The Palestinians, on the other hand, are mere coal dust.
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8 comments
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OldWomBat
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Phil Pryor
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Terence Mills
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ajogrady
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Clakka
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Douglas Pritchard
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Bert
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David Baird
Return to home pageWhat I find confusing is that the 4 hostages released after 7 months of captivity appear to be in better physical condition than the Palestinian refugees that we routinely see in the news. This hardly squares with the narrative of Netanyahu or the IDF. Glad to see the hostages returned, but the price paid in terms of human life is incomprehensible to me. It would appear that both sides exhibit a level in inhuman barbarity that puts into question the very existence of any remaining humanity. Humanity has been trodden under foot of ideology and religion. It’s beyond depressing and soul destroying.
Zionists in and out of Israel have strongly, insolently and ultimately declared that their lives and dreams are dedicated to a dream and policy of murder and theft. Palestine had existed for centuries, and up to 1948 had as many as 22% of Jews. No Israelis today have honest paperwork to prove a direct line to ancient times, for most are surely products of conversion, with Khazar connection mainly. Only Rabin of noted zionists was born in Palestine, and the rest, at least 45 noted zionists, are foreign invaders or descendants thereupon. No-one would tolerate movement of murderous thieving action by people claiming to be Assyrians from a Nineveh connection, or Hittites, or Amorites, or Parthians. The old myths and legends exist, the superstition drives the demented on, the old stories fuel war, violence. Netanyahu is from a line of Lithuanians a few centuries back. Unfortunately, the old testament of violence and hatred is part of a christian bible, so that oddball support comes by infectious superstition. Jews were wronged, persecuted, killed, agonised over centuries, especially in old Europe. After W W 2., Europe “saw” a way to rid themselves of their old dirty “problem” and after all, the Palestinians, never considered by the treacherous British, were easy to ignore and betray, racism gone rotten and infectious. The whole run of wrongs stinks, is eternally wrong and cannot appear to be fixed, ever. A two state “solution”, never likely, remains a tiny hope.
As Dr Kampmark has noted “The rescue of four Israeli hostages, the killing of three others (bound to happen for the expertly inclined), and the massacre of over 274 Palestinians at the Nuseirat refugee camp were the end result” . Four hostages were rescued and three others killed – the media have skipped over this.
OldWomBat : the TV coverage indicates that the hostages were in an apartment, quite well furnished, certainly not in a tunnel. Hamas know that they need to keep hostages in safe and secure surrounds even when the whole city of Rafah is being bombed into oblivion.
What kind of civilised society do craven Western leaders believe in when the West believes that antisemitism is a more egregious and heinous crime against humanity and descent civilised sciety than systemic apartheid and cold calculatefed genocide and collective punishment of
unarmed innocent Palestinian people. The Palestinians did not perpetrate the Nazi German horrors of the holocaust upon the Jewish people and yet they are the ones who have paid the most inhumane, barbaric and brutally torturous price.
Zionists have trashed international laws, laws that were once respected because abiding by those laws bought justice and prosperity. There are no rules or values anymore, anarchy and nihilism will prevail.
The West’s Zionist Israel experiment has proven to be a disastrous failure on every metric. It has left the world in turmoil and ruthless lawlessness.
Zionism is a cancer on the world and is terminal for the West’s hegemony.
Yes, Phil Pryor,
Hit the nail on the head.
Following failures by Rome (I) and then Rome (II) and the Byzantines, a conspiracy fashioned by the greedy fascist British, and the mindless Christians of Western Europe from late 19thC through WWII. They and the Americans, in league with the monied and superstition peddling Jewish masters launched their capture of the Levant – a commercial / strategic blockade via a suzerain outpost of western expansionist capitalism and racial bigotry and division against the Arabs and all others in the eastern hemisphere.
Now, as the ‘West’ crumbles amidst its expansionist waste-pile of exploitation and thievery, it cannot any longer hide its lies and deceptions, nor can Israel. Its ‘rules-based-order’ is being revealed as based upon foundations of fetid and blood-thirsty farces, deviously sanitized by the putting-down of the 20thC fascists.
After the GFC and the pandemic, the fragility and corruption of the modern dominant economic systems is playing havoc in politics and the minds of ordinary folk. Yet when we need assurance schemes, so entrenched are the main ‘Western’ powers in hubris, and concealment of their history of lies and brutal coercion, that the possibility of reconstructing a universally benevolent ‘rules-based-order’ is on suicide watch. With many onlookers leaning towards resorting to closed-market nationalism, and the dire consequences of fragmentation and disorder.
Political criminality is disappearing the world up its backside. Here’s how the World Economic Forum sees the 2024 state of play, its global risks and forecast.
Its enough to give governments, politicians and diplomats a hernia. Just a few small things by which we might assess political manoeuvres, and perhaps time our escape to the hideaway in the hills.
When it comes to slapping labels on people, I would not like to make a decision of who was the real terrorist out of Hamas, and the Zionists.
But my government finds no difficulty, helped by the puppet masters in Washington (or should that be Tel Aviv?), hence my finding the distance between me, and Albo escalating on a daily basis.
Israelis rejoice over 4 released hostages. No mention is made of is it now 5 killed by friendly fire?
I have tried to say more but the inhumanity is sickening, that the death toll so far is about 150 Palestinian for each Israeli killed on October 7.
I taught History many years ago, including the unit Germany between the wars I think it was called, the Holocaust. The rhetorical question I asked my students at the end of the unit was ‘Is Israel conducting its own holocaust on the Palestinian people?’
I think today I would be accused of antisemitism for even habouting such a thought let alone asking that question.
Bert
The Zionists have now produced, among surviving Palestinians, generations of rightly embittered people, some of whom will feel they have nothing more to lose and who will seek some sort of reckoning. Phil, an excellent summation of the horrifying mess Netanyahu has wrought.