I CAME ACROSS
THIS PHOTO earlier this month as I was reading the news and, at first glance, I didn't understand what I was looking at. I thought it was a swarm of bees, tiny
little things, insects all bunched together. Of course, a moment later I realized it was a photo of
a crowd taken by an overhead drone. How many? Several hundred, certainly.
Where? Northern Gaza. What are they doing? They
are being forced to leave their homes. Why? That’s the
sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, but the answer is simple enough: Their
community is being ethnically cleansed by the Israeli Defense Force (IDF), compelling
the inhabitants to march into the southern half of the Palestinian enclave.
Again, why? So that Israel can take Palestinian land north of the new Netzarim Corridor which bisects Gaza. Then the Israelis will create new
settlements in northern Gaza.*
NOTE: In the
photo above, the crowd of Palestinians thins out into a single line. It’s obvious
they are coming to some sort of bottleneck in the roadway or, more likely, it’s
a checkpoint they must pass through to continue their journey. It’s not clear from this photo--which crops out most of an Israeli tank or armored vehicle of
some sort stationed at the bottleneck--just what the IDF doing, but I think its probable they are taking biometric scans of each
Palestinian as they pass through the choke-point. It’s done in case anyone attempts to return to
their home in northern Gaza. Then they can be more easily located and pursued
as an insurgent, and shot on sight. Once Palestinians leave their homes and neighbourhoods they will never be allowed to return.
THE IDF PHOTOGRAPH THEM for their facial recognition archives and take biometrics like fingerprints,
perhaps even iris scans. This high-tech cataloguing of Palestinians has
another purpose. Corporations and governments are wont to ‘field test’ their
latest software or gadget or bomb in real-world conflict zones like Gaza or
Ukraine. The bloody genocide in Gaza is where new weapons and strategies are
put to the test to rate their efficacy, and to find out whether they can be used
in other conflicts or be sold to foreign militaries and intelligence services. For
example, two conflict software programs called “Lavender” and “Where’s Daddy”1
are used extensively by the IDF to collate information from cell
phones, drone footage, and other data points, after which their AIs generate who
are likely to be Hamas operatives in order to provide the IDF with a database of
Palestinian targets to be killed. The programs' results are AI generated
with tens of thousands of Palestinians put on the suspect list. But there is no
guarantee the AI accurately distinguishes between civilians and militia
members. Its results are based on machine-generated probabilities with
little human input. A militia fighter may be targeted by “Lavender” because he
follows certain daily patterns and fits the profile of an insurgent, as per the software’s
algorithmic parameters. However, a civilian having similar patterns that overlap a Hamas
fighter’s profile may fall victim to the same algorithms. Too bad, so sad, as far as the IDF and the Israeli government are concerned.
“Where’s
Daddy” is another software being tested in Gaza that predicts when Hamas
members are likely to be in their homes, and that's generally in the evening. It provides
targeting information for a missile or drone attack on the Hamas fighter's location. The fact that the Hamas fighter’s family
is likely to be killed along with “Daddy” because they, too, are also more likely to be
home in the evening is written off as collateral damage.
But the AI program, along with “Lavender”, is no-doubt being ‘battle-tested’ and will be packaged for sale to other countries’ militaries and
governments if they are not already.
Another example of a
‘teachable moment' for Israeli forces comes from its bombing campaign in Lebanon, where the IAF (Israeli Air Force), now has a better understanding of just how
many “bunker-busting” bombs it takes to level six high-rises in a city block and
penetrate sixty feet of earth to destroy an underground bunker. On September
27, in the Dahieh suburb of Beirut, the Israelis dropped between twenty and thirty 2,000-pound bombs in a
single raid to destroy an underground bunker where the Hezbollah chief,
Hassan Nasrallah, and his commanders were meeting. [There were ninety-one civilian casualties but no reported deaths in the attack.]
TO RETURN TO NORTHERN GAZA, there is a plan afoot to trial run a high-tech incarceration program designed
to turn
“the
remains of villages and neighborhoods into tiny concentration camps cut off
from their environs and surrounded and controlled by mercenaries.” (Cohen)
SO, FOR THOSE left
in northern Gaza who have not starved to death, they may have the privilege of being human guinea pigs in a social
experiment as dystopian as anything Orwell could have dreamed up. The plan is
promoted by a private military contractor, Global Delivery Company (GDS), under
the guise of distributing food aid in Gaza. What journalist Dan Cohen describes
as “electronic cantons” would be set up, with walls barricading each settlement
from its neighbour. Gazans would be free to come and go, but they must have
the correct biometric ID to receive food aid. Moti Kahana, head of GDS, disingenuously
refers to these walled ghettos as “gated communities”.😒 Kahana plans to enlist
Palestinians that have been vetted by the IDF as aid distribution workers, and to have a thousand
CIA-trained military contractors (aka “mercenaries”) to enforce order. Good luck, gentlemen, with your experiments!😣
👉So, wall off communities, then electronically monitor the people 24/7, feed and
house them to keep them pacified, and thus break the back of Hamas which can no
longer recruit from the captive population.4 At least that’s the business model. They don’t mention anything
about schools or hospitals and other necessary social services, however.
IT SOUNDS LIKE A JAIL to me with life sentences for the Palestinians. And if such a scheme works in the decimated north of Gaza,
it will be replicated throughout the Gaza Strip. Recall that Israel has recently severed its
contract with UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency), meaning the largest network
for food and humanitarian aid distribution in Gaza will soon have to leave.
Private companies like GDS are envisioned to take over food distribution in the
enclave, with either the IDF having a permanent presence in the Palestinian
territory or else troops from neighbouring Arab states will assume that role. Gaza
will once more be garrisoned, and Gazans will live in these ‘mini ghettos, monitored 24/7. What's not to like?
JUST TO RECAP and
to be clear: Israel wants ALL Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank2
to either die, leave the country or submit. Those are their only choices. The
IDF has bombed most of Gaza back to the stone age. They have made it literally unlivable,
destroying infrastructure, homes, farmland, and businesses—everything, including
hospitals, schools and mosques, that are necessary to keep a civil society functioning. Now, 100% of Gazans are dependent upon humanitarian aid from the outside. And Israel has choked off
most of that aid, while slow walking3 the rest. As for northern Gaza,
Israel has cut off all food supplies from entering, forcing people to
leave, or die of starvation. Many will leave. Many will starve. And many
will die.
Currently, the Palestinians4 south of the Netzarim Junction receive far from adequate supplies of
food, water and medical supplies and, with Israel’s demand that UNRWA end its aid distribution activities, they will soon face food
insecurity issues that could be as dire as is found in northern Gaza. And, of course,
dozens are killed daily throughout the Strip in bombing campaigns conducted
by the IAF and ground assaults by the IDF.
👉Ethnic
cleansing, genocide, collective punishment. Murder, torture, rape.
Crimes against
humanity committed by the world’s “most moral army”, led by its fanatical government
and supported by a xenophobic population. And the United States—the one
country that could bring this horror to an end by stopping arms shipments
to Israel—shamefully, continues to enable that country’s commission of war
crimes, while the rest of us, who watch and do nothing, are complicit in this
century’s first genocide.
👉Some sources estimate
the Palestinian death toll in Gaza will be
between 180,000 and 200,000 when the dust finally settles.
Good job, all!
Cheers, Jake.______________________________________
* Note: there
are valuable natural gas deposits off the coast of Gaza that Israel wants. And
recall that Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-of-a-bitch-in-law, suggested
earlier this year that Gaza has prime waterfront real estate property just
waiting to be turned into high-end condo developments. [As soon as they bury
all the rubble and desiccated remains of Palestinians crushed to death beneath
said rubble. Ed.]
1. YGTBKM! “Where’s
Daddy” is a truly sick name for software that generates death-dealing
algorithms. It reminds me of something sprung from the head of a pimply-faced, code-writing
incel living in his parent’s basement, whose only understanding of life comes from
playing Alex Mason in “Call of Duty”.
2. TRUMP, after he is inaugurated on January, 20, 2025 will likely give his imprimatur (completely illegal under
international law, BTW) for Israel's annexation of the West Bank, which is currently being debated in the Knesset. If passed by Israel's legislature in the next few weeks, this would give the green light for settlers to confiscate Palestinian land at will. Trump will likely give his 'thumbs up' for the deal, just like he did when Israel annexed the Golan Heights. After all, Trump has been bought and paid for by the ultra-Zionist, Israeli-American billionaire, Miriam Adelson. She gave his presidential campaign
100-million dollars, with some commentators suggesting that Trump's assent to incorporate the West
Bank into the state of Israel was part of the deal. So it goes.
3. RECALL that over one million Gazans were forced out of their homes in the northern third of the enclave, into crowded refugee camps in the south. Already known as "the world's largest open air prison", Gaza's 2.3-million Palestinians have been forced into an even smaller prison. Additionally, the Israelis destroyed the Rafah gate between Gaza and Egypt, which once served as the main artery for food aid to enter. Now, Israel allows only a minimum of food aid to enter Gaza via the smaller Kerem Shalom gate which it totally controls.
4. Of course, Gazans are free to leave. It's called "voluntary migration". There may be some financial assistance from the Israeli government to aid their move. But once they leave, they can never return, like millions of Palestinians in the diaspora. There are estimated six-million Palestinians living outside Palestine today.
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