RANT: ELEPHANTS NEVER FORGET. WHY DO WE?

IN GAZA, 529 Palestinians have been killed and around 1600 wounded by IDF bombs, bullets and missiles since the October 2025 ‘ceasefire’ went into effect, which is to say we must assume the term “ceasefire” has a different meaning in Hebrew. 

SO, last December, Israel decertified 37 non-profit agencies from operating in Gaza including Oxfam, Care International, and the Norwegian Refugee Council because their paperwork wasn’t up to snuff with new regulations requiring detailed staff information be provided to uncover any Hamas operatives embedded within the various NGOs. This past Sunday, Israel banned Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) for the same reason and the organization is required to leave the enclave by the end of February. Before it would give detailed staff lists to Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs, which oversees dealings with humanitarian organizations operating in Gaza and the West Bank, MSF requested Tel Aviv provide, “secure assurances to ensure the safety of our staff or the independent management of our operations.”  Which is a reasonable enough request considering 1,700 health staff have been killed in Gaza by Israeli forces since 7 October 23. Israel refused.

 

“Humanitarian conditions remain extreme: nearly 530 people have been killed since October, basic services including food, water, shelter, healthcare, fuel, and livelihoods have been largely destroyed, and the health system is nearly non-functional, with many specialised services, such as burn care, unavailable.” (MSF)

 

    "GENOCIDE? WHAT GENOCIDE?

SINCE THE START of the genocide and ethnic cleansing that began after 7 October 2023, over 71,000 Gazans have died as a direct result of Israel’s aggression, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry figures, and more than 171,000 have been wounded. These figures do not account for deaths occurring because of degraded medical facilities, diseases from unsanitary living conditions and inadequate access to clean water, exposure to the elements (with the majority of Gaza’s 2.2 million residents displaced from their homes and forced to live in tents or out in the open), or from a lack of food. This figure also does not take into consideration the estimated 10,000 Palestinians buried beneath the rubble, their remains unrecoverable because Israel does not allow heavy earth-moving equipment into Gaza. I think a figure of well over one-hundred-thousand deaths caused by the Israeli siege and blockade is my guess, though there are some commentators who think it could be considerably higher. But a genocide is more than numbers. It's also intention--the plans made by the perpetrators against their captive population is also an indication of this ultimate war crime. It's called genocidal intent. I won’t bother quoting the hateful and and unhinged comments made by Israeli politicians since 7 October. We’ve all heard them. We know what they want to do. We know where this is going. I will remind readers that polls show a majority of Israeli Jews (almost 75%) agree with the policies of the Netanyahu government.* Unbelievable!

LAST YEAR, the world watched as hundreds of thousands of Gazans were on the brink of starvation. In July 2025, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) issued a report stating there was famine in Gaza. The IPC stated that 266 Gazans had starved to death since 7 October 2023 including over 100 children and infants, and “[n]early 55,500 malnourished pregnant and breastfeeding women require urgent help.” (care.ca)

👉BY THE SUMMER of 2025, world opinion, and in the United States as well, turned decidedly against the Netanyahu regime and its sadistic blockade of the Palestinian enclave and deliberate starvation and immiseration of its people. Israel was forced to let in more humanitarian aid and food by the fall. Recall that Israel had banned UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency) food aid activities in Gaza in January 2025, citing the UN agency harboured Hamas militants in its work force. It was a claim with little evidence provided. Recall, also, that Israel, along with its patron, the United States, set up its own aid network some month later, the short-lived Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) which failed miserably (or succeeded depending on your point of view) in delivering adequate food aid to the starving Palestinian population. The compromised, IDF-linked NGO failed so badly--some say deliberately--that PM Netanyahu was forced to open the gates and allow NGOs still on the ground access to incoming humanitarian aid. The American president Donald Trump was probably instrumental, here, in reining-in the Israelis, at least temporarily, as a condition of his so-called October 2025 ‘ceasefire’ plan. However, today there is still inadequate humanitarian aid entering Gaza with only 29,000 food and fuel trucks out of a total of 66,000 stipulated under the ceasefire agreement. Israel allows in less than half the necessary humanitarian aid to properly feed and shelter the Gazan population. Shameful! Under international law, as the occupying power, Israel is obliged to provide the necessities of life to a subject population under its jurisdiction. 

 

👉AS IT STANDS, the daily death toll in Gaza from Israeli bombs and missiles is less than before the ceasefire but they remain an all-too-frequent occurrence. Vacating Gaza of its Palestinian population is still the goal of the Israeli government and its military. They have destroyed most of the enclave’s infrastructure, and while Gaza City is relatively intact, Israel continues destruct it building by building. 

👉Since the ceasefire there has been less media attention, yet the suffering of Palestinians continues. They are now confined to over-crowded, ill-serviced conditions on about 45% of the land they once occupied.¹ IDF troops are stationed in the other half of Gaza they captured during the conflict and in all probability will never vacate. They have no ability to earn their living, to fish, farm, cultivate orchards, raise livestock or operate small businesses. They are in a ghetto, fully dependant on outside assistance and the walls are closing in. As I mentioned, humanitarian aid is far from adequate, medical services are struggling, infrastructure is triaged, and it’s only a matter of time before Israel finds an excuse to ramp up the violence. 

👉The world may be distracted by other events these days (there are so many!). But, rest assured, Israeli politicians and military planners are not.

 

“Israel has succeeded, to a dangerous degree, in systematically dehumanizing Palestinians through mass killing. Once violence reaches genocidal proportions, lesser – yet still deadly – violence becomes normalized. The slow death of survivors becomes background noise.

This is how Palestinians are killed twice: first through genocide, and then through erasure – through silence, distraction, and the gradual withdrawal of attention from their ongoing collective suffering.” (Baroud. anti-war.com)

 

  

CHEERS, JAKE. ___________________________________ 

 

* It's shocking to think that a majority of Jewish Israelis support the policies of Bibi Netanyahu's government despite the growing global oprobrium such criminal actions engender for the Levantine state. I have said before, the poll is indicitive of a psychological ill society. We've seen what happens when people see other people as  less than human.  The irony here, as many of you no doubt feel as well, is sickening.