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THE UN says there is a famine in Gaza.
Yes, the killing fields of Gaza are seeing another weapon — starvation — being deployed, because the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF), under orders from the Netanyahu government, are not content with killing 60,000 people — a figure which its own database says included, in the first phase of the war, 83 per cent unarmed civilians. If the first phase set a trend that continues, then some 50,000 innocent civilians have been killed so far.
The blockade clamped by IOF, also known as IDF (Israeli Defence Forces), has triggered a famine. Malnutrition and death stalk the Strip as the UN says that one in five households, some half a million Gaza Palestinians, are facing an acute food and nutrition deficit, and one in three children or more are acutely malnourished. Similarly, two per 10,000 people are dying daily due to malnutrition and disease. Soul-destroying numbers, you’d agree.
The web-based +972 Magazine, run by Israeli and Palestinian journalists, has published a story based on the Israeli ministry of intelligence’s database, which says that of those killed by Israel in the first phase, only 17pc are identified as Hamas militants or other combatants. The rest were unarmed civilians. This when Israel was claiming a high ‘kill ratio’ of 50pc to 60pc of militants. The report also says of those killed, 60pc were women and children.
It seems that starvation and killings are not enough to achieve the goal of total and expeditious ethnic-cleansing of Gaza. So, Nobel Peace Prize aspirant US President Donald J. Trump has greenlit Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Gaza occupation plan for which a 60,000-strong IOF force has been assembled. Reservists in multiples of that number are being recalled to duty.
There can be no doubt that the apartheid state enjoys unparalleled impunity to kill, maim and forcefully displace Palestinians.
This occupation plan and the UN designation of the situation in Gaza as a famine has stirred the conscience of ‘civilised and democratic’ Europe enough for its leaders to quickly issue perfunctory statements of disapproval — while continuing to supply the apartheid state with advanced weaponry, vital parts and other defence equipment.
There can be no doubt that the apartheid state enjoys unparalleled impunity to kill, maim and forcefully displace Palestinians not just in Gaza but also in the West Bank where settlers backed by IOF personnel have been on the rampage. The story of the Palestinians in Jerusalem is no different.
And this impunity extends to American soil too. Just Google to see how many Israeli paedophiles have been arrested by joint FBI Police and Homeland Security taskforces and then bailed out and allowed to return home. The story of the latest such incident was broken by independent journalist Shaun King on X.
Tom Alexandrovich was caught this month in a joint taskforce sting targeting paedophiles when he tried to lure a decoy underage girl for sex and used explicit language in his messages to her. A lot of reporting on the issue has been deleted by X but try and search for a video recorded by the Nevada law-enforcement officers where he is seen saying “Sorry, I didn’t mean to do anything”, in a daze, minutes after having been caught. When I checked last, it was there on the handle Ultras_antifaa on X.
While a lot of information is available online, this powerful man, who told law-enforcement officers he was in the US for meetings with the NSA and FBI, had a lot of content taken down by X and also wiped off other internet sites where the matter was being reported.
Why did he have such influence? Well, he heads the department in Israel which is behind the agency’s ‘take down’ requests to, for example, X. He is one of Netanyahu’s top aides and his social media profile says “Executive Director, Israel National Cyber Directorate, Building National Cyber Security, AI for Defence, Threat Intelligence (CTI), Aviation Security”.
King reported that taskforce officers involved in the sting operation and arrest confirmed to him that the “Trump administration personally intervened, at Israel’s request, to override US law enforcement, including their own federal agents involved in the sting, to make sure Alexandrovich got back to Israel quickly and safely”. The officers confirmed that the arrested man did not have a diplomatic visa or any kind of diplomatic immunity.
Alexandrovich’s department works in close coordination with NSO, the developer of the Pegasus spying software that governments around the world use to snoop on confidential conversations of their own citizens as well as foes. In all likelihood, the department snoops on foreign players and governments. He has also posted about making presentations to Netanyahu on projects to protect his country and undermine the adversaries.
Now imagine if the citizen of any other country was caught while attempting to lure a minor for sex. The US has cancelled the student visas and ruined the lives of a large number of foreign students for merely exercising their freedom to protest peacefully against Israeli atrocities in Gaza. It has also blocked visas to overseas students admitted to US colleges because their social media timelines show them to be critical of Israel.
And in the US, the Nevada state attorney, whose personal social media account (since deleted) had multiple posts supporting Israeli actions and the annihilation of Palestinians and the Clark County district attorney (both US-Israeli dual nationals) played their part in freeing a man charged with a serious offence that carries a jail term of up to 10 years. They happily complied with the Trump administration’s request and freed him on bail.
This story is shared here because you are unlikely to have read it on Western media, the self-proclaimed citadel of free speech. The purpose of sharing this was also to underline the sort of leverage the apartheid state has over the US. The one major consequence is the fate of Palestine and the Palestinians.
The writer is a former editor of Dawn.
Published in Dawn, August 24th, 2025
