I suspect that we have become somewhat immune to the attrocities that Israel has inflicted on Palestine. Day after day news of innocent men women and children being killed, hospitals devastated, and the delivery of aid intentionally frustrated have dulled the shock caused previously.
But news of the killing of international aid workers has spiked international disapproval. The people killed included an Australian, three Britons, a North American, a Palestinian and a Pole all of who were workers for the World Central Kitchen. They were killed by deliberate decisions to target them despite their having previously obtained IDF approval and travelling in a supposed safe zone.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has described the event as unintended and tragic. This is a novel use of the word unintended because it is exceptionally clear that the deaths occurred because of deliberate actions taken by Israeli military forces.
There has been a butt covering investigation into the incident. Two officers have been sacked and three others reprimanded. I am not sure this is comforting for the families of those who died.
There are reports that Israel is using Artificial Intelligence to gather data and filter targets. There is clearly this monstrous war machine that is systematically devastating Gaza. A mininimum of 30,000 Palestinians, many of them women and children, have been killed. And large parts of Gaza has been levelled or severely damaged, including most of its hospitals.
Is it any wonder that such a cruel indiscriminate attack machine should have killed so many including those tasked with trying to stop Palestinians from starving to death?
US President Joe Biden has finally picked up the phone and had a grumpy call with Netanyahu and told him to protect civilians or else. This call should have occurred 30,000 Palestinian deaths ago.
The simple solution is to stop the flow of arms. But there seems to be little chance of this happening, especially when you think that UK Labour still officially opposes the halting of the sale of arms to Israel.
The potentially even more dramatic event has become lost somewhat in news cycles. But it involved the bombing of the Iranian Embassy in Damascus. It is one thing to target missiles on a foreign capital and to kill civilians. That the target was the Embassy of a third nation which was also not at war with Israel makes this much worse.
After all Embassies are meant to be sacrosanct. And one missile strike potentially starting wars with two different nations is not an easy thing to accomplish.
Israel has denied involvement although four unnamed Israeli officials have conceded that it was behind the attacks.
The middle east feels like a tinder box. Unless Israel is stopped this will only get worse.
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