Bloodshed on Palestinian Soil
About a month ago, 6 families were evicted from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah for Jewish-Israeli families to settle into. While this flooded social media and news outlets, the world saw Palestine on their screens and newspapers for the umpteenth time within 73 years.
Innocent civilians are being attacked every day in Gaza, from their homes and families being bombed to their movement limited and controlled through checkpoints. Israel also controls the water flow and electricity that reaches Palestinian territories, contaminating their water and causing extremely long load-shedding issues.
While it is understood that each religion requires a holy site, a location dedicated to practicing their religion; this idea is never meant to cause bloodshed. As agreed upon within the UN, the creation of Israel divided Palestinian soil to share with Israeli settlers to allow both groups to co-exist. However, Israel is in violation of 62 UN laws as of date.
Recently, Sheikh Jarrah has been the epicenter of the Palestinian resistance. In response to this, Israel fired bombs into Al Aqsa Mosque at unarmed innocent civilians, who were worshipping during Ramadan. The violence escalated within Ramadan of 2021, videos of Muslims breaking their fast and being attacked with tear gas flooded online media.
Attacking a place of worship is unethical and displays a lack of empathy. The Aqsa Mosque is a very significant structure within Islam, it was the first Qibla (Direction of Prayer) that Muslims around the world performed their prayers towards. It is the third holiest site within Islam as well. Attacking significant structures is another act of ethnic cleansing committed by Israel.
Israel is an apartheid state, their actions align with the ideology of ethnic cleansing as mosques are bombed, families are torn apart, Qur’an’s being burnt, children being killed and homes being completely destroyed. Israel has always had a strong grip on the narrative of these “conflicts”, as Palestinian electricity, water flow, food, and crops are all controlled by Israeli authorities.
3G Networks do not exist within Palestine, residents experience load shedding for long hours limiting their wifi usage. This is all done to Israel holds dominance within the narrative that reaches the global media sphere, as Sheikh Jarrah began trending globally, Israel also bombed the only operating news outlet building within Gaza.
Israeli authorities often blame Hamas for their attacks on Palestine, claiming Hamas bases exist in Palestinian schools, homes, media, hospitals, and other important infrastructure. This is done in an attempt to wipe out all essential services within Gaza to slow down recovery and growth as a population.
It is important to highlight the retaliation of Palestinians in response to the actions of Israel. Using retaliation to shift the narrative and painting itself as victims is one Israeli authority uses to manipulate international media to divert attention from their war crimes. This has been highlighted repeatedly by Palestinian residents and representatives.
The press media is the most powerful entity in the world, with the ability to shift stances and opinions by delivering the truth. When the truth is manipulated to cater to political agenda, it not only harms societies’ ability to think critically and form opinions but lives become at stake as well. Journalism is a threat to Israeli forces, buildings accommodating press houses would not have been targeted otherwise.
