Lynn Hastings, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator in the Palestinian territories, marked the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with a somber update about the Israel campaign in Gaza and how things could have been different.
Craig Mokhiber, the former head of the UN’s human rights office in New York, said the world is witnessing the U.S. and European countries provide Israel the weapons and equipment to use as the country carries out its genocide in Gaza.
Top Israeli officials knew about the Hamas plan for a year before the 7 October attack and reportedly brushed it off as unrealistic, according to a report last week.
Protests continued to break out around the world to criticize Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza that killed about 16,000 people – about 70 percent women and children.
According to Omer Bartov, a strong supporter of Israel and an astute observer of events since October 7, “In brief, Israel seems to have no political plan and a very hazardous military one. It can only blame itself—not least Netanyahu, but also the military leadership—for having arrived at this point.”
In terms of costs and munitions, Washington, not Israel, is the main combatant against Gaza. On December 1 The Wall Street Journal reported that Washington has sent Israel 15,000 bombs and 57,000 artillery shells.
European countries are seeing a surge in immigration not seen in years, which is helping propel far-right political parties to election victories, based on the promise to get a grip on the problem.
U.S. officials said the U.S. has provided tens of thousands of weapons to Israel to keep up the killings in Gaza, including massive bunker-busting bombs that are powerful enough to smash tunnels dug deep below ground level.
Israel expanded its bombing campaign in southern Gaza on Friday and a video emerged of Israeli warplanes launching a series of missiles on the Hamad towers in Khan Younis—destroying six residential buildings.
By words, deeds and definition, Israel’s mass bombing of Gaza and its killing thousands of Palestinian civilians who have nowhere to hide is genocide: the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group. "A campaign of genocide."