Tuesday, May 15, 2018
Elder of ZiyonThe Gaza Strip’s Hamas-run health ministry said Tuesday morning that a baby was among those killed during violent border clashes along the territory’s border with Israel the previous day, bringing the overall death toll in the day’s bloody events to 58.It is entirely possible that Leila died from some other cause and the Hamas-run Health Ministry blamed Israeli actions because Hamas has been desperate to find a child to die at the protests that they can turn into another Mohammed al-Dura. Palestinians know the propaganda value of a dead child, mentioning their names constantly in articles and speeches years after their deaths, while you won't find Israeli leaders and media nowadays mentioning Shalhevet Pass, also eight months old, deliberately murdered in 2001 by a sniper's gunshot to her head while in her baby carriage.
The baby died from inhaling tear gas fired at Palestinian protesters, the health ministry said.
Eight-month-old Leila al-Ghandour was exposed to gas fired by Israeli forces east of Gaza City, it said. It was not immediately clear how close to the border fence Ghandour and her family were.
(UPDATE: My conjecture may indeed be true, according to AP.)
A Gaza health official cast doubt Tuesday on initial claims that an 8-month-old baby died from Israeli tear gas fired during mass protests on the Gaza border with Israel.A Gazan doctor told the Associated Press that the baby, Layla Ghandour, had a preexisting medical condition and that he did not believe her death was caused by tear gas. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to disclose medical information to the media.
Assuming the baby indeed died from inhalation of tear gas, though, the fault is entirely Hamas - and her parents.
Who would knowingly take a baby to a war zone where hundreds of people have already been shot?
Who would knowingly take a baby to a place where one knows with 100% certainty that there will be tear gas?
Parents in the US are worried about when to first expose their children to cow's milk and peanuts (and even water!) at that age. At least one set of Gaza parents enthusiastically bring their baby to be exposed to tear gas.
No one in their right mind -not Amnesty, not the EU - can blame Israel for using tear gas to keep people away from its border.
If anyone is to blame for this child's alleged death from tear gas, it is her parents.
Somehow, it seems certain that the narrative from the media will be far different. I doubt that any Western media outlet will say a negative word about the reckless parents - parents whose actions are every bit as reprehensible as those locking their kids in hot cars on a summer day. Such sick parenting is given a pass - because the West expects Palestinians to act like animals, and therefore when they reach that level there is no outrage.
This is a sick society and a sick media that enables it.
Meanwhile, last Friday Palestinians - with Hamas encouragement - attacked the main border crossing for goods into Gaza and burned the pipelines that bring fuel into Gaza along with conveyor belts and other infrastructure.
Just after 6:00 p.m. Friday at the tail end of that day’s mass “March of Return” protest, a group of some 200 Palestinians broke into the Gaza side of the crossing and set fire to the Strip’s only fuel terminal and a conveyor belt used for raw construction materials. Two conveyor belts which brought animal feed into Gaza were also wrecked, according to the deputy director of the crossing.Israel's response?
“The people who came to Kerem Shalom and destroyed the crossing, they didn’t go there by themselves. We know that Hamas sent them,” said the COGAT officer in a conference room in the Gaza Division’s headquarters in Re’im.
The official said that during the attack on Kerem Shalom, Israeli officials watched as rioters ran back and forth between the crossing and a Hamas position a few hundred meters away.
“Then we saw about 10 Hamas people standing at the gates of Kerem Shalom,” he said.
According to the officer, the Hamas members were wearing civilian clothes but directed the events with walkie-talkies, “giving orders — what to do, where to go.”
A senior officer in the Israeli military’s liaison unit to the Palestinians told reporters on Sunday, "Me and my commanders are breaking our heads trying to figure out how to get medicine into Gaza."
Israel is trying to save lives in Gaza. Hamas is trying to end them.
Everyone with a brain can see this - but the media simply will not put it in those terms, instead implying that Israel is gleefully shooting unarmed Gaza protesters. And people are believing it because few media outlets have the guts to actually tell it like it is.
