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Nablus, December 15 - Public health authorities in both the Gaza Strip and the self-rule areas of the West Bank have launched a streamlined process to address a troubling increase in the number of citizens who have expressed a desire to kill themselves, according to the Ministry of Health: give them an explosive device and send them marching toward Israelis.
Sources within the ministry - divided between the two territories since a 2007 civil war confined Fatah to the inland areas and gave Hamas control of Gaza on the Mediterranean coast - described parallel but similar initiatives directing mental health professionals and mandated reporters such as caregivers and teachers to inform ministry authorities when in the course of their work they encounter someone contemplating suicide. The referred Palestinians will then undergo a brief evaluation to determine to what degree they have resolved to off themselves, and those judged to have firm enough resolve will receive a "suicide vest" packed with nails and military-grade explosives, plus instructions to detonate themselves among as many Jews as possible.
Ministry officials acknowledged some incomplete elements of the program. "We still face important obstacles," stated Mustafa Massiqr of the Hamas-run version of the ministry. "We have, fortunately or unfortunately, a plentiful supply of depressed people under our aegis. A good quantity of that is by design, since Palestinian misery is the only international diplomatic currency we have. But there's the sticky matter of the border fence and robust Zionist security measures, including some way they've developed of defeating our cross-border tunnels. But once we work out that wrinkle, it'll be lights out."
His Fatah counterpart in Ramallah made analogous observations. "The security barrier that basically ended the Second Intifada hasn't gone away," observed Ahaf Tuqill. "Getting the right people through into Jewish cities, or even just getting close enough to a checkpoint to blow up near a soldier - it's not as easy as it might seem. But personnel isn't the problem; COVID and the irredeemable corruption of Palestinian government have produced enough of a supply of the suicidally depressed. Throw in the people with other things of which they're ashamed, such as homosexual tendencies, or things that can make them subject to blackmail, such as unauthorized contact with the opposite sex - there's no shortage of Palestinians looking to cement themselves in the popular consciousness as heroes, to avoid public discussion of their shame-inducing behavior."
"We also have to figure out the framing to make it all Israel's fault," he added, "but the media are always accommodating in that regard."
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