I would bet my two cats that this didn’t come up at the dinner Anthony Albanese attended with Donald Trump last night. Save the Children reports at least 52 children were killed in Israel’s latest breach of the ceasefire in the last 24 hours:
At least fifty-two children were reported to be among those killed yesterday by renewed airstrikes from Israeli forces in Gaza.
Ahmad Alhendawi, Save the Children’s Regional Director for the Middle East, North Africa and Eastern Europe, said:
These reports are excruciating. After some weeks of cautious optimism and hopes of rebuilding Gaza, children and families are once again reliving scenes of fear and loss.
This cannot become the new normal under a ceasefire. A lasting ceasefire must mean safety, relief, and recovery for children not continued suffering. It must be fully respected and upheld.
We are pleading: stop this now. Protect the ceasefire, protect children, and give Gaza’s families a step towards the genuine peace they have been waiting for.”
I have seen some of the images – no doubt you have too – and I couldn’t sleep last night as their faces lived just behind my eyelids. I couldn’t stop thinking that these children would have been excited for when the ceasefire was announced, and maybe even had hope. There was a newborn I saw, perfect in form (the shockblast from the weapons Israel uses can literally crush your insides, without leaving a mark on the outside) and I couldn’t help but think that maybe their parents saw them as the dawn of a new future. They were only a week old, born a week or so after the ‘ceasefire’ was put in place – and was still killed by a bomb.
1 Comment
I was too late yesterday to comment on the t-shirt non-issue. But, I found the report of the discussion between Clare O'Neill and Bridgit Mackenzie on some breakfast tv chat show sickening.
While 52 children, and goodness only knows how many adult Palestinians, were murdered by Israel during a supposed ceasefire, O'Neill and Mackenzie would have us defer to a discussion on antisemitism.
Not only did that ignore the plight of the real victims in this genocide, but it conflated anti-Israel, anti-genocide sentiments with antisemitism - exactly what Netanyahu would want.
But, maybe that was the whole point of the t-shirt in the first place - talk about antisemitism instead of Israel breaking the ceasefire as usual.