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Photos:
A medic carries a Palestinian child during a protest in the Gaza Strip, as part of the Great March of Return, May 14, 2018. (Mohammed Zaanoun/Activestills.org). Published by 972Mag

Israeli demonstrators near the Gaza border call for an end to the siege of Gaza. May 11, 2018. (Oren Ziv / Activestills. org). Published by 972Mag

A left wing protest against the Gaza bloodshed in Tel Aviv on May 15, 2018. Credit: Moti Milrod. Published by Haaretz

A girl writes the names of Palestinians killed at a Tel Aviv rally against the bloodshed in Gaza, May 15, 2018. Credit: Yosef Laor and Tamar Katziri, Published by Haaretz

Sidewalk chalk at a Tel Aviv protest against bloodshed in Gaza that reads "For the 58 killed: May their memory be a blessing" and "Solidarity" on May 15, 2018. Credit: Yosef Laor and Tamar Katziri. Published by Haaretz

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There has been no outrage. We all let this happen. But it is not too late to speak out.

By Mairav Zonszein |Published May 14, 2018 by 972Mag

As of writing this, 52 Palestinian unarmed protesters in Gaza have been shot dead by Israeli snipers, and 2,238 have been wounded, over 1,000 by live ammunition, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Among those killed are eight children under 16 years old. The hospitals in Gaza are at breaking point, and cannot treat gunshot wounds as they pour in. The number of dead and wounded is likely to continue to rise.

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Since March 30, when the Gaza protests began, 101 Palestinians have been killed and well over 10,000 wounded, many maimed for life. Not a single Israeli injury and not a single rocket fired at Israel, even as Israel has bombed Gaza several times in recent weeks.

It doesn’t matter which numbers you want to believe or how many stones have been thrown (not a single injury caused by them), or even how many Hamas officials have called on Palestinians to protest. This is a massacre of a stateless population living under military siege. And we are all accomplices for not doing more to stop it.

On Monday, Israel’s top human rights organization B’Tselem issued a statement calling the shootings “an appalling indifference to human life.” It’s hard to explain it any other way.

The overwhelming majority of the Jewish Israeli population has not spoken out. According to an Israel Democracy Institute Peace Index poll from April, 83 percent of Jewish Israelis find the IDF’s open fire policy in Gaza “appropriate.” Just hours after the massacre, thousands went out into the streets to celebrate the Eurovision winner Netta Barzilai in Tel Aviv.

Only a few dozen Israelis have gone down to southern Israel where the fence separates it from Gaza to hold up signs opposing Israeli actions and calling for a lift of the siege. These are the Israelis who will go down in history as the last vestige of humanity and forward thinking in Jewish Israeli society.

Everyone who participated in the formal U.S. Embassy inauguration in Jerusalem at the exact same time that just a few miles away, people were being shot down, also have blood on their hands. The participation of Christian bigots and anti-Semites Robert Jeffress and John Hagee adds insult to injury, and could not better demonstrate the current seamless alignment between the racist Israeli right in power and the racist American right in power.

A spontaneous protest in front of the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem was called for 9 p.m. Israel time to protest the atrocities. It is not too late to speak out, to put your bodies out there and resist.
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Hundreds Protest in Tel Aviv Over Bloodshed in Gaza

'I can’t take the massacre that is happening in my name,' one Israeli protester says

by Dina Kraft for Haaretz
Published May 15, 2018 11:01 PM

Waving signs that read “Stop the Live Fire” and chanting “Arabs and Jews refuse to be enemies,” hundreds of demonstrators flooded a main Tel Aviv thoroughfare Tuesday blocking traffic in protest of Israel’s firing on Palestinian protesters along the border with Gaza.

More than 60 Palestinians were killed in Monday's clashes, which came the same day the relocated U.S. embassy was inaugurated in Jerusalem. The clashes followed over a month of high casualties as Palestinians protested along the border fence against their living conditions inside Gaza. Monday's protest also marked 70 years since the creation of the state of Israel which displaced over 700,000 Palestinians. They call it the Nakba, Arabic for disaster. Some protestors tried to break through the fence and cross into Israel.

The demonstrators in Tel Aviv, organized by a grouping of left-wing activist organizations, emphasized that most of the Palestinians who were shot and killed in the recent violence were young and unarmed.

“I can’t take the massacre that is happening in my name, I don’t want to be associated with it,” said Tamar Selby, 72, a psychotherapist who says she has been protesting Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands since 1968, the year after Israel took control of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank in the Six Day war.

As she spoke a pair of women walked by her and one said, “May your name be erased from the Earth.”

Looking towards them she shrugged and said of her fellow Israelis: “We have trouble seeing ourselves as anything but victims.”

Protesting nearby was Alon-Lee Green, 30, wearing the purple shirt of his organization, Stand Together, written in Hebrew and Arabic.

“Instead of killing Palestinian protesters Israel has to see how desperate their need is for jobs, electricity and clean water under the siege,” he said, referring to Israel’s severe restrictions on what is allowed in and out of the Gaza Strip.

“Seeing the images yesterday on a split screen on Israeli television news was jarring – in Gaza there was death and then there was Ivanka Trump, actually drinking champagne (at the embassy opening). It was surreal and impossible to digest – the juxtaposition of celebration with the 60 people who lost their lives,” he said.

Several demonstrators interviewed said they could not imagine staying silent in the face of the ongoing bloodshed in Gaza. They dismissed the government line that Hamas was to blame for the violence because they were knowingly sending their youth to the fence that Israel has repeatedly warned them to stay away from.

“We need to ask how these people got to such a state of desperation. To say it’s just Hamas to blame is to close one’s eyes,” said Liel Magen, 32, who works at Israel-Palestine: Creative Regional Initiatives, a think tank.

He noted that in Gaza, jobs, food, water, and electricity are in short supply and the small, crowded coastal strip has been hovering on the brink of humanitarian collapse.

And for that Israel bears at least partial responsibility, he said. Israel evacuated its settlements from Gaza in 2005, but, citing ongoing terror activities and rocket attacks by Hamas, it has imposed an air and sea blockade and controls land crossings into Israel including what goods and which people can come in and out.

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