On Wednesday, a video was released showing Israeli soldiers gunning down two Palestinians on the coast of northern Gaza, even as one of the Palestinians appears to be waving a piece of white fabric. The footage also shows one of the men walking in the direction of an Israeli military vehicle with both his hands raised, a recent report claimed. The Israeli soldiers then buried the bodies of slain Palestinians with a bulldozer.
On Thursday, independent journalist and RT correspondent Rachel Blevins sat down with Sputnik’s The Critical Hour to discuss the recent atrocity.
“It's yet another horrific video as you were describing it there,” said Blevins. “It's horrific to think about, and yet, we have the video evidence and this is just one of several videos showing Israel committing very clear war crimes. It's not much of a debate about this, about who did this or who was it done to - we know, all of the evidence is there. And yet, as you were pointing out, the Biden administration has done nothing.”
“And to think if something like this specific incident happened in another country or was done by, you know, someone that the US didn't like, they would be raising an international outrage about it,” she added. “But when it's Israel that does this over and over and over again at this point to at least 32,552 Palestinians that they've killed since October 7th, then the US just looks the other way.”
“And we can even go back to October when you had those claims of the 40 beheaded babies by Hamas, right? Those claims spread like wildfire. We never saw images, we never saw videos, we never saw any evidence of these claims. Yet, people reported them as fact. And you fast forward to today and you see yet another horrific video of Palestinian civilians being murdered on the spot by Israeli soldiers,” she added.
“And you ask yourself, okay, we have the video evidence, where is the outrage? Because this is definitely one of those things where there should be plenty of outrage.”
Following Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7, Israeli soldiers claimed that Hamas terrorists had slaughtered at least 40 infants and young children and even decapitated some of them. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had also shared graphic images of slain infants and children to his X account.
However, there were no photographic images of infants who had been decapitated, and an Israeli spokesperson also retracted the report of decapitated babies just a day after making the claim. Likewise, UNICEF reports that children in Gaza are now dying at an “alarming rate” with thousands being killed and thousands more being injured. UNICEF has called for an “immediate and long-lasting humanitarian ceasefire” in Gaza.
“[Those who support Israel] constantly refer back to October 7th as if that one attack justifies everything that Israel has done ever since. And, I think it's very notable when you look at what people like Netanyahu have said, they constantly draw the comparison to 9/11,” said Blevins of the September 11 attacks.
“They point to the US and they say, ‘you know, what? After 9/11, what did you do? You went into Afghanistan, you went into Iraq. You were responsible for the deaths of over a million Iraqis. You did that, as if to say, you have blood on your hands. So, therefore, we get to have blood on our hands, and you don't get to do anything about it.’”
“Yes, the US has done awful, terrible things to civilians, just as Israel is doing right now. But, the difference that we're seeing right now is that we're two decades later and the US is funding all of this,” she continued. “And the difference between right now and so many of the atrocities that have happened in the past is that we're watching it play out on social media right now.”
“And to think that the US is complicit in not allowing that aid and not doing everything in its power to tell Israel, 'we are not going to have a hand in what you were doing,' which has gotten to the point of committing genocide," she added. "It's just shameful to think about the fact that we live in the country that we do, that we have the knowledge that we do, and that we are not doing everything we possibly can to stop what is happening before our very eyes.”
Sputnik’s Wilmer Leon noted that the atrocities being committed by Israel are “bad politics” for US President Joe Biden, as a recent poll showed a majority of US citizens oppose Israel's military actions in Gaza. On Tuesday, Patrick Gaspard, a longtime Democratic insider, released a scathing statement criticizing the Biden administration for accepting at face value the Israeli government’s claim that they are adhering to international law in the Gaza Strip.
“I think that, you know, for how many years now has every US president they have to support Israel. That is the line that they have to take. So it's as if Joe Biden comes into office and he goes, 'oh, I'm supposed to support Israel? Oh, right. Hey, that's great. I'm a Zionist. I'm proud of it.' But now he's gotten himself into a bit of a situation with the fact that his support for Israel, something that every US American president does, well, that's being taken a little too far,” Blevins explained.
“I think it's really important to note here that the US decided that it was going to have a new national security memorandum in which it requires countries armed with US weapons to provide assurances that they won't violate international law or block humanitarian assistance,” she continued.
“Their claim that Israel is following international law is based on the fact that they were given assurances by Israel's defense minister---again, the guy who said 'no food, no fuel, no water'---that he sent a letter to the US earlier this month literally saying we're not violating international law, we're not blocking humanitarian assistance,” Blevins said, in reference to Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant who announced a complete siege on the city of Gaza.
“And it's like that logic seems to be what Joe Biden is kind of operating off of here because, on one hand, he knows that he's supposed to support Israel, he knows that if he doesn't then he's going to be in trouble with part of his base, part of the government and really the political establishment here as a whole. But then, on the other hand, he's got all of these traditionally Democrat voters who are saying, 'hey, we need you to pay attention to what's going on in Gaza. We need you to call for a ceasefire.'”
“However, it's him trying to play the middle of the field that I think is going to end up doing him and then being bad for him at the end of the day, because the more he tries to say, 'oh, well, I support Israel, but look at this aid I'm air dropping to Gaza'---even though it's killing Palestinians in some cases, or, you know, causing them to drown as they swim out to try to get access to it, that shows people that he is just playing politics at the end of the day, that he doesn't really care about the Palestinian people,” she continued.
“The more that he tries to act like he does, well, for the people who actually do care about the Palestinians, that is going to turn them off. And, for the people who support Israel as well, that's also going to turn them off,” said Blevins. “So, I don't think his team has quite figured out exactly what they need to be doing here, but they're also in a scenario of trying to figure out how to navigate this conflict. And, I'm guessing, that they're hoping that things are going to die down by the time that they get to November, although I don't know that that will be the case.”
On Friday it was reported that the Biden administration had approved the transfer of billions of dollars of military equipment to Israel, including more than 1,800 MK84 2,000-pound bombs and 500 MK 82 500-pound bombs, according to a report that cited State Department and Pentagon officials. The US has approved the transfer, despite the fact that they are still in the process of rescheduling a meeting with Israel regarding their planned military operation in Rafah.