This is difficult reading and viewing but we have to face up to it. We have to face the harsh reality of what we are doing. Innocent animals and children are the most tragic victims of this war. I have to issue a warning for this video. The warning is not present on YouTube but I think it needs one. It’s stomach-churning as far as I am concerned although not all of the video is hard to watch. It shows animal rescue and it does give a clear picture of what it is like in Gaza for the animals. Humankind needs to think of the animals as well as the humans at this time of the war between Hamas and Israel. The video comes from Network for Animals.
In the video they included the shooting of the family dog living, as I understand it, on a kibbutz, Kfar Aza, about 3 kms from the Gaza strip. It was the first Israeli settlement that the Hamas terrorists encountered I believe. Many families were massacred in the kibbutz where about 500 people lived. As mentioned, we have to include the animals. The most dramatic and sickening death is the one we see in the video of the family dog racing out of the home ostensibly to greet the terrorists when bullets rained down on him. He is killed almost instantly. It is horrendous.
There are some bright moments such as this Israeli soldier cradling a lost surviving kitten.
Targeting dogs?
Nathan Winograd, an American animal advocate, suggests that Muslim terrorists deliberately targeted dogs because dogs are unclean in the Islamic faith. They particularly dislike the fluids such as saliva produced by dogs which they regard as incredibly unclean. It is a deep act of speciesism because Muslims, ostensibly, revere the domestic cat because their Prophet Muhammad loved cats. It is written in the Hadiths of the Koran. Of course, despite the history of the Prophet Muhammad loving cats, there is still a lot of cat abuse in Muslim countries. That is not to single out Muslim countries because there is cat abuse in many other countries. The domestic and stray cat is a particularly vulnerable animal to abuse by humankind.
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But, in this new war between Hamas and Israel, the domestic dog is perhaps more vulnerable because of their lowly status in the Islamic faith.
The folly of humankind is openly and dramatically made apparent in this particular war and in many others when the innocent animal is killed as a byproduct of these unnecessary conflicts. They are completely unnecessary. Perhaps the perpetrators of these wars consider the deaths of animals as collateral damage; necessary in the greater good. They are wrong.
Both sides are to blame for this?
Ninety-four percent of Israelis blame the Israeli government led by Benjamin Netanyahu for the collapse of the defence systems in the southern settlements. Fifty-six percent of Israelis believe that the Prime Minister should resign after the war. 88% of right-wing voters don’t trust the government.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that the Palestinian people have a legitimate grievance but of course he decries the terrorist attacks and nothing can justify them.
There has to be a balanced reporting of this war. It isn’t one-sided. It isn’t just about Hamas terrorists killing over 1000 Israelis with rockets and in bloody, murderous killing sprees. There is a history here. There’s a reason behind this terrorism. Take away that reason and there might not be terrorism. There are two sides to this war and each plays their part. I’m not condoning the terrorists, far from it. They are cruel and barbaric but arguably they’ve been provoked.
Network for Animals
Networks Animals a charity crusading against animal cruelty, say that “The most heinous acts of cruelty have been committed against innocent civilians and helpless animals alike”. And they add that, “These vulnerable four-legged survivors are sitting ducks for cold-blooded killers.”
The organisation is partnering with Let The Animals Live (LTAL), which has a shelter and clinic in Israel’s major port city, Ashkelon, which, incidentally is the target of Hamas rocket attacks. They’ve evacuated 32 dogs and cats injured in the bombardment. They’ve been taken to the shelter in central Israel.
The partnership is “rushing funds to our teams on the ground so they can buy up as much food as possible before supplies run out… and there is nothing left animals to eat.”
No doubt there are many animals on both sides of the conflict starving to death having been injured. They are dying slowly while humans are killing each other with rockets and bullets.
Donation
I am proud to say that I have donated £35 to Network for Animals while writing this article. We can’t in good conscience write about these horrors against animals and people without doing something to help. Please consider a donation by clicking on this link. This link will probably stop working in due course, please note.
Wider issues
There are wider issues to this conflict in the Middle East. For example, in London 30,000 people have protested in support of the Palestinians. We hope that they are protesting in support of Palestinians and not Hamas because Hamas is a proscribed terrorist organisation and it is a crime to support a prescribed terrorist organisation in the UK.
And, nine Israeli schools in and around London, as I understand it, have been closed to protect the children. Guards are outside schools which are open. Jews in Britain are fearful. That’s the kind of extended impact this war has on Jews in other countries.
Rightly, the focus has been on the Jewish community and the impact upon them. But we must look at the wider issues and the history behind this conflict.
Here are some more incidents occurring within this war as reported by The Sunday Times today. My thanks to The Sunday Times.
- The Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council said on the BBC that Israel is in multiple violation of international law and that dialogue needs to be commenced. They are going too far and their response is not proportionate. Killing children and babies. In doing no better than Hamas terrorists they have thrown away the moral high ground.
- A dozen young Palestinians and others were killed when in a convoy of vehicles heading along a supposedly safe route within the Gaza Strip to an area within Gaza considered safe after the Israelis had ordered 1.1 million Gazans to vacate northern Gaza and go to the south.
- Israel’s demand that Gazans vacate the North of the Gaza Strip is probably impossible to carry out and if Israel then moved into the North on a ground invasion and kills innocent civilians, it may be considered a war crime.
- Binjamin Netanyahu is being blamed for the security lapses allowing Hamas terrorists to attack Israel. The relatives of killed Israelis and Israeli former commanders are blaming him for a range of blunders before the attack.
- The killing of a hundred people in the Kfar Kibbutz took 10 hours before the IDF arrived. Why did they come so late and what went wrong? These are the questions being asked by Israelis.
- The North of Gaza is occupied by Gaza city and a large refugee camp. It is that area which has been ordered to be vacated by the Israelis.
- Is there some sort of parallel here with Ukraine war? In this instance we have the Israelis shelling and bombing apartment blocks in Gaza which they claim are occupied by Hamas terrorists. But then we know that, at present, 2,200 apparently innocent Palestinian civilians have been killed in these attacks including hundreds of children. And, as mentioned, many animals. Around 8000 people have been injured. This shelling and bombing of innocent people, to me, mirrors what happened in the Donbas region of Ukraine when Putin ordered shelling of apartment blocks.
- I reminded myself that Hamas was elected into power in 2006 by the Palestinian people of Gaza. They are described as a dictatorial Islamist organisation that seized power in 2007. My research indicates that they were elected. Clearly, the Palestinian people of Gaza didn’t know what they were electing. Since they are elected, the territory has been subject to a crippling economic blockade by Israel and Egypt.
- Israel appear to want to totally eradicate Hamas from Gaza. Israel’s defence minister vowed last week to wipe Hamas “off the face of the earth”. David Petraeus, the former US general, said that there would need to be a strategy of reconstitution after the ground invasion of Gaza by Israeli soldiers. There would need to be a strategy to stop the enemy regrouping otherwise America would simply be repeating mistakes of the past.
- In the UK, there have been mass protests. The protesters have been carrying Palestinian flags. There was a very large crowd in Piccadilly Circus. One of the speakers was Jeremy Corbyn. As he spoke arrests were made. There is a very fine dividing line between supporting Palestinians and supporting a terrorist group representing Palestinians in Gaza, Hamas. If a UK citizen does that, they would be breaking the law.
- Alan from Hackney, a member of the Socialist Workers Party and a member of the National Union of Journalists is very much for supporting the Palestinians although he is horrified by the violence. He said that the Palestinians suffer “daily humiliation” and from “the illegal occupation of their land, 16 years of an open prison where more than 2 million people have been forced to exist on infrequent electricity supply, lack of proper food. Is it any wonder that Hamas…? That’s the left’s viewpoint on this.
