Mahmoud al-Saadi had his whole life in front of him. An 18-year old, he was no different to the many A Level students in our society on the cusp of leaving formal education and building a life and future for themselves in the world.
As Mahmoud set out for school two weeks ago, he was not to know that his life would be cruelly taken moments later by occupying Israeli military forces in the West Bank’s Jenin refugee camp.
Mahmoud was shot and mortally wounded on a street running adjacent to the one where the Al Jazeera journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh, was killed last May whilst covering a military raid. Israeli contempt for the lives of their neighbours was demonstrated through the appalling violence visited upon mourners at her funeral. The UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine, Francesca Albanese, stated that the killing of the prominent journalist was a “potential war crime” at the time.
At the beginning of 2022, an 80-year old Palestinian man, Omar Assad, was stopped by Israeli soldiers whilst driving home. He was pulled from his car, handcuffed with zip-ties and blindfolded with his mouth also being covered, making breathing difficult for one his age. The octogenarian was then dragged to a construction site where other Palestinians had been detained. After Israeli soldiers realised that the motionless Assad had died, they “hastily snuck away in the night” according to Stanley Cohen, the lawyer for Omar’s family. In a highly unusual move, the Israeli government paid compensation to Assad’s family, his killing proving to be atypically awkward for Israel on account of his American citizenship.
In September, Palestinian school teachers in the occupied East Jerusalem area held a general strike to protest the Israeli-controlled local authority’s efforts to censor and edit Palestinian textbooks as part of a concerted effort to force the teaching of an Israeli curriculum in their classrooms.
In the occupied West Bank area of Palestine last week, the Israeli Army demolished a Palestinian primary school that had only recently been constructed for the children in the village of Isfey al-Fauqa.
The head of the local council reported that the Israelis arrived to demolish the school whilst the pupils were still inside the building, using sound bombs to frighten the children into fleeing the classrooms.
The school was one of more than a dozen built with financial support from the European Union in the occupied West Bank region under full Israeli military control as Palestinians struggle to challenge the harsh and stifling restrictions imposed upon their daily lives by the occupying force.
The Israeli forces are conducting a reign of terror upon the Palestinian population as part of a campaign to ethnically cleanse them from the Masafer Yatta region, an area including eight villages which is home to more than 1,200 Palestinians facing forced displacement following a ruling in May 2022 by the Israeli High Court of Justice - an irony if ever there was one. Targeting schools in the region is part of this campaign. The beleaguered Palestinians also face violence from the Israeli police and settlers residing in the many illegal Israeli settlements in the surrounding areas.
It is a sickening aspect of our western culture that sympathy for certain causes is deemed acceptable and promoted by political elites whilst those facing persecution and murder at the hands of western allies are not deemed worthy of similar expressions of sympathy.
It has been heartening to see the consistent displays of support - including at sporting occasions - for the people of Ukraine valiantly struggling to endure and emerge victorious in their conflict with an aggressive neighbouring nation, yet many justifiably critical voices have been raised to highlight the hypocritical manner in which public expressions of solidarity with Palestinians and others continue to be shut down.
In 2016, Celtic Football Club were fined by Europe’s footballing authorities, UEFA, after fans of the club waved the Palestinian flag in solidarity with the people of that proud yet downtrodden nation during a Champions League fixture with a club based in Israel. The Glasgow team’s support base responded to the UEFA charge and subsequent fine by collectively raising more than £100,000 in donations for Palestinian charities.
Last week many people across the globe marked international Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. In Qatar, Israeli television reporters have been met with chants of support for Palestine whilst endeavouring to conduct vox pop interviews with fans during the World Cup.
Yet small gestures of solidarity may bring comfort but they will not bring change.
2021 marked the highest number of Palestinian deaths at the hands of Israelis since 2014. 2022 has already been a deadlier year for Palestinians.
The truth is that the political leadership of the state of Israel places very little value on a Palestinian life, and the most powerful nations in today’s world are united in contentedly looking in the other direction to allow Israel to treat their neighbours with utter disdain and murderous contempt.
The Palestinian nightmare shows no sign of ending, a story continuing to bring shame upon the rest of humanity.
