THE motto of the Israeli Defence (IDF), according to its website, is: “Defence is our mission, security is our goal.”One wonders what the connotations of the original in Hebrew are.

Israel is the one country in the world where rivers of civilian blood do not stir the rulers’ conscience. There is a reason why. It wants the world to know what matters is Israel’s survival. It will pursue this aim fanatically. If in the process people, communities and countries enter a vegetative state, that is not Israel’s concern. Astonishingly, the world has surrendered to Israel’s ‘right’ to target non-combatants as its official policy. Visualise, for a minute, the horrific number of civilian casualties when the Likud government attacked Khan Yunis on Dec 1 using air power, destroying 50 apartment buildings bustling with life.

Defending one’s country is the right of every state, but this right is exercised within the framework of accepted international laws and usage. Israel has no concept of such restraint in theory or practice. That is one reason why we do not hear formal regrets from Tel Aviv even when civilians are killed by Israeli fire.

In fact, IDF unleashes its fire on hospitals, schools and temporary shelters notified in advance, and gets away with these crimes. The only condemnation comes from UN Secretary General António Guterres and occasionally the International Court of Justice, as well as organisations such as Reporters without Borders, Human Rights Watch, etc.

Rivers of civilian blood do not stir Israel’s conscience.

Collectively, the Jewish people haven’t forgotten the trauma of their nearly 2,000 years in Europe. Despite the relief provided by modern age, their persecution continued well into the 20th century — Russian pogroms and Nazi gas chambers. These memories, besides their expulsion from Palestine in AD 70, made them cling to one idea — never again! Israeli policies are guided by this raison d’être.

A list of the civilian targets IDF has chosen to attack since the Hamas offensive of Oct 7 last year will be incomplete no matter how much you google it. But by late March this year, UN records showed “more than 200 Israeli attacks on schools in Gaza, with at least 53 schools totally destroyed”. By July, “all 19 Gaza universities had suffered severe damage with 80 per cent of university buildings destroyed, 103 academics killed, and 90,000 students enrolled in higher education no longer able to pursue their studies”. Unicef stated 85pc of all schools in Gaza had been hit by Israeli attacks. Rescue teams said most of the dead in schools were women and children.

One particular phenomenon that deserves special attention concerns Israel’s air and artillery attacks on apartment buildings in the Gaza Strip. So far, nearly 43,000 Palestinians have been killed. Besides the attacks on Palestinian civilians in the West Bank, including occupied eastern Jerusalem, the IDF has hit the Jabalia and al-Shati refugee camps, ambulances and hospitals — Al-Ahli Arab Hospital, Al-Shifa Hospital and Nasser Hospital.

Israelis are PR specialists. They don’t telecast anything self-incriminating. So why did they allow the world to view their acts of barbarism in the Mediterranean Strip on TV? In fact, their TV showed the attacks on apartment buildings in Gaza round the clock. Obviously, the purpose behind exhibiting the carnage was to give a clear message to the world: ‘this is what we do to our enemies. Is there anyone who can stop us?’ There is no one.

There is a long list of Muslim and Chris­tian religious sites destroyed by Israel; the minimum number of mosques destroyed is 378. The BBC has confirmed 72 incidents of mosques being da-maged or destroyed.

Less than a fortnight after the Ha-mas offensive on Oct 7, 2023, Israeli bombing hit the Chu-rch of Saint Porphy-rius, where 500 people were sheltering. On Nov 8, Israel flattened a Khan Yunis mosque named after the great Muslim general Khalid bin Walid. The number of mosques destroyed in November was 60, while December 2023 saw Gaza’s Great Mosque pulverised. Other mosques hit included the Great Omari Mosque in Gaza City, Sayed al-Hashim, Othman bin Qashqar, Katib al-Wilaya, Al-Bukhari, Khalil Al-Rahman, Al-Ansar, Ahmed Yassin (at Al-Shati refugee camp in Gaza City) and the Al Amin Muhammad mosque at Khan Yunis. The list is endless.

Among the churches hit were the Holy Family Church, the Byzantine Church of Jabalia and St Hilarion Monastery.

Throughout history, the Jewish people have lived in peace and prosperity in the Muslim world.

In his remarkable book My People, one-time Israeli foreign minister and scholar of Arabic and Hebrew Abba Eban, calls the Jewish people’s stay in the Arab-Turkish world their golden period. Today, the Zionist gratitude to the Muslim world is seen in the Gaza Strip.

The writer is Dawn’s External Ombudsman and an author.

Published in Dawn, October 7th, 2024