LETTER: Who are the real 'human animals' in the Gaza-Israeli war?

An explosion occurs following an Israeli air strike on a residential building, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip, July 20, 2024. Picture: REUTERS/Omar Naaman

An explosion occurs following an Israeli air strike on a residential building, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip, July 20, 2024. Picture: REUTERS/Omar Naaman

Published Sep 10, 2024

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by Adiel Ismail

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said they were fighting “human animals”. The real question is, who is behaving like animals in the Gaza-Israel War?

Dr Mark Perlmutter, a humanitarian surgeon with 30 years of volunteering who has worked on more than 40 surgical missions in developing countries on four continents and volunteered at a Gaza hospital, said what he saw was unspeakable.

Dr Perlmutter said: “All of the disasters I’ve seen combined, 40 mission trips, 30 years, ground zero, earthquakes, all of that combined doesn’t equal the level of carnage that I saw against civilians in just my first week in Gaza. I’ve seen more incinerated children than I’ve ever seen in my entire life combined. I’ve seen more shredded children being crushed by buildings, the greatest majority, or bomb explosions.

“We’ve taken shrapnel as big as my thumb out of eight-year-olds, and then there’s sniper bullets. I have seen children who were shot twice. No toddler gets shot twice by mistake by the world’s best sniper, and they’re dead centre shots.”

It is human nature to respect life and not to kill, not even a mouse. How can one live with oneself if you take the life of another human being? Have you ever thought about whether serial killers sleep peacefully? Is it human for a sniper to shoot and kill innocent and defenseless children? What type of human being would do such an evil deed? Does such a living “thing” qualify to be called a human being when he has no respect for life?

CNN reported that according to two eyewitnesses, on September 6 2024, Aysenur Eygi, a 26-year-old American activist who participated in a weekly protest against an Israeli settlement near Nablus in the West Bank was shot in the head and killed by Israeli forces. Bearing in mind that on July 19, 2024, the International Court of Justice ruled that Israel’s presence in the Palestinian-occupied territories is “unlawful” and called on it to end the building and expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Do these despicable actions reflect some insight into the absence of humanity in a typical IDF soldier?

You be the judge.

* Adiel Ismail, Mountview.

** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media

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