Gaza school massacre part of Zionist playbook to exterminate Palestinians - with US support

By Iqbal Jassat 

"When I arrived at the site of the massacre, I was unable to speak. There were body parts and blood all around us, and the corpses were dismembered and piled on top of each other.

Tell me, what words or phrases could possibly help any journalist describe this horrifying scene? 

When I said on air that it was an indescribable scene, I truly felt helpless in the face of this sight."

These were the soul-stirring words of Palestinian journalist Anas Sharif after the Israeli regime bombed a school in Gaza City where displaced Palestinians were sheltering, killing more than 100 of them.

As the world awoke early Saturday morning to the devastating news that yet again a school - designated as a "safe shelter" for Palestinian civilians - had been bombed by the Israeli military, anger coupled with grief and sorrow began to dominate news coverage. 

Al-Tab'aeen school in Gaza City where more than a thousand Palestinians had sought refuge from Israel's barbaric onslaught now entering its eleventh month bears witness to Zionist terrorism. 

The building, which also housed a mosque, was struck at dawn while many people were engaged in dawn prayers. Estimates of casualties point to more than a hundred martyred and many more injured. 

That the majority of people killed are women, children and the elderly, exposes the lie by Polish immigrant Mileikowsky who goes by the name of Benjamin Netanyahu, whose occupation thugs justified the massacre on the grounds that the school was a Hamas and Islamic Jihad "military facility". 

To their credit, both BBC and CNN were careful to report that the Israeli military had failed to provide proof of their fake allegation. It speaks volumes for media platforms seen as biased against Palestinians to question and interrogate the integrity of the genocidal Netanyahu regime.

Most media platforms that are denied access to Gaza by the Israeli occupation forces have relied on footage taken by relief aid workers showing gruesome pictures of wounded children as well as scenes of the bloody carnage. 

Journalists described the aftermath of the gory massacre and provided accounts by witnesses who spoke about the tragic task of collecting body parts of victims in pieces. 

UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) Francesca Albanese reminded the world that Gaza is the largest and most shameful concentration camp of the 21st century. 

"Israel is genociding the Palestinians one neighborhood at a time, one hospital at a time, one school at a time, one refugee camp at a time, one 'safe zone' at a time. With US and European weapons. And amid the indifference of all 'civilized nations'", she tweeted. 

EU Chief Josep Borell said he was horrified by images from a sheltering school in Gaza hit by an Israeli strike, adding that at least 10 schools were targeted in the last weeks, which is “unjustified.”

Indeed, there cannot be any justification for the savagery inflicted upon Gaza’s innocent population. 

If Gaza is a tragedy, it is due to the US complicity. The war of annihilation conducted by the apartheid colonial regime has been possible only with the military, political and financial support of the US. 

So, notwithstanding the fake propaganda emanating from the corridors of power at the White House, none can deny US complicity in the targeted killings of Palestinian mothers and infants at tent encampments, schools, mosques and hospitals. 

For Israel, the aid and military backing provided by the US is indispensable. In other words, without American support, not only will the Zionist project grind to a standstill, but the entire edifice built on usurped Palestinian land will collapse like a house of cards. 

October 7 opened the eyes of the world to the fact that Palestinians have lived under Israeli military occupation and apartheid for decades. And that the US has given and continues to give Israel tens of billions of dollars in military funding, including $3.5 billion on the day the school was bombed.

America's disconnect from the imperatives prescribed by international law is clearly evident in its unconditional support of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. 

Many commentators have thus concluded that instead of unwavering adherence to international law, the United States remains in defiance of it, facilitating the ongoing genocide. 

The latest massacre at Al-Tab'aeen, turning Gaza cities into rubble and starving to death men, women and children is a Zionist playbook entirely in sync with the Biden administration's policy. 

“The US and allies are claiming a ceasefire is near. But all Palestinians see is more death, dislocation, & despair. The genocide continues,” James Zogby, co-founder and president of the Arab American Institute, wrote on social media.

“It is past time to end the charade. Israel doesn’t want peace or a ceasefire. Why are we still sending Israel weapons?”

On Saturday morning, CNN journalist Allegra Goodwin said in a post on X that the US news network had confirmed a “US-made GBU-39 small diameter bomb” was used in the deadly Israeli attack on Al-Tab'aeen school. It again establishes the direct complicity of the US in the Gaza genocide.

The attack comes as US President Joe Biden has faced months of public pressure to cut the supply of weapons to Israel for a war that has killed more than 39,700 Palestinians since early October.

In contrast to the outrage against Israel's ongoing genocide, it is vile that the US has announced an additional $3.5 billion to Israel to spend on US-made weapons and military equipment. 

The massacre at Al-Tab'aeen school may have jolted the world and ensured that more and more people see through the lies put out by the war criminals led by Netanyahu, but the widespread military abuses leading to death and destruction continue unabated. 

Iqbal Jassat is an executive member of Media Review Network, Johannesburg, South Africa.