Dear All,

It was shocking enough to hear about the Israeli hit which killed a pair of newborn twins, their mother and their grandmother in their home while their father was out getting the babies’ birth certificates, but then came information that this had been a precision hit. The family’s apartment in central Gaza had been targeted. It was the only one destroyed in the block.

When this was followed a few days later by another attack in which a mother and her six children – including quadruplets –were killed it seemed as if a pattern was emerging: of Israel actively targeting babies. This policy harks back to horrific biblical stories from primitive times: of the Pharoah ordering the killing of all Judaean babies, of Herod ordering the slaughter of babies after the rumours of the birth of a messiah (referring to Jesus). Biblical stories of such horrors are now being seen in real time, livestreamed into sitting rooms across the world.

The fact that these two recent hits targeted families with multiple births (twins, triplets etc) indicates that this is a new precision target for Israel. This is an effective way to kill as many Palestinian babies as possible. Killing babies will of course reduce the number of Palestinians in the area something Israel probably regards this as some sort of ‘pest control.’

Last week a UN report said that the number of children killed in Gaza in the past four months was higher than from four years of world conflict (yes, you read that right: from conflicts all over the world). UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said that 12,300 children have been killed in just four months in Gaza and that this was higher than “the number of children killed in four years of wars around the world combined” (12,193).

The commissioner-general described the situation in Gaza as “a war on children.” These words seem to ring horribly true considering the recent strikes on twins and quadruplets.

The biblical story of Moses (in Exodus) tells us that the Old Testament prophet was saved from death which the Pharoah had ordered was to be the fate of all Judaean baby boys. Instead of being drowned in the Nile he was put in a cot and floated down the river. This slaughter of the babies was echoed in the later account of Herod in the Gospel of Matthew where the King of Judaea ordered the executions of all boy toddlers and babies in the vicinity of Bethlehem. This biblical story has been referred to in Western art as the Massacre of the Innocents and has also been used to describe later massacres and slaughter (for example in Northern Europe as depicted by painters like Bruegel).

The recent incident of the newborn twins killed by Israel is heart-rending. The father had gone to pick up the birth certificates of the three-day old babies, Asser and Aysel. While he was out, he received a phone call telling him the babies, his wife and his mother-in-law had all been killed. He ended up collecting the babies’ death certificates on the same day as their birth certificates. Then, some reports on social media suggested that this was a targeted strike and said that the twins’ mother, a doctor, had been active posting on social media about the sorts of injuries she had seen children and babies come into the hospital with. Children shot in the head at point blank range, toddlers targeted by the IDF.

Ten months after the October 7 Hamas attack on land occupied illegally by Israel and the taking of hostages, Israel continues with its destruction of Gaza and its genocide of the Palestinians. That Netanyahu’s war cabinet had little interest in saving the Israeli hostages has been made clear by its actions and its suppression of protest by hostage families who point out that their government’s actions are endangering rather than protecting hostages. The hostages are no longer the point; all that matters to Israel now is the obliteration and subjugation of the Palestinians.

Months ago, when an Israeli spokesman was churning out vitriol about October 7 and justifying Israel’s brutal and bloody actions, a Channel 4 interviewer Matt Frei commented that his rhetoric was all “rather Old Testament.” And yes, all of this has now become very Old Testament: brutal, godless and bloodthirsty.

Meanwhile, the Western powers continue to be blind to Israel’s actions and to pretend that they are looking for a solution. The mainstream media continues to call this killing “the war in Gaza” whereas in actual fact there is only massacre after massacre rather than any sort of battle. This has been going on for almost one year. Every so often the Israeli hostages are mentioned but what is never mentioned by the media is that in November, 58 of these hostages were returned by Hamas. Since then, Israel has made sure that any peace deal is sabotaged and that the killing of Palestinians continues unabated.

Now Israel is targetting babies and the so-called civilised, democratic world watches and does nothing.

Best wishes.

Umber Khairi