Alameen Templeton
On the 300th day of genocide, martyred Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh has been given a state funeral in Tehran, while killer drones still buzz menacingly above the tortured Gaza landscape that has swallowed 39 175 Palestinian lives and still carries 90 403 wounded souls limping on its surface.
Haniyeh’s life mission remains unfinished as 12 additional US warships menace the Gaza coastline, ready to rush to Tel Aviv’s defence should Iran attack. But they’ll do nothing for the nearly 2million starving Palestinians still bearing the brunt of Israel’s savagery.
Haniyeh was very familiar with that grim reality, like most Palestinians.
It has taken the lives of his children, grandchildren and many other loved ones. And the bombs and missiles provided by the US and other Nato allies are still raining down mercilessly on the battered enclave while Washington does its best not to see the true extent of its involvement in the worst genocide since Hitler’s holocaust.
In the White House, a president suffering dementia is still falling back on the assurances of its “trusted ally” that it’s avoiding civilian casualties, rather than deliberately causing them. In London, the veil has already fallen and authorities, caught in a groundswell of public abhorrence, are preparing the groundwork reluctantly for an arms embargo.
Other allies have also “smelled the coffee” as the International Criminal Court prepares arrest warrants for Israeli leaders.
Its prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his defence minister Yoav Gallant can feel the blade of the axe hovering above their necks as settlers invade Al Aqsa in defiance of International Court of Justice rulings and others clash outside military camps in defence of their right to rape detainees.
Israel has plunged into an abyss, a moral maelstrom that leads nowhere and its only response now is ever more war.
Its citizens are scanning the skies on this 300th day, anxiously awaiting a response from Iran. Last time, Teheran gave them a few days warning and its allies prepared a solid missile defence shield.
No such assurances of prior notice seem to be coming from Teheran today.
Haniyeh’s body will be transferred to Doha, Qatar, for burial on Jumuah.
His janazzah is being conducted in Teheran. Fouad Shukr, the Hezbollah military commander killed in a missile strike at the same time as Haniyeh’s murder, will be buried on Thursday evening, the Palestine Chronicle reports.
The two, high-profile deaths connected to Iran mean a violent response is inevitable.
Like Israeli citizens, US air defence installations across Arabia are also scanning the skies. Even radar stations in Turkey, where tens of thousands of citizens marched in Istanbul Wednesday evening demanding Israel be punished, will be on the alert to defend Israel.
The crowded skies are filled with radio and cellphone chatter as Iron Dome specialists fine tune their air defences, diplomats argue over the next step and smart bombs, hypersonic missiles and radar-evading fighter bombers idle on the tarmacs on aircraft carriers.
The skies are too much for some. Airlines are cancelling their flights to Tel Aviv as the Iranian delegate at the UN accuses the US of assisting Israel’s assassination of Hanyeh. The missile that killed him could not have done its job without US intelligence, he has said.
The UK has said it “rejects Iran’s attempts to exploit the suffering of the people of Gaza as justification for further violence”, as though Teheran was behind the assassination.
While Haniyeh’s janazzah was being held, Israel issued a statement claiming it could “now confirm that Muhammad Deif was eliminated”. Deif is the Hamas leader that masterminded the Al Aqsa Flood retaliation on October 7.
The airstrike that targeted him happened on July 13, but Hamas denied he’d been killed. It must be noted this is not the first time Israel has “confirmed” that it has killed him.
It may be the Israelis are desperately trying to stir the pot and provoke a response that will draw US boots onto the boodsoaked ground.
GIPHY App Key not set. Please check settings