Many times over the last two years I have thought of the bodies of Palestinians killed by Israel in Gaza, lying crushed and broken in their thousands beneath sheets of concrete and steel. With every one of the 200,000 bombs dropped on defenceless families in the now-ruined metropolis, there have been dead and missing, and something in between - a hand or a leg, a heart or - God forbid - a head. The 'bodies buried beneath the rubble' - of Jabalia or Rafah or Shujaiya - have all been someone's 'dearest', someone's mother or grandfather, brother or daughter. We have watched - those that could - as people claw and scrabble at the wreckage and sometimes retrieve a living child; perhaps to be reunited with a parent, but often a lone survivor of the bone-crushing nightmare. The reality of this was brought home in a report from Al Jazeera's Hani Mahmoud, on the day the last Israeli 'hostage' was retrieved. He talked to the surviving mother and child from an extended family of 23, who were all killed when their home was destroyed; the aunts and uncles, cousins and grandparents, children and sisters, each with their life stories, loves and hopes. All that remains of them now are the photos on a phone, along with the gut-wrenching pain of imagination and memory that only she must endure:
Just like the 'Israelis' killed on October 7th, whose whole life stories were told, and added to the pile of hatred and vengeance that sustains the Jewish colony, these Palestinians all had life stories, but stories that sustained their community, culture and faith. Over decades of ruthless discrimination, violent occupation and savagery this strength of belief in their own humanity had the opposite effect on their society. It could probably be said that if anyone could now live alongside 'Israelis' it would be Palestinians, such is their ability to tolerate and even forgive. Indeed, if it could be said that the Palestinians of Gaza were in some way responsible for bringing down their occupier's bombs on their heads, it would be because they accepted the terrible crimes committed against them as 'the will of Allah', strengthened by their belief in martyrdom as a blessing. They seemed almost above the idea or vengeance or retribution, desiring only that the savages of the 'Israeli' army would stop attacking them and leave them to live on what little they had, while perhaps hoping such generosity would be reciprocated. Sadly it was a vain hope. A couple of days before the retrieval of the last hostage body - in time for 'International Holocaust Remembrance Day' - the "Board of Peace" released its plan and blueprint for Gaza. This monstrosity concocted in Tel Aviv and Washington and London did not impress the people on whose land it was to be imposed, as beautifully illustrated by Al Jazeera's Hind al Khoudary in the report below:
But as can be seen in Hind's report, the reality of Palestinian's ownership of their land and belonging in it goes beyond bricks and mortar. Even though the landscape is reduced to a moonscape, and homes to piles of blocks and twisted steel, it remains their home, and as 'stateless' people is their only possible home. This is also the case for the tens of thousands of Palestinians who fled to Cairo when the 'Israeli' attack began, and who now wait and hope to return 'home'. Many of them may not know if anything remains of their old homes, or whether they might find some treasured possession there - or the body or remains of a relative. It doesn't take much imagination - though more than most Israelis seem to have - to understand how it might feel for these returning Palestinians, after what they have witnessed being done to their homes and communities for two years. Many will believe, beyond all rational hope - that a close relative might have somehow survived, but be unable to contact their family - or even been abducted to an 'Israeli' hellhole, but still living. In the West we are obsessed with having 'closure' - to know that a person really is dead, and needing to see the body. People's reluctance to believe the worst after years of waiting and hoping is sometimes insuperable. It's an old story - belief in resurrection being the ultimate psychological escape from the reality of death. Death should also be the great equaliser, such that the pain of loss is similar whether one is Jew or Hindu, Christian or Muslim. Perhaps it is the fault of our 'Zionist' media - but the last two years have shown that Israelis have a pathological and grossly self-indulgent reaction to the deaths of 'their own', while having an equally psychopathic disdain for Palestinians suffering similar loss. This deeply racist prejudice, and blindness to the pain of others is illustrated in another report from Al Jazeera's Hind Al Khoudary on the 'operation' to retrieve the last hostage body from Gaza. It isn't immediately apparent from her report just how the body was retrieved, other than from the sight of a huge excavator, but the reality of what was done came out in this report from the ABC's Jerusalem correspondent;
In other reports, the 'operation' to retrieve the last body - an operation that appears to have been delayed for as long as it pleased Netanyahu to do so - was conducted in a 'mass grave', when the reality of the IOF digging up a muslim cemetery with a huge excavator wasn't admitted to. From the photos it is clear that this was a cemetery, albeit one with many new burials from the last two years, and Hamas had harsh words for its 'desecration' following the excavation. It is also clear that little or no respect is afforded to its religious status, not to the many bodies unearthed; one hates to imagine what was done with all 250 of them, other than to tip them back into the 'mass grave' and fill it in. That it was necessary to 'exhume'/dig up so many 'muslim' bodies in order to discover the single 'Jewish' one was only mentioned in this one report cited above - as far as I'm aware. And while the identification was finally only possible by dental records, Doran also mentions that the bodies were DNA tested. It is really hard to find words to describe the sickness in a society where such a racist double standard is welcomed, and in fact necessary for participants to be acceptable. The DNA testing performed on the Palestinian bodies was not done so that they could be identified, but so they could be pushed aside as unnecessary. In the same way, bodies of Palestinians abducted by 'Israeli' soldiers and tortured to death were returned to Gaza in exchange, with the exchange rate being twelve Palestinian corpses for each 'Israeli' 'hostage. This wasn't the actual exchange rate though - the representative one - as the bodies were intentionally unidentified, knowing how much pain this would cause the thousands of people who imagined finding a relative. Israel also knew there were no DNA identification facilities in Gaza, and so relatives were forced to look at grotesque pictures of the corpses, or identify them from pieces of clothing. Consequently only around 70% of returned bodies were identified, while most of those that were still had to be buried in a mass grave. It was also reported that 'Israel' had removed the bodies from cold storage, so many were in an advanced state of decomposition; only DNA testing would have identified them, other than merely a list of names and numbers being supplied. Since writing this, a couple more relevant reports have appeared and merit posting. Despite occurring on the same day, SBS failed to make any connection between the two - one showing the days destruction of a 3 storey building next to a graveyard, where the many families living in it were unharmed thanks to a warning, but now 'homeless' once again; the other a barely believable complaint from Defence Minister Richard Marles that some Australian war graves had been damaged by 'Israeli' activities in Gaza, and would be repaired when it became possible. Judge for yourself if this is fair and reasonable conduct, or liable to further inflame tensions on the eve of 'President' Hertzog's visit to Australia.
DM 7th February 2026