Al Aqsa raid

The Palestinians have been suffering under Israeli occupation for the better part of most people's lives around the world. Palestinian children have never seen a day without a story of violence being headline news. Thousands of Palestinians have been killed, and yet we have the same story repeated in a land of conflict again and again: Israel unleashing terror, the Palestinians continuing to resist. As the Jewish Passover holiday began on April 15, a Friday, Israeli forces entered the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, a sacred site for Muslims around the world, and later clashed with Palestinians who had gathered to offer their morning prayer. This unwarranted attack resulted in injuries to 158 Palestinians, most of whom were transported to hospital and later released.

Israel has long targeted worshippers at the mosque. And it seems the country is willing to once again escalate matters and perhaps even enter into yet another full-fledged conflict. Were that to happen, would the world once again stay silent at the inhumanity with which Palestinians are treated by an Israel determined to crush any resistance from the occupied people of Palestine? One of the reasons for the world's silence is no doubt the strong US support for Israel and its determination to aid the government regardless of what war crimes it commits.

A lasting solution has to be found. For the moment, it is only the Palestinians themselves who are defending both their homes and themselves from the impunity of the Israelis. On April 17, dozens of Palestinians protested outside the headquarters of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and demanded the immediate release of Palestinian prisoners. Over 4,000 people are currently in Israeli jails. Around 500 of them are children and women. Most of these people are being held without charge. For far too long has Western media justified these attacks as ‘self-defence’. The recent wave of attacks is also being wrapped under the laughable claims of a response to multiple Palestinian attacks in Israel. This kind of collective punishment is typical of how Israel maintains its illegal and increasingly brutal occupation. Palestinians cannot pray in their mosques without fear of attack and any response to Israeli provocation is met with brutal force. The rest of the world needs to wake up to the fact that Israel has colonized territory and established an apartheid state. Only international action can force the rogue state to change its behaviour.