Daily Times

Israel’s apartheid against Palestinians continues to rage in full capacity, with the UN warning that 2022 is on course to be the deadliest year for Palestinians in the West Bank since the 2005 Intifada. Israel’s campaign to extend illegal settlements in Palestine has caused more casualties than can be counted, with military forces employing every tactic in the torture handbook to intimidate Palestinians into submission.

Just two days ago, another Palestinian man was executed in cold blood, the tenth in the last ten days. Ammar Mufleh was held in a headlock by Israeli soldiers and then shot to death.

He wasn’t even granted the liberty of a funeral, a policy that has become fundamental to Israel’s Palestine policy. Israel’s infamous “cemetery of numbers” houses thousands in mass graves; marked with numbers inscribed on metal plates instead of names. Some bodies have been there since the 1967 war. Israel’s military apparatus has also been known to desecrate Palestinian bodies although it rarely does so publicly.

In 2021, Palestinians across cities and villages in Israel closed their offices, shops and restaurants; abandoned construction sites and refused to work for a whole day in a historic move of resistance that had not been observed in decades.

The strike generated a wave of solidarity worldwide, mobilising support both on social media and on the ground. Unpredictably, Israel responded with excessive force-launching an 11-day military offensive against the territory where peaceful demonstrators were arrested arbitrarily, stun grenades thrown at crowds and unsuspecting worshippers attacked at Al-Aqsa Mosque. Last October, Israeli authorities escalated their censorship attacks when a counterterrorism law was misused to ban anti-apartheid advocacy groups in the region.

Israel’s quest to establish Jewish homogeny in the region is so all-pervasive and institutionalised that it can only be described as apartheid. With the support of powerful allies such as the US, Israel’s brutal regime will continue to oppress its Palestinian population-some 90 per cent of Palestinians currently live in 139 densely populated towns and cities as a result of Israel’s deliberate segregation policy. Military rule has been Israel’s favourite tool for decades, helping it institutionalise an intricate web of domination over Palestinians, all while claiming that it is simply safeguarding national security. Nothing is sacred under Israel’s dystopian rule. *