Skip to main content
Work with the NEU
The destruction of Gaza and a post-colonial parallel
Israeli tactics of obliterating the built and natural environments of Gaza remind JOHN GREEN of the methods he saw used by the reactionary forces of Renamo in Mozambique following its liberation from Portuguese colonial rule
ERASING A CULTURE: A mosque destroyed in an Israeli strike in Rafah, Gaza Strip, on February 24 2024

ISRAEL’S genocidal action in Gaza has led to at least 30,000 dead (including 12,000 children). The past week has seen Israeli forces bombing Rafah — the last refugee haven in Gaza. But while the Israelis wage their ethnic cleansing campaign with bombs and bullets, they’ve also weaponised far more insidious means, including environmental destruction to make sure that no-one can return to a poisoned land.

Israeli armed forces are not just intentionally bombing residential areas in Gaza indiscriminately but are also using their sophisticated electronic surveillance technology to target the educated and skilled sections of Palestinian society, like academics, doctors, teachers, engineers. Only last week Israel killed Professor Nasser Abu al-Nour, a professor at the faculty of nursing at the IUG University in Gaza, along with seven members of his family in an attack on his home.

On top of this, and for the first time in the history of war, the Israelis are deliberately targeting journalists. In 2023 alone almost 100 journalists have been killed and 400 imprisoned, according to a report by the International Federation of Journalists. Israel does not want its war crimes documented.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENT: At Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis Baraa Heikal mourns over the body of his brother Fadi Heikal, killed in an Israeli strike, May 10 2026
Policing / 14 May 2026
14 May 2026

The Met Police's refusal to act against British nationals accused of war crimes in Gaza is a green light for Israel's genocide, writes CLAUDIA WEBBE

STATE SANCTIONED: A violent mob of Israeli settlers in balaclavas attack and beat up 67-year-old Basim Saleh Yassin in the northern West Bank village of Deir Sharaf on January 8 2026
Middle East / 17 January 2026
17 January 2026

RAMZY BAROUD looks at how entire West Bank communities have been shattered, their social and physical fabric deliberately dismantled by Israel to enable its formal annexation

Displaced Palestinians walk along the coastal road near Wadi Gaza in the central Gaza Strip, moving toward northern Gaza, October 10, 2025
Features / 11 October 2025
11 October 2025

ANN CZERNIK looks back over the last two years of carnage that began with the unprecedented October 7 operation and considers the rhetoric from both sides in light of the massacre carried out by Israel that has united the world in horror