Reflections on Day 314 of genocide
We begin our story on a nondescript office building labeled BDS. No, not boycott divestment and sanctions, the nonviolent global movement to end the genocide and system of apartheid in Israel. In this case BDS stands for Boeing Defense, Space and Security. A team, likely a small part of the 17,000 people that works for the ‘business unit’ making $23.2 billion dollars a year designs a device. At a glance it looks like a rocket. Maybe the designers were into model rockets when they were young. Enamored by the ‘space race,’ and obese with nationalism they took a lucrative contract in the ‘defense’ industry. This is a small diameter rocket. 6 feet, 250 lb. Much smaller than its cousin who weighs 2,000lb. The nose carries a gps guidance unit and when tested had pinpoint accuracy from up to 60 miles away, able to penetrate through six feet of reinforced concrete before detonation.
A rocket is a euphemism for a bomb. This “low-cost, precision strike weapons system” can “replace a 2,000lb weapon, quadrupling the number of targets serviced for a single aircraft.” In 2010, the US Air Force would shift its 450 billion dollar contract to Raytheon. Yet, in its production lifetime some estimate that the Airforce had already acquired between 24,000 to 150,000 units.
On October 24th, 2023, an image published by Air Forces Magazine showed a C-17 cargo airplane from Travis Airforce Base in Fairfield, CA picking up bombs to deliver to the Zionist entity. Three days after christmas, four days after ‘christ in the rubble,’ at least a dozen CODEPINK activists were arrested for blocking the entrance to Travis Airforce Base. The base is the largest transport base of the US Air Force. The next day, the Biden Administration bypassed Congress to transfer another $150 million dollars or weapons to the genocidal campaign of the Zionist state.
As this bomb passed through apartheid Israel from Nevatim Base to a fighter jet or ground launch system, it moved with more freedom than the indigenous people. It likely passed by torture camps and Israeli settlers attacking Palestinian families. In time, this precision guided bomb with a greater than 90% success rate eventually found its target in May: 45 + 200 mostly women and children in a designated safe zone tent camp. Then another target in July killing 17 at a school in Nuseirat refugee camp. Last week they struck again. More than 100 killed. US bomb found in the bloody aftermath.
The bomb did what it was intended to do. Shred skin from bone. Spread fire and panic. Slaughter hostages and destroy entire bloodlines.
Muhammad Hamida, 12, recounted to Mondoweiss how he found his father, who had been torn apart in the Israeli attack. He says that he went with his older brother to the prayer hall after the bombing to rescue their father, who was praying at the time.
“People were cut up, there was a lot of blood on the ground, and body parts and small pieces of worshipers’ bodies were scattered everywhere. We found my father lying on the ground there. We recognized him, and our relatives helped us drag him out of the prayer hall. We found a human head stuck between his feet when we took him out. I was stunned with fear. I have never seen scenes like this in my life. I hope I never see them again.”
“They will kill us all; we are here alone; no one cares about us. They killed my father, and a month ago, they killed my two uncles, and they will kill everyone who remains in Gaza"
Initial investigations by Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor found no proof or indication of any military operations or combatants at the Tab’een School in Gaza City, whose prayer hall Israel targeted in a brutal massacre that claimed the lives of over 100 Palestinians.
Quite the contrary, the location turned out to be a series of narrow buildings, with sections open to each other and lacking any equipment, where dozens of Palestinian families had taken refuge after being forcibly displaced from their homes, some of which have since been completely erased from the civil registry.
After one month of the genocide, the zionists had dropped the explosive equivalent of two nuclear bombs on an area the size of 3 San Franciscos. Today is the 314th day of the Genocide.
On each step of the supply chain, the capitalists who bought and sold the bomb congratulated themselves. Up 24.9 billion dollars of revenue in 2023. War is lucrative for the empire.
But the story continues. 55,000 bombs dropped an around 5% don’t explode when they are fired. 2,750 lie in the rubble.
[After the Israeli military withdrew we returned to find our house bombed and burned up.] We sat down to process our loss, and once we regained our senses we searched inside what was left of the house.
After three hours of searching, I found a precious gift given to me by my grandmother before she died, a bottle of perfume. It was a surprise to find this, and I thought I might find more.
Then, there was an explosion in the house. All I remember is dust and smoke filling the ruins of our home. I was disoriented and didn’t know what was happening. My hand was bleeding.
My family and I called out to each other. When we finally found each other, we were all in shock.
We found my cousin Issa lying on the ground, his body pocked with small holes and his eyes not where they were supposed to be.
There was no taxi or car to take us to the hospital, and since the cell phone networks were down we couldn’t call for an ambulance. My father carried Issa, running, around 1.5 kilometers to the hospital.
But when he arrived, Issa was dead. He was only 15 years old.
Others lay dormant to be analyzed and repurposed by the resistance. A paint can. Filled with unexploded ordinance and bomb shrapnel. Return to sender. Four occupation soldiers on stretchers unaccounted for in the official casualty numbers. A camera filing the operation. They include the clip “for Ismail Haniyeh.” A click. Published online for the world to see.
For me to see. San Francisco claims they need to close the school I work at that serves working class youth of color because we don’t have enough money. Last year, I paid 12% of my entire income to the American Empire. Before the current genocide, San Francisco was sending the equivalent of 144 teacher salaries to fund Israeli weapons. Yesterday after Israel charred the bodies of Palestinians praying until they were unrecognizable, Biden sent the equivalent of 250,000 teacher salaries in weapons to Israel. When will this end? When will we say enough!