This was no accident. This was murder.

On Tuesday, news got out from Gaza of a terrible tragedy. A pair of newborn twins were killed in an Israeli airstrike. 

Gaza’s healthcare sector has been decimated, and medical supplies are in extremely short supply, so the very fact that a woman in Gaza was able to carry twins to term and give birth to healthy infants is nothing less than miraculous.. But alhamdulillah – thank God – mother and babies were doing fine.

(BTW, I’m putting today’s post in color because it’s hard to navigate through a photo-laden post with a million ads in between. Your eyes will thank me later.)

The little family were sheltering in an apartment building. They must have felt relatively lucky, as hundreds of thousands of their fellow Palestinians are living in tents or on the streets in the summer heat. 

While the proud Daddy, Mohammad Abu Al Qumsan, was out collecting the birth certificates, an Israeli airstrike killed his wife and babies.

This is a heartbreaking story, of course. You are probably picturing, as I was, something like this: 

But this is incorrect. What happened was arguably worse. 

Mohammad’s little family was not random collateral damage in an airstrike on a large building. This was clearly a precision strike against Mohammad’s apartment. There is no other explanation. Look at the photo (from a CNN report):

The other apartment units are intact. Only this one is completely blown out.

CNN notes that “at least 23 people killed in several Israeli strikes in the area,” but it appears that Mohammad’s family were the only victims in this apartment building. This looks like a targeted attack.

We know that Israel uses facial recognition and cellphone data tracking software, and has artificial intelligence that generates “kill lists.”

Most of the 2.3 million residents of Gaza live in the shadow of Israel’s mass surveillance. 

There is even a system called Where’s Daddy?, that tracks men believed to be members of Hamas, and alerts Israel’s military when each sets foot in his house. The house is then bombed, killing the alleged operative along with his whole family (so much for “Hamas uses civilians as human shields” – Israel simply waits until Hamas members are surrounded by civilians, and kills them).

But our grieving friend, Mohammad, is not known to be a member of Hamas. His only distinction is that he was a proud, happy new dad. 

His wife had a presence on Facebook, where she announced the births of the twins – perhaps this was a fatal mistake. Some are also saying that she had been posting on Facebook about how Israeli snipers have been targeting Palestinian children in the head and chest. She was also at risk simply by virtue of being a doctor – medical professionals and journalists are particular favorite targets for Israel.

Whatever her transgression was, Israeli military sources have made it clear: “Nothing happens by accident. When a 3-year-old girl is killed in a home in Gaza, it’s because someone in the army decided it wasn’t a big deal for her to be killed — that it was a price worth paying in order to hit [a] target…Everything is intentional. We know exactly how much collateral damage there is in every home.”

And what is a “target”? In this tiny, crowded enclave, where Israel has been slowly throttling the population for years, where powerful politicians (and wealthy Americans) want the beachfront property, every resident is believed to be an existential threat. It has never been just about Hamas militants.

We know that Israel has zero interest in the safety of women and children. After all, it’s nearly impossible to find infant formula or diapers, let alone nutritious food for a nursing mom, or even anesthesia for a C-section. Israel has seen to it that not just men, but women, children, elders, even the disabled are brutalized. 

Happy families bring hope and optimism. The senseless murder two newborns and their beautiful mom guarantees despair. Allowing the dad to live is a bonus cruelty – his anguish will fuel hopelessness in the neighborhood for months to come.

Is that too dark to be true? Take another look at the apartment that was bombed. This was no random attack. – and it’s absolutely the kind of thing Israel would do.

Recall that one of Israel’s most powerful ministers is itching to starve all Gazans to death; another wants to execute Palestinians to free up prison space (Israel has arrested over 10,000 Palestinians since October 7th – about 3,400 of those currently in prison have not been charged).

Keep in mind that Israel’s military regularly uses rape as a form of torture against Palestinians who have not been convicted of any crime; much of the Israeli public and many public figures support the practice, and some want it to be enshrined in law.

Consider the fact that the official death toll in Gaza has now surpassed 40,000 – of which seventy percent are women and children – and no one in the government or the military seems the least bit troubled by that enormous figure – or by the deaths of premature Palestinian babies, the arrest of an octogenarian with dementia, the sniping of an old woman walking with her four-year-old grandson who was carrying a white flag…the list could go on.

Note that Israeli leaders regularly make blatantly genocidal comments in public.  The International Criminal Court has used their words as evidence that Israel plausibly guilty of genocide. The Chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court is seeking arrest warrants for Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, citing grounds for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Don’t forget that Israel’s military has essentially carte blanche to shoot at anyone and anything in Gaza. This apparently includes a little girl in a car with her dead relatives, surrounded by tanks. Hungry people waiting for humanitarian aid, and aid trucks themselves are also fair game. It was a cause for celebration when the Israeli military massacred 276 Gazan civilians and injured  700 more in order to rescue 4 Israelis being held captive (4 Israelis were also killed in the operation).

Is it difficult to imagine that a soldier steeped in this culture could push a button on an armed drone as it hovers in front of an apartment building?

(This post has been updated with additional details.)

As I recently wrote, I have for the time being washed my hands of Christians who refuse to engage with the issue of Palestine, and for now (at least until the end of this horrific war) I will be writing about the significance of what is going on “over there” from a global and historic perspective.

I’m here for anyone who cares to have an intelligent conversation about reality, instead of living in a silo of confirmation bias.

I invite you to subscribe to my newsletter. I write about the Palestine-Israel issue regularly, and other issues relevant to progressives or those considering becoming progressive. If you would like to comment on this post, please pop over to my Facebook page. All of my posts are there and open to constructive comment. I welcome your thoughts.

Contact the people in Washington DC who (allegedly) work for you and tell them, “ENOUGH. CEASEFIRE NOW. NO MORE WEAPONS TO ISRAEL. STOP THE GENOCIDE. NOW – OR YOU’RE FIRED.”

Reach your Representative here, and your Senator here. Email President Biden here, and Vice President Kamala Harris here.