Behind the Noise of an Iran Deal, Palestine Continues to Burn
Western media focus on the US-Iran deal, but Israel's violence in occupied Palestinian territories continues: a 7-month-old baby shot dead, ceasefire violations, gradual annexation of Gaza, and forced displacement in southern Lebanon.
While the world's attention shifts to the announced agreement between the United States and Iran, portrayed as an “end of war,” the situation in Palestine remains dire. Israeli forces continue their operations despite a ceasefire declared in October. Earlier this month, a seven-month-old Palestinian baby, Sam Fahd Abu Haikal, was shot in the face and killed by Israeli soldiers near Hebron in the occupied West Bank.
Violence across the West Bank is relentless and escalating. Villages like Sinjil are encircled with barbed wire, residents denied access to their own land. Israeli settlers, with full military backing, set homes and cars on fire, harass, and torture Palestinian villagers. Since the ceasefire, over 2,000 violations have been documented, and at least 981 Palestinians have been killed, many of them children—shot for approaching a yellow line that keeps advancing.
More than half of the Gaza Strip has been effectively annexed. The Israeli army has pushed past the initial yellow line marking 53% of Gaza, reaching 64% by mid-March, and Prime Minister Netanyahu has ordered the army to take 70%. Palestinians can no longer access nearly two-thirds of their territory, including most farmland. Farmers are shot for trying to reach their fields, fishermen for approaching the sea. Starvation is enforced as policy.
In southern Lebanon, similar patterns emerge: evacuation orders have emptied up to a fifth of the country, displacing over 1.2 million people. White phosphorus has been used, hospitals struck. The author argues that this is not a separate conflict but an extension of the same war against Palestine. No deal with Iran can end the war while Palestinian land is being taken, Gaza is starved, and the West Bank is carved up.
The seven-month-old Sam was buried wrapped in a Palestinian flag, carried by his father—a symbol of the suffering that headlines relegate to a footnote.
