When Olive Trees Cry is a “documentary” currently showing at different venues throughout Humboldt County. It is slick, with very good production values and designed to tear at the heartstrings of anyone who would watch it.
It is also a pack of outright lies. I put “quotes” around the word “documentary” for a reason. This tripe is not a documentary. It’s PROPAGANDA. It purports that terrible things are happening in Gaza. The Israel Defense Force (IDF) is committing atrocities, murdering women, children and non combatants, and carrying out a :genocide” against the “palestinian” people.
Do armies carrying out “genocide” routinely drop leaflets, phone people in the target zones, and generally warn people in those zones to vacate, prior to an attack? That’s what the IDF does. One or more days prior to every attack, the IDF warns people of what is to come. This is not genocide.
Hamas routinely (and they’ve been doing this since their beginnings) uses women and children as “human shields.” They stage their rocket launches from hospitals, mosques, schools and residential areas on purpose, to shield their operations from the defending army.
You know none of what is happening in Gaza would be happening it Hamas hadn’t staged a little mini-invasion last October 7th.
Hamas’ military wing – the Qassam Brigades – and at least four other Palestinian armed groups committed numerous war crimes and crimes against humanity against civilians during the October 7, 2023 assault on southern Israel, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Governments with influence over the armed groups should press for the urgent release of civilian hostages, an ongoing war crime, and for those responsible to be brought to justice.
The 236-page report, “‘I Can’t Erase All the Blood from My Mind’: Palestinian Armed Groups’ October 7 Assault on Israel,” documents several dozen cases of serious violations of international humanitarian law by Palestinian armed groups at nearly all the civilian attack sites on October 7. These include the war crimes and crimes against humanity of murder, hostage-taking, gang rape (where women were so brutally assaulted that their pelvises were broken), infants were beheaded, and many other grave offenses. Human Rights Watch also examined the role of various armed groups and their coordination before and during the attacks.
“Human Rights Watch research found that the Hamas-led assault on October 7 was designed to kill civilians and take as many people as possible hostage,” said Ida Sawyer, crisis and conflict director at Human Rights Watch.
Between October 2023 and June 2024, Human Rights Watch interviewed 144 people including 94 Israeli and other nationals who witnessed the October 7 assault, victims’ family members, first responders, and medical experts. Researchers also verified and analyzed over 280 photographs and videos taken during the assault and posted on social media or shared directly with Human Rights Watch.
On the morning of October 7, Hamas-led Palestinian armed groups carried out numerous coordinated attacks including on civilian residential communities and social events and on Israeli military bases in the area of southern Israel bordering the Gaza Strip. The armed groups attacked at least 19 kibbutzim and 5 moshavim (cooperative communities), the cities of Sderot and Ofakim, 2 music festivals, and a beach party. The fighting lasted much of the day and in some cases longer.
Across many attack sites, Palestinian fighters fired directly at civilians, often at close range, as they tried to flee, and at people driving through the area. The attackers hurled grenades, shot into shelters, and fired rocket-propelled grenades at homes. They set houses on fire, burning and choking people, and forcing out others whom they shot or captured. They took dozens hostage and summarily killed others.
Nirit Hunwald, a nurse from Kibbutz Be’eri, where 97 civilians were killed, described dragging a rapid response team member who had been shot into the kibbutz’s dental clinic to treat his wounds: “There was a blood trail. I cannot erase it from my mind, all the blood.”
Agence France-Presse cross-referenced numerous data sources to determine that 815 of 1,195 people killed on October 7 were civilians. The armed groups took as hostages 251 civilians and Israeli security force personnel and took them to Gaza. As of July 1, 116 remained in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 42 who had been killed, according to AFP. Bodies of another 35 who were killed were returned to Israel.
The Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, the Palestinian movement that has governed the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip since 2007, led the assault. Human Rights Watch confirmed the participation of four other Palestinian armed groups based on headbands the fighters wore to indicate their affiliation and their claims of responsibility posted to their Telegram channels on social media.
The armed groups committed numerous violations of the laws of war that amount to war crimes, including attacks targeting civilians and civilian objects; willful killing of people in custody; cruel and other inhumane treatment; crimes involving sexual and gender-based violence; hostage-taking; mutilation and despoiling bodies; use of human shields; and pillage and looting.
The widespread attack was directed against a civilian population. Killing civilians and taking hostages were central aims of the planned attack, not an afterthought, a plan gone awry, or isolated acts. Human Rights Watch concluded that the planned murder of civilians and the hostage-taking were crimes against humanity.
Accounts from survivors along with verified photographs and videos (many of which were taken from body cams worn by the terrorists) show Palestinian fighters seeking out civilians and killing them across the attack sites from the moment the assault began, indicating that the intentional killing and hostage-taking of civilians was planned and highly coordinated.
All of this brutality was perpetrated by a terrorist government whose mission statement includes the words: “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.” (Preamble)
“The land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf [Holy Possession] consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgment Day. No one can renounce it or any part, or abandon it or any part of it.” (Article 11)
“Palestine is an Islamic land… Since this is the case, the Liberation of Palestine is an individual duty for every Moslem wherever he may be.” (Article 13)
None of what you just read is appearing in newspapers or online sources because, well, these actions were taken against Jews. In fact if Gaza was populated by Jews, there wouldn’t be a word said about it anywhere. Antisemitism is alive and prospering everywhere it seems.
