Illustration by Meghan Sim
As of Oct. 7, 2024, it has been a year since the war on Palestine escalated. Oct. 7, 2023, became the starting point for the most devastating, and still ongoing, Israeli assault on Palestine. Last year, on Oct. 7, Palestinian military group Hamas, designated as a terrorist group by various nations, including the United States, the United Kingdom, and Israel, launched an operation from the Gaza Strip on Israel, where 1,139 Israelis were killed and 251 were taken hostage, 97 of whom are still in captivity.
The Health Ministry in Gaza has reported that at least 41,825 Palestinians have been murdered in the last year, with an estimated 93,000 wounded. A study from July published in The Lancet, an international medical journal, states that the predicted number of actual murdered Palestinians in June could be closer to 186,000.
As Al Jazeera states, “Official toll does not take into account thousands of dead buried under rubble and indirect deaths due to destruction of health facilities, food distribution systems, and other public infrastructure.”
The above numbers are from the past year alone; Palestine has been a war zone since 1948. There have been 76 years of preceding violent Israeli occupation of Palestinian land funded by the U.S. and Europe. Western media has created a narrative based on its racist, long-curated image of the Middle East that has allowed the Arab world to be dehumanized. Palestinians have been stripped of the right to exist and to defend themselves.
In the past year, the U.S. has vetoed ceasefire deals in the U.N. Security Council three times, as of Sept. 2024. Since 1947, out of 36 draft resolutions related to Palestine-Israel that were vetoed, the U.S. has been responsible for 34. The International Court of Justice ruling stated that “Israel must withdraw as soon as possible from the Palestinian territories,” which the US not only dismissed, but then increased the aid and military support to Israel in the last few months. The U.S. designated Hamas and Lebanese political and militant group Hezbollah as a terrorist organization in 1997. The U.S. has a clear vested stake in the economic and political growth of Israel, and has not deterred in pushing their interests despite the cost of Palestinian and Arab lives.
We are in the age of the internet; we don’t have to listen to packaged mainstream media and the state-approved narrative. In the 21st century, we can learn from the effects of Orientalism, imperialism, and the U.S. Empire to overcome our individual complicity and dissonance. It is our own responsibility to be critical of all that we are informed of by governments, mainstream media, and social media. It is our own responsibility to use our resources to learn what we are not being told.
Classrooms are filled with rhetoric on state, power, violence, borders, race, and discrimination. For the last 20 years we, the students, have been told to study Edward Said, Noam Chomsky, Angela Davis, etc., who have been activists in their own right, but when the critical thinking that we study is put into practice (i.e., activism, speaking out) both public and private institutions shut us down.
In the last year, students and allies across the U.S. have radicalized for the Palestinian Liberation movement and have been met with extreme force by institutions and the state. The brutalization faced by students across America is devastating; it indicates a crackdown on free speech that borders on fascism and makes a mockery of this country’s constitution. Likewise, Jewish and Muslim individuals have faced growing discrimination and hate-based violence in the last year.
This violence, physical and otherwise, does not come close to what people in Palestine are experiencing day in, day out. According to the U.N., most of the reported killings in Gaza have been women and children. It has been 365 days of active, live-streamed genocide. Through social media and news reports, the world has seen decapitated bodies, heard six-year-old Hind Rajab alone in a car surrounded by the dead bodies of her family members before she was killed, witnessed a father carrying his murdered children in shopping bags. Palestinians have experienced horrors beyond imagining.
The war on Gaza continues to escalate. No part of Palestine has been left untouched by the U.S.-funded Israeli missiles. And now, it has gone beyond Palestine: as other countries in the region have engaged in the defense of Palestine. Israel has carried out more than 17,000 attacks on Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, and Iran in the last year. One of the worst attacks on Lebanon was on Sept. 2024, when pagers and electronic devices, allegedly owned by Hezbollah, exploded, killing a few members of Hezbollah as well as medics and office workers, civilians, and children.
This editorial’s function is to explicitly condemn the genocide of the Palestinian people and the targeting of civilians, especially children.
F Newsmagazine also condemns both islamophobia and anti-semitism and the generalization that Jewish people are responsible for the Palestinian genocide. We want to strongly recognize that Judaism and Zionism are not one in the same.
F News calls for the protection of journalists, especially at a time when the IDF is labeling journalists as terrorists. On 23 Oct, Israel declared the last six journalists in Northern Gaza as terrorists part of Hamas, effectively declaring the IDF’s intent to murder them. To target and kill press workers is to silence people and to attempt to hide the truth from the world. Journalists hold us accountable for our actions.
We wish to hold space for the 131 and counting journalists and media workers killed in what is considered the deadliest year for journalists since the Committee to Protect Journalists began collecting data. Names with an * were killed by airstrikes and attacks on their homes, family homes, or refugee camps. Names with an ^ indicate that family members were killed alongside the journalist, including children and pregnant women.
Abdallah Alwan*, Abdallah Iyad Breis*, Abdelhalim Awad*, Abdul Rahman Saima*, Abdulhadi Habib*^, Abdullah Darwish, Adel Zorob*^, Adham Hassouna^, Ahmad Jamal al Madhoun, Ahmed Abu Mhadi, Ahmen Al-Qara, Ahmed Bdeir, Ahmed Khaireddine*^, Ahmed Shehab*^, Askram ElShafie, Alaa Al-Hams*^, Amjad Juhjouh^, Amro Salah Abu Hayah, Angam Ahmad Edwan*, Assem Al-Barsh, Assem Kamal Moussa, Ayat Khadoura*^, Ayman Al-Gharbawi^, Ayman Al-Rafati*^, Bahaaddine Yassine, Bilal Jadallah, Duaa Jabbour*^, Duaa Sharaf*^, Farah Omar, Hamada Al-Yaziji*^, Hamza Al Dahdouh, Hamza Murtaja, Haneen Kashtan^, Hassan Farajallah, Hassouneh Salim*, Heba Al-Abadla^, Hisham Alnwajha, Husam Mubarak, Hussam al-Dabbaka*^, Ibrahim Al-Ghwarbawi^, Ibrahim Marzouq*^, Ibrahim Mohammad Lafi, Ibrahim Muhareb, Imad Al-Wahidi^, Ismail Al Ghoul, Issam Abdallah, Issam Bhar, Iyad El-Ruwagh*^, Iyad Matar^, Jabr Abu Hadrous*^, Jamal Al-Faqaawi*, Jamal Mohamed Haniyeh*^, Khalil Abu Aathra^, Mahmoud Juhjouh*^, Majd Fadl Arandas*, Majed Kashko^, Marwan Al Sawaf^, Mohamad Al-Bayyari, Mohamad Al-Iff^, Mohamed Abu Hassira*^, Mohamed Abu Skheil, Mohamed Azzaytouniyah^, Mohamed Jamal Sobhi Al-Thalathini*, Mohamed Khalifeh*^, Mohamed Manhal Abu Armana, Mohamed Mouin Ayyash*^, Mohamed Nabil Al-Zaq, Mohamed Naser Abu Huwaidi, Mohamed Yaghi^, Mohammad Balousha, Mohammad Jarghoun, Mohammad Abed Rabbo*^, Mohammed Abu Daqqa, Mohammed Abu Hatad*^, Mohammed Abu Jasser*^, Mohammed Al-Salhi, Mohammad Ali, Mohammed Atallah*^, Mohammed Bassam Al Jamal*^, Mohammed Imab Labad, Mohammed Issa Abu Saada*^, Mohammed Sobh, Mohmmed Abu Sharia, Montaser Al Sawaf, Mossab Ashour*, Mostafa Al Sawaf*^, Mostafa Bakeer, Moussa Al-Borsch^, Muhammad Salama*^, Mustafa Ayyad*, Mustafa Thuraya, Nafez Abdel Jawad*^, Nazmi Al-Nadim*^, Ola Al Dahdouh*, Ola Atallah*^, Rabih Al Maamari, Rami Al Refee, Rasheed Albably, Rizq Abu Shakian, Rizq Al-Gharabli*, Roee Idan, Roshdi Sarraj, Saadi Madoukh, Saed Al-Halabi*, Saeed al-Taweel, Saher Akram Rayan^, Salam Mema*, Salem Abu Toyour*^, Sameeh Al-Nady, Samer Abu Daqqa, Sari Mansour, Shaima El-Gazzar^, Shareef Okasha, Tamim Abu Muammar^, Tarek El Sayed Abu Skheil, Wafa Al-Udaini*^, Wafaa Abu Dabaan^, Yaacoub Al-Barsh*, Yahya Abu Manih, Yaniv Zohar^, Yasser Abu Namous*, Yasser Mamdouh El-Fady, Yazan al-Zuweidi^, Yousef Maher Dawas*, Zayd Abu Zayed*.
F News wishes to hold space for grief and anger, and to understand that to be unaffected by this war is to be disengaged from our humanity.
