by Stephen Lendman

Longstanding Israeli policy calls for inflicting maximum pain and suffering on the entire Palestinian population - collective punishment, making conditions unbearable, a shocking indictment of a vicious Arab-hating state, waging war against defenseless people.

Since October 1, deaths and injuries increased daily. According to the PA Health Ministry, the toll through Thursday includes:

● 68 Palestinians murdered in cold blood, including 13 children;

● 921 injured from live fire, another 855 from rubber or plastic coated steel bullets at times lethal;

● 208 suffering fractures and other injuries from assaults and beatings;

● 14 burned from tear gas and concussion grenades; and

● well over 5,000 harmed by toxic tear gas inhalation.

On Thursday, Israeli forces stormed Palestine’s Al-Makassed Hospital for the third time this week - this time using tear gas, stun grenades and rubber bullets inside the premises, turning a medical facility into a war zone.

Dozens of patients and medical staff were injured. Witnesses said soldiers fired “indiscriminately” inside the hospital compound. Director Rafis al-Hussieni said undercover Israeli forces rampaged throughout the facility - insulting patients and staff before demanding medical records.

He refused, saying “(i)t is not our job to give any information about anyone who comes to hospital or to take any personal information. Our job is only to help them and provide them with medical treatment.”

Many times Palestinians are treated for injuries without collecting information on them or creating files.

Al-Husseini expressed outrage, adding “(t)he hospital has become desecrated by Israeli troops. Israeli violations against the Palestinian hospital are against the law, and…we cannot find anyone to protect the hospital, the patients, and the staff.”

On Friday, an Israeli jeep struck a Palestinian youth. Soldiers were prevented from reaching him. Journalists attempting to film areas violence were assaulted. Israel wants its high crimes concealed.

It continues blaming Palestinians unjustly. More draconian measures are being imposed, certain to increase violence, not curb it, why action is being taken.

Palestinian males aged 15 - 25 are being targeted, their movements more greatly restricted, forced to endure more intrusive security checks - measures designed to intimidate and terrorize, escalate resistance so Israeli forces can strike back harder.

Israel claims it’s instituting tougher measures because of many stabbing attacks. Since October 1, eight Israelis died, only two from stabbings. Sweeping accusations of knife wielding Palestinians are willful Big Lies, made to justify daily killings and other abuses.

More ruthless draconian measures imposed on Palestinians is part of longstanding Israeli apartheid policies, separating Jews from Arabs, forced segregation, violently enforced, including with shoot-to-kill orders.

Israeli media reported Netanyahu may establish a special court for security issues, perhaps a military one - handling arbitrary revocations of citizenship, illegal administrative detentions, punitive home demolitions, and anything Israeli officials call “terrorism.”

His scheme, if implemented, is about persecuting Palestinians more viciously than already - longstanding police state practice - brutalizing people for political reasons, fabricating charges, wrongfully imprisoning targeted individuals.

On Friday, Maan News reported Israel’s Jerusalem District Court indicted 13-year-old Palestinian Ahmad Manasra with attempted murder for an alleged stabbing incident.

He was seriously injured at the scene of the alleged crime, kicked and beaten, run over by a car, no charges filed against his assailants.

A video showing him lying injured and bloody on the ground went viral online. An Israeli is heard shouting: “Die, son of a whore! Die!” Another Israeli is heard telling a soldier to shoot Ahmad.

It’s unclear what, if anything, he did. At a hearing, lawyers representing him, Tareq Barghout and Lea Tsemel, said he had a knife but stabbed no one. When arrested, he told investigators he “didn’t stab anyone because I don’t like blood.”

While hospitalized, Barghout said he’s been treated badly. Israeli security guarding him threatened to kill him. They constantly yell at him.

Treatment of Palestinians is notoriously harsh, guilt by accusation assured. Military courts afford no justice. Ahmad could be imprisoned for years, once tried and convicted when he turns 14 in January.

He’ll be held at a closed facility until prosecuted. The Convention on the Rights of the Child defines childhood as anyone under age 18.

So do UN Rules for the Protection of Juveniles Deprived of their Liberty. Israel willfully breaches all international laws, treating children like adults, brutally and inhumanely, including imprisoning them unjustly.

Israeli initiated violence continues raging throughout the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Soldiers stormed the Aida refugee camp in Bethlehem.

Residents were threatened over a loud speaker, one soldier yelling in Arabic: “We will gas you all until you die.”

Customer outrage got Walmart to pull its Israeli soldier kids costume and Sheik Fagin Nose, being sold for Halloween.

Author Max Blumenthal tweeted “Walmart is promoting occupation and the killing of innocent children this Halloween” - along with a photo of a Palestinian child receiving emergency medical care.

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (AAADC) blasted Walmart, calling the costumes “offensive and racist,” saying “(s)uch…symbol(s) of fear and violence…should not be used for entertainment purposes.”

Anything for a buck in America - no matter how outrageous.

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Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks World War III".

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

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