Let Me Count the Ways

Not a love poem á la Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "How Do I Love Thee", or anything close to it!

Photo by Cooper Hofmann on Unsplash

How does Israel kill Palestinians?
Let me count the ways.
1.    It bombs them to pieces.
2.    It quadcopter drones them.
3.    It shoots them in the head, chest and/or groin.
4.    It fires tank shells at them.
5.    It runs over them with tanks and bulldozers.
6.    It burns them alive in their tents and vehicles.
7.    It buries them alive under rubble.
8.    It wipes out entire families in air strikes.
9.    It assassinates negotiators and political leaders.
10.  It uses AI to target individuals and their families at home.
11.  It kills them in double or triple tap strikes.
12.  It murders journalists so that they cannot record and document its genocidal
       atrocities.
13.  It leaves them to bleed to death or be eaten by wild dogs in the street.
14.  It kills them when they try to recover bodies or collect scattered remains.
15.  It kills them when they approach yellow lines.
16.  It kills them in safe zones.
17.  It employs sexual, reproductive and other forms of gender-based violence.
18.  It slaughters them like animals.
19.  It exterminates them like cockroaches and rodents.
20.  It starves them to death.
21.  It denies them vaccines, antibiotics, medicines and medical supplies so that they 
       die of infection and in prolonged agony from their injuries.
22.  It arbitrarily closes crossings to aid trucks, allowing a mere fraction to enter in 
       violation of the “ceasefire” agreement.
23.  It intercepts global flotillas in international waters and confiscates the 
       humanitarian aid onboard.
24.  It engineers a life-threatening water crisis by destroying wells, desalination plants, 
       transmission pipelines, distribution networks, water reservoirs and pumping
       stations.
25.  It murders medical personnel and bombs hospitals in order to disable the health 
       care system.
26.  It unplugs incubators and leaves premature infants to die.
27.  It hits ambulances and fire trucks on rescue missions.
28.  It withholds essential baby formula, milk and vitamins for vulnerable infants.
29.  It refuses to let the sick and dying leave to receive urgent medical treatment in 
       another country.
30.  It herds them into line-ups for food and aid where they are sitting ducks for 
       snipers.
31.  It tortures, rapes and beats them to death in prisons.
32.  It executes them without charge or trial.
33.  It prevents the entry of heavy equipment to save those trapped under the rubble.
34.  It cuts off fuel and electricity to hospitals, desalination and wastewater plants.
35.  It contaminates the air, water and soil so that they will die of cancer and
       respiratory illnesses.
36.  It creates unsanitary conditions that spread disease, rodents, insects and pests.
37.  It poisons their land and their wells.
38.  It denies adequate shelter from the cold so that they freeze to death.
39.  It denies adequate shelter from the heat so that they roast to death.
40.  It kills them with grief for their martyred sons and daughters, parents and 
       grandparents, husbands and wives.
41.  It inflicts immeasurable misery and traumatizes them emotionally, mentally and   
      psychologically.
42.  It humiliates, emasculates and dehumanizes them.
43.  It destroys their mosques, churches, cultural institutions, archives, historical 
       markets, archeological sites and cemeteries in order to erase their history.
44.  It blows up schools and universities in order to destroy their future.
45.  It kills them openly.
46.  It kills them in secret.
47.  It kills them slowly.
48.  It kills them gleefully.
49.  It makes their lives unlivable.
50.  It stops at nothing.

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