COMMENTARY: By Caitlin Johnstone
- Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix
- LISTEN: A reading of this article by Tim Foley
- READ MORE: Israeli attack on hospital to kill Gaza journalist condemned as ‘heinous’
The IDF has admitted to bombing a hospital in order to assassinate a prominent Palestinian journalist in Gaza, Hassan Aslih, explicitly stating that they assassinated him for engaging in journalistic activities.
The official Israel Defense Forces account made the following post on Twitter (emphasis added):
“Don’t let Aslih’s press vest fool you:
Hassan Abdel Fattah Mohammed Aslih, a terrorist from the Hamas Khan Yunis brigade, was eliminated along with other terrorists in the ‘Nasser’ hospital in Khan Yunis.
Aslih participated in the brutal October 7 massacre under the guise of a journalist and owner of a news network. During the massacre, he documented acts of murder, looting, and arson, posting the footage online.
Journalist? More like terrorist.”
Documenting newsworthy acts and posting the footage online is also known as journalism. It’s the thing that journalism is.
Aslih was killed in Nasser Hospital’s burn unit where he was recovering from a previous Israeli assassination attempt in which they bombed a tent near that same hospital.
That’s right kids, Israel will literally assassinate a journalist by bombing a hospital, openly admit that they bombed the hospital to assassinate the journalist for engaging in journalistic activities — and then call you an antisemite if you say Israel bombs hospitals and assassinates journalists.
Don’t let Aslih’s press vest fool you:
Hassan Abdel Fattah Mohammed Aslih, a terrorist from the Hamas Khan Yunis brigade, was eliminated along with other terrorists in the ‘Nasser’ hospital in Khan Yunis.
Aslih participated in the brutal October 7 massacre under the guise of a… pic.twitter.com/23pdgGrefu
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) May 13, 2025
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The following things are Hamas: journalists, journalism, the new pope, the last pope, the UN, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, human rights, critical thinking, hospitals, schools, campus protesters, Greta Thunberg, doctors, women, children, Ireland, and Ms Rachel.
Israel admits it bombed a hospital to kill a jourmalist. Video: Caitlin Johnstone
Benjamin Netanyahu is now saying that the forced ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza was “inevitable,” reportedly telling the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee on Sunday that “We are destroying more and more homes, and Gazans have nowhere to return to. The only inevitable outcome will be the wish of Gazans to emigrate outside of the Gaza Strip.”
So there you have it. Shut up about hostages. Shut up about Hamas. Shut up about October 7. This is about removing Palestinians from a Palestinian territory to replace them with Jewish settlers. That’s all this has ever been about. Anyone who pretends otherwise is evil.
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“You support terrorism,” said the person who supports daily massacres of civilians to advance political aims.
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Everyone’s yelling about Trump accepting a jet from Qatar as a bribe, which would make sense if they hadn’t been completely ignoring how Trump has openly admitted to being bought and controlled by the world’s richest Israeli Miriam Adelson, and how pervasively influential the Israel lobby is throughout all of US politics.
It’s so gross that Western society tolerates the existence of an Israel lobby. Like “Oh so you’re here to convince my government to stomp out my free speech rights and use my tax dollars for wars and genocide to advance the interests of an apartheid state? Yeah cool, I guess that’s fine.”
The existence of the Israel lobby should be treated the same as a Nazi lobby or a pedophilia lobby. Taking donations from pro-Israel groups should be as stigmatised as taking donations from the KKK or NAMBLA.
It’s not okay that each Western nation has its own high-powered lobby group whose whole entire job is to insert itself into key points of influence and persuade our governments to destroy our civil rights and commit genocide. Nobody should tolerate the existence of these groups.
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“This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal.”
~ Aaron Bushnell https://t.co/FtQt5UbWyl— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) May 10, 2025
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I always get Israel apologists telling me “Stop calling it a genocide! It’s not a genocide!”
And I’m always just like okay well then they’re doing some sort of thing where the people in power work to eliminate a population because of their ethnicity using mass-scale violence and deliberate starvation. I guess there’s no word for it.
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The last year and a half in Gaza is a strong enough reason to dismantle the entire US-led Western empire. The Gaza holocaust could end tomorrow and it would still be reason enough. All the empire’s other worldwide abuses could have never happened and it’d still be reason enough.
In Gaza alone the empire has already established beyond any doubt that it should not exist, even if you ignore all its other crimes throughout the Middle East, Latin America, Africa and Asia. If you would perpetrate history’s first live-streamed genocide in full view of the entire world, then you are not the sort of power structure who should be leading humanity into the future.
If you would inflict the kinds of abuses we’ve been watching on our screens for the last year and a half upon helpless human beings who have done nothing wrong, then you should not rule the world. Your rule must end.
The alternative is to let the fate of humanity be determined by genocidal monsters. This is simply not an option. The sooner the US-centralised empire ends, the better.
Caitlin Johnstone is an Australian independent journalist and poet. Her articles include The UN Torture Report On Assange Is An Indictment Of Our Entire Society. She publishes a website and Caitlin’s Newsletter. This article is republished with permission.
