Link to the article – https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-forces-kill-two-palestinians-west-bank-raid-after-deadly-night-2024-03-13/
Summary – Israeli forces shot and killed three Palestinians on two separate occasions in the West Bank, making it 6 Palestinians left dead in the matter of hours. A witness of the event said that Israeli forces fired at the people he was sitting with as they ate their meal before sunrise because of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. The group saw people coming at them and started to run and then a sniper started shooting at them, but the bystander was lucky and did not get shot. There have also been 15 year old and 13 year old Palestinian rebels against the Israeli police that have been shot dead for their actions against Israeli rule. Since October 7th, there have been 358 deaths documented in the West Bank, which is almost three deaths per day.
Analysis – This killing demonstrates the state that the war is in right now. The two sides have such shared hatred for each other that random attacks in the street on innocent civilians has become almost a normalcy for the region. Sitting outside a hospital and eating a meal for your religion is enough for the other side to attack you with a sniper rifle and attempt to kill many people that do not even have a relation to the military, the only thing that they did was be a different religion and be from the rival side. Typically in a war we see fighting between militias and sometimes there are civilian casualties caught in the cross-fire, but in this conflict the civilians are the target in many attacks and that is a demonstration of the deep hatred between the two.
Connection to class – This relates to the idea of international norms, because it shows such a strong contradiction and betrayal of social norms that exist. Some of the norms with the strongest compliance globally are prohibition of genocide and international criminal accountability for mass atrocities and the way this war is going could be considered a small genocide and it most certainly has involved numerous mass atrocities and attacks that have killed thousands of people. Israel’s air and ground attacks have killed around 31,000 people and wounded 72,000 more. Over 100,000 people dead or injured is a mass atrocity in any circumstance and again there are no repercussions in sight for the violent crimes being committed.