By Azwell Banda,
When Hamas and Israel reached a cease fire agreement on January 15, 2025, the people of Gaza had endured 15 months, or 467 days, of pure hell, destruction, injuries, rivers of blood, and thousands of deaths such as no human population has ever had to endure in the post 2nd World War era: for 15 months Gaza was the testing ground of the most advanced AI powered, US financed and intelligence supported, latest weapons of mass destruction human civilisation has ever seen deployed anywhere.
Gaza has been flattened, reduced to rubble. It will take years for the full accurate count of the dead, injured and buried under the rubble to be known. After 15 months of relentless Israeli Defence Forces bombardment, infantry and sniper assault, 1.9 million people had been internally displaced in Gaza. This is 95 percent of the total population of Gaza. Of these 1.9 million people, 80 percent of them were living in tents without adequate clothing and protection from the cold weather. The Norwegian Refugee Council estimated that only 23 percent of the need for shelter in Gaza had been met.
The world watched, live, as Israel denied the people of Gaza aid, medicines and water, and bombed homes, schools, places of worship, clinics, and hospitals. The people of Gaza starved as bombs rained upon them, from everywhere. It is well established international law and recognised by the International Criminal Court that intentionally starving a population is a war crime when committed during an armed conflict. Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, has been indicted for war crimes, and this is one of them.
By January 15, 2025, after 15 months of pure hell in Gaza, Israel had injured 110,265 people in Gaza. This is roughly one out of every 20 people in Gaza. Many of these are children. The UN agency, UNRWA, estimated that 10 children lost a leg or both every day during the war. The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that 22,500 injured people, nearly a quarter of those injured, have life-altering injuries that require urgent medical rehabilitation but they cannot get it. Many have severe limb injuries.
Thousands of people are feared buried under the rubble because of the estimated 85,000 tonnes of explosives which Israel dropped on Gaza, during the war. With bare hands, and fearing unexploded bombs, the people in Gaza could not reach some of those buried beneath the rubble. Clearing all the debris will obviously take several decades, guaranteeing that those returning to what used to be where their homes were before the war must live, every day, for a long time, side by side with the debris; a reminder of the hell they have endured.
From October the 7th 2023 to January 15. 2025, Israel had killed 46,707 people of Gaza. This figure includes nearly 18 000 children. This means that one out of every 50 Gazans had been killed by Israel in 15 months, in the most horrible and cruel manner. These figures do not capture the full numbers of those killed. If those buried under the rubble are accurately counted, the number will certainly increase, tremendously. The population of Gaza has been consciously cropped, robbed of its people, especially young people, by a most violent method of mass killings – genocide – by Israel.
And yet finally Israel negotiated a ceasefire with Hamas. This means Hamas has not been destroyed. Barely a week after the ceasefire, Hamas is reported to have recruited more than 15,000 new soldiers into its ranks. This means the people of Gaza have suffered pure hell for 15 months but their spirit of struggle for their freedom has not been broken. Only an idiot, a cruel moron, an imbecile, thinks they can kill the yearning for freedom from illegal, colonial, racist and apartheid occupation. Those alive in Gaza, today, in fact, now have their determination to be free multiplied by all the injured, the dead and Gazans buried beneath the rubble.
No amount of terror, violence, oppression, domination and exploitation can defeat a determined, occupied, dispossessed and exploited people. The people of Gaza are neither the first nor the last in human history to bear testimony to this sacred truth: the desire for freedom from colonial and racist domination, oppression and exploitation cannot be killed by anything, let alone armed violence. The US and its puppet Israel have lost the war in Gaza. The people of Gaza are a shinning example to humanity: there is more to human life than fear of death at the hands of oppressors, occupiers, dominators and exploiters.
For 15 months the world was treated to a live genocide, in Gaza. We saw, and now we know, what a televised genocide looks like. And we have learnt that those determined to commit genocide will kill babies, little children, women, old people, sick people, and ignore the UN and its International Criminal Court of Justice, with contempt. This especially if they are puppets of, and backed by the most powerful country on earth today, the US and its military might.
Now we can fully hear the stories of horror, especially from the children of Gaza, about what they actually saw, heard, felt, touched, smelled, as bombs and bullets rained all around them, as they were moved from place to place as Israel sifted through their population for targets to bomb and shoot at, for people to kill, as they saw their friends, sisters, brothers, aunties, uncles, mothers and fathers cut to pieces or bombed into smatterings, or buried alive. There will be no forgetting; there may be no forgiving either. The war continues until Palestine will be free.
And yet Zambia, Hakainde Hichilema’s UPND government, even before the ink has fully dried and the ceasefire properly confirmed as real, have welcomed Israel’s intentions to open an embassy in Zambia. Any sane Zambian who has any doubt about Hichilema and the UPND government’s contemptuous attitude to “human rights” need only consider this treacherous act. “Human Rights” are very topical today in Zambia, and the UPND government have chosen this moment to flirt with pure evil: Benjamin Netanyahu’s extreme right wing Zionist government.
Zambian and foreign media has reported that Zambia’s Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Minister Mulambo Haimbe has since welcomed the State of Israel’s intention to open an Embassy in Zambia.
In a statement issued by the Ministry’s Principal Public Relations Officer Eva Hatontola Chanda, last Friday, Mulambo Haimbe said this step was part of Israel’s strategic goal of strengthening bilateral relations with African countries in 2025, including Zambia. Typical of the UPND cold, insensitive and extremely cruel disposition, Haimbe said that the decision was expected to enhance bilateral cooperation between Zambia and the State of Israel in areas such as agriculture, trade, and innovation.
Fresh from slaughtering more than 47, 000 Palestinians, Israel wants now to strengthening bilateral relations with African countries in 2025, including Zambia. And Zambia is ready to enhance bilateral cooperation between Zambia and the State of Israel in areas such as agriculture, trade, and innovation. There is something deeply troubling, extremely un-African, very dark and thoroughly evil in this announcement.
What message is Hakainde Hichilema and the UPND government sending to all sane Zambians and the rest of the normal world, about us, and to the Palestinians, and yes, even to many Israelis of good conscience? That Zambia is open for business, so soon after the genocide in Gaza, even before we know the full count of the dead Gazans?
The now internationally well circulated statement reads: “Hon. Mulambo Haimbe S.C., MP, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, has welcomed the State of Israel’s intention to open an Embassy in Zambia, marking a significant milestone in the longstanding friendship between the two countries. This development is expected to further strengthen the existing bilateral cooperation, as well as increase interactions between Zambia and Israel for the mutual benefit of the two countries. Zambia and the State of Israel have enjoyed longstanding bilateral relations since 1964 when the two countries established diplomatic relations. The Opening of an Embassy of the State of Israel in Lusaka, is part of Israel’s strategic goal of strengthening bilateral relations with African countries in 2025, including Zambia. This decision is expected to further enhance bilateral cooperation between Zambia and the State of Israel in areas of mutual interests such as agriculture, trade, and innovation. The Minister made the remarks after a warm conversation with His Excellency Mr. Gideon Sa’ar, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the State of Israel.”
The UPND government is a liar, a pathological liar. Zambia and the State of Israel HAVE NOT enjoyed longstanding bilateral relations since 1964 when the two countries established diplomatic relations.
Like Gazans, the majority of Zambians are extremely poor, and generally hungry. But we are human beings, we have souls, we have feelings, and we know when murder or a genocide has taken place, and we know what is right and wrong. Rarely do elected nincompoops abuse their mandate such as the UPND and Hakainde Hichilema have done. There is always the hour of reckoning…….history is on the side of the just, and the righteous, always.
(Comments to: kalindawalo2010@gmail.com)
