Feelings about the continuing Israeli bombing of Palestinians in Gaza were as raw as the chilly weather around the J.C. Nichols fountain just off the Country Club Plaza on New Year’s Day as hundreds of Palestinians and their sympathizers demonstrated their outrage about the more than 400 of their countrymen who have been killed and over 2,000 who have been injured during the last week of conflict there.
Highlighting the current death and destruction in Gaza, some of the Plaza demonstrators, these mostly young men, wrapped a boy, probably not yet in his teens, in a white blanket stained with blood-red dye, and carried the “dead” body above their heads as we have seen so many times in pictures from the Middle East.
The New York Times reported in its lead story Thursday afternoon: “Israel Pursues Diplomacy but Presses Attacks.”
On the Plaza, a press release from the Muslim American Society of Greater Kansas City (MASKANSASCITY.org) and Citizens for Justice in the Middle East (CJME.org) declared that this was a “Day of Action” to demand an immediate end to the mass killing that began Saturday when Israeli warplanes and helicopters pounded the region, killing and wounding hundreds including women and children.
Reports described it as one of the bloodiest days in the history of the Palestinian conflict with Israel. The press release stated that the U.S.-backed Israeli Occupation Force destroyed every security station in Gaza, and that there was no space left in the morgue with bodies piled up in a hospital emergency room and in the corridors, “as many of the wounded screamed in pain.”
Israel maintains its actions have been in retaliation for Hamas rocket attacks and suicide bombings.
“This escalation of violence is taking the form of wholesale warfare against the civilian population, using weapons that are, in part, supplied by the United States to Israel in clear violation of the U.S. Arms Control Export Act,” stated MAS Freedom Civil and Human Rights Director Ibrahim Abdit-Mu’id Ramey.
Ramey added: “MAS Freedom is also calling on the U.S. government to respect our nation’s own laws, and to prohibit the export of helicopter gunships, anti-personnel weapons, and other lethal devices that are typically used by the Israeli military to attack and wound Palestinians, both in Gaza and the West Bank. This export of armaments to Israel is both illegal and must end.”
Ramey said that because of the U.S.-backed Israeli blockade and strangulation of the people of Gaza for the past 18 months, there is little or no medicine to treat the wounded, electricity for hospitals, or food or clean water for much of the population.
Gaza is about the size of Greater Kansas City, both in land area and in population.
The Plaza demonstration lasted from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m., and about halfway through this time, many of the Palestinians gathered north of the fountain and bowed and prayed aloud for 15 minutes or so. They faced in a northeasterly direction.
Another demonstration is planned for Saturday in Lawrence.
