Israel’s brutal bombing of Gaza Strip, an enclave densely populated with 2 million Palestinians, has been on the news since the second week of May. The headlines screamed of an “Israel-Palestine conflict,” an “escalation of violence” in Gaza Strip and of the “growing question” of crimes against humanity being committed by “both sides.” These paint the situation like a boxing match, with contenders of equal strength and rules governing both sides.

But videos, photos and reports from Gaza Strip fail to hide Israel’s disproportionate power and the widespread destruction and mass murder its bombs have wreaked on the Palestinian people.

By May 19, around 10,000 houses and buildings have been destroyed, if not pulverized, by Israeli airstrikes. These include schools, hospitals, press offices and the enclave’s only Covid-19 test laboratory. A few days prior, Israel cut Gaza’s internet connection and electricity supply and left hundreds of thousands without water, including the sick and those infected with Covid-19.

According to latest reports, 217 Palestinians have been killed in the bombings, 63 of which are children. More than 1,400 have been wounded and 52,000 forced to leave their homes. Aside from airstrikes, Israel has shelled Gaza from its border using howitzers and cannons.

Israel claims it is only “retaliating” to Palestine’s firing of rockets from Gaza Strip. But it was the first to raid the Al-Aqsa mosque in East Jerulasalem, one of the holiest places for Muslims, while Palestinians were in the middle of their Ramadan prayers last May 8. The raid resulted in the wounding of 205 Palestinians and 17 Israelis. In response, Palestine fired 1,000 rockets towards Israel on May 10. Some of these struck Israeli civilians and properties. Others dropped in Gaza. The majority (up to 90%) were intercepted by Israel’s anti-rocket system.

The Al-Aqsa raid was a culmination of weeks of inciting to violence by Israeli groups in Palestine territory in East Jerusalime. Anti-Arab pronouncements of so-called extremist Israeli groups have been on the rise, calling for “death to all Arabs.” Violent incursions of these groups into Palestinian communities intensified after the Israeli Supreme Court granted Jews the right to grab Palestinian houses in East Jerusalem in February. This decision is against international pacts governing how the territories are to be divided between the two nations. Palestinians have actively resisted the impending eviction from the last of their communities in the sacred land of Jerusalem.

In reality, Israel’s latest aggression is a continuation of its decades-long genocide campaign and violent occupation of Palestinian territories. For Palestinians, it is the continuation of the Al Nakba of May 15, 1948, where their people were killed and driven out of their land to give way to the birth of the Israeli nation.

In over seven decades of Israeli occupation, Palestinians were forced into the separate territories of Gaza Strip and West Bank. The deliberate imprisonment of Palestinians inside these territories is now being called a form of apartheid.

Israel has never been forced to retreat or made to account for the numerous violations and crimes it has committed against Palestinians. This is because the US and Europe’s capitalist countries consider it as a key ally in the Middle East. The US continues to reject calls to condemn Israel’s crimes, and has instead deemed Palestinians as “terrorists.” It considers Israel’s bombing spree as “pushing the limits” of the rules of war, and its genocide as a “right to self-defense.”

US Pres. Joseph Biden has earlier refused to review US military aid to Israel. He also refused to impose the lightest conditions, such as banning Israel from imprisoning children in its congested jails. Annually, Israel receives the largest chunk of US military aid.