Since Israel launched its military campaign in Gaza in response to the attack on October 7 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage, at least 56,500 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the Palestinian health ministry. But an independent survey, as reported in Nature magazine on June 27, estimates that 84,000 people died in Gaza between October 2023 and early January 2025 as a result of the Hamas-Israel war, and that more than half those killed were children, women aged between 18 and 64, or men and women over 65.
Unicef paints a terrible picture of the suffering of children in Gaza. The organisation’s regional director for the Middle East and North Africa, Edouard Beigbeder, said: “These children ... are now part of a long, harrowing list of unimaginable horrors: the grave violations against children, the blockade of aid, the starvation, the constant forced displacement and the destruction of hospitals, water systems, schools and homes. In essence, the destruction of life itself in the Gaza Strip.”
Since the end of a ceasefire in mid-March, 1,309 children have been reported killed and 3,738 wounded, he said.
“In total, more than 50,000 children have reportedly been killed or injured since October 2023. How many more dead girls and boys will it take?” Beigbeder asked. “What level of horror must be live-streamed before the international community fully steps up, uses its influence, and takes bold, decisive action to force the end of this ruthless killing of children?”
Figures are difficult to establish, given that the data collection is being done in a war zone, with the concomitant destruction of health infrastructure. The numbers from the Gaza health ministry don’t include those who have died from preventable disease, malnutrition, or other indirect consequences of the war, with some reports predicting thousands of such excess deaths.
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) are responsible for the vast majority of these deaths in Gaza. In fact, nearly all are attributed to Israeli military actions. And let’s not forget that the majority of these deaths are civilians — victims of such actions as air strikes on homes, schools, hospitals, refugee camps and aid distribution sites.
Every day, the media reports on these deaths. A sample story from Al Jazeera on June 24: “Israeli forces and drones have killed at least 86 Palestinians since dawn, including 56 near aid distribution centres, in the latest attacks on desperate people seeking aid in the besieged Gaza Strip, according to medical sources in hospitals.”
Here’s another, from June 30: “Israeli forces have bombed a cafe, a school and food distribution sites in Gaza, killing at least 95 Palestinians, and attacked a hospital, wounding several more people. The figure includes 39 people who were killed in an Israeli strike on a seaside cafe, Al-Baqa cafeteria, in northern Gaza City. Dozens more were wounded.
“Among the dead was journalist Ismail Abu Hatab, as well as women and children who had gathered at the cafe. One witness said that Israeli fighter jets carried out the strike. ‘We found people torn apart,’ said Yahya Sharif. ‘This place wasn’t affiliated with anyone — no politics and no military association whatsoever. It was packed with people including children for a birthday party.’ The bombing flattened the cafe and left a huge crater in the ground.”
All of which, one assumes, is what drove the annoyingly named English punk-rap duo Bob Vylan to lead the crowd at Glastonbury in a chant of “Death, death to the IDF.” The two members of the group use the aliases Bobby Vylan and Bobbie Vylan, a prescient anonymity that is probably coming in handy right now.
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer condemned Bob Vylan for what he called “appalling hate speech”, and, as reported on the BBC, said the BBC had questions to answer over its live broadcast of the group’s performance. The organisers of the Glastonbury festival said they were “appalled” at the chants.
They can’t really claim to have been caught unawares, though. Sample Bob Vylan lyrics include: “I’d rather fight, and watch you bleed … I’m no pacifist, I’m smashing fists at every single racist prick I meet ... No liberal lefty cunt is gonna tell me punching Nazis ain’t the way. I could ... sing a song, a pretty little song, but I’d rather kill you.”
The Campaign Against Antisemitism group said the Glastonbury Festival had ‘continued its headlong descent into a pit of extremism and hatred, but it is the behaviour of the BBC that is even more dangerous’
The BBC said Bob Vylan’s comments were “deeply offensive” and pointed out that it had put up a warning on-screen about “very strong and discriminatory language”. The US has, predictably, revoked Bob Vylan’s visas. And the Campaign Against Antisemitism group said the Glastonbury festival had “continued its headlong descent into a pit of extremism and hatred, but it is the behaviour of the BBC that is even more dangerous”. It said it would formally complain to the BBC for broadcasting the performance, as well as that of Kneecap.
It’s worth pointing out that Kneecap, the act appearing after Bob Vylan, led the crowd in a chant of “Fuck Keir Starmer”. Band member Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh was charged with a terror offence for holding a Hezbollah flag at a gig last November, and for chants in support of Hamas and Hezbollah, which are offences in terms of British laws that prohibit the public display of materials supporting proscribed “terrorist” organisations.
According to Ó hAnnaidh, “the flag was tossed on stage, and I held it up. It wasn’t a premeditated act or an endorsement of terrorism. It was a political statement of solidarity with the Palestinian people, who are facing genocide. This charge is about silencing us, not about any real threat.” On Instagram the band said: “This is political policing. This is a carnival of distraction.”
Whatever your stance on the sentiments of Bob Vylan or Kneecap about Gaza, you’ll probably agree that the incidents have been weaponised by those eager to influence the narrative. Rather make a lot of noise about hate speech and antisemitism than talk about dead children. And to be clear, we should be talking about hate speech and antisemitism as well, but these topics are often hijacked by bad actors.
In Istanbul this week, police fired rubber bullets and teargas to disperse a mob after allegations that LeMan, a satirical magazine, published a cartoon of the prophet Muhammad. Police arrested the cartoonist responsible for the image, as well as the magazine’s graphic designer. Warrants were issued for other staff members.
The cartoon shows two winged figures with halos — one identified as Muslim and the other as Jewish — shaking hands while bombs fall on a city below. One figure says: “Peace be upon you, I’m Muhammad.”
According to Reuters, LeMan issued a statement on X saying the cartoonist had depicted “the suffering of a Muslim man killed in Israeli attacks”, and that there was no intent to insult Islam or its prophet.
“The name Muhammad is among the most widely used in the world by Muslims honouring the Prophet. The cartoon does not depict the Prophet and was not drawn to mock religious values,” Reuters quoted the magazine as saying.
Here we have two different carnies, but the same carnival of distraction. It suits some parties to deflect attention away from the horror of the ongoing genocide in Gaza, in the same way that it suits others to misinterpret an image in a magazine so as to sustain a particular idea of the conflict.
This kind of immediate attack on artists trying to highlight the terrible nature of what is going on is, as Kneecap point out, an attempt to blunt their message, if not silence them. It’s to the credit of artists around the world that they are courageous enough to keep sticking their heads above the parapet.
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