DNC dispatch #3 Behind Enemy Lines, Chicago

This is the third dispatch from Behind Enemy Lines political battle against the Death and Nakba Coronation in Chicago (DNC). These dispatches will provide commentary on the important political and practical questions rising in the fight against Genocide Joe and Killer Kamala and to shut down the DNC for Gaza. 

More than 300 days into the Gaza genocide, the US-Israel war machine has created a whole new vocabulary of suffering and human misery: The flour massacre, where Israeli troops killed 118 starving people trying to access food aid; The Al-Shifa hospital massacre in April, where the hospital was invaded and hundreds of Palestinians were executed in its courtyard and 22 hospital patients were killed; The Nuseirat massacre, the so-called hostage rescue operation that involved the bombing of a refugee camp alongside IDF soldiers camouflaging themselves on an aid truck and opening fire on Palestinian civilians, leaving 274 people dead, among them 64 children; The Mawasi massacre, where people in a so-called “safe zone” were barraged with missiles so heavy that their body parts were buried in the sand, and the bombing was so intense that rescue workers couldn’t reach the site for hours. 

There is the widespread, intentional, and systematic starvation of the people of Gaza through the denial of food aid. There is the emerging outbreak of polio and other diseases, the repeated invasion and bombings of hospitals and the step by step destruction of the health system of Gaza, all while the number of wounded multiplies. There is the targeting of the water system, the bombing of the wells and treatment plants. There are the videos on TikTok of IDF soliders bragging about their daily war crimes, and their plunder of Palestinian homes. 

In May, Wafa Jarrar, a 49 year old woman, was arrested by a platoon of occupation troops in the West Bank city of Jenin. Due to the brutality of her arrest and the cruel medical neglect of the Israeli prisons, she had both of her legs amputated. This week she succumbed to her injuries. Her husband is still held in administrative detention, a form of judicial kidnapping where prisoners are held without charges or trial. More than 9,000 Palestinians are being held in Israeli prisons, hundreds of those detainees are children. 

Many of the Palestinians kidnapped from Gaza are taken to the Sde Teiman concentration camp where they face a systematic regime of torture and brutality. Survivors of the prison camp report at various times being beaten, having dog sicced on them, being handcuffed for 24 hours at a time, being regularly denied food, and being physically tortured to the point of amputation. At least 38 Palestinians have died inside of this concentration camp.  While the ruling class media in the US continues to repeat the slanderous lie of mass rapes occurring on October 7th, IDF soldiers in the Sde Teiman concentration camp have regularly used rape and sexual assault as part of its regime of dehumanization. One recently released video shows IDF forces sexually assaulting a Palestinian hostage with such barbarity that the hostage was hospitalized with broken ribs and damaged lungs. 

Sandwiched by meetings with Genocide Joe and Killer Kamala, Israel assassinated Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh. Haniyeh served as the chief negotiator on behalf Hamas and the Palestinian resistance in ceasefire talks, even as his children and grandchildren were killed in Gaza. This assassination of a political leader on sovereign foreign soil proves what Palestinians have long known – that the US-Israel war machine has no respect for international law or intent to negotiate in good faith. 

What is the responsibility of people living in a country that is behind these atrocities? 

Deliver a message to Genocide Joe and Killer Kamala in the only language that they understand.
Come to Chicago and shut down the DNC! 

While we continue to hit the streets every day, Behind Enemy Lines is welcoming new out of town volunteers and organizing people here in Chicago for an intense week of street outreach, culminating in simultaneous neighborhood speakouts on the 17th, and a protest that actually aims to shut down the convention on the 20th. Our organizing center opens for an open house this Sunday the 11th. If you support this effort to go to the people and shut down the convention, please make a contribution to help sustain the volunteers.