When Israel and its apologists tell you that Gaza was free to develop into a Dubai on the Med, remember this:

Israel's drone strike last night on an aid ship to Gaza off Malta, in international waters, is nothing new. Israel attacked an aid flotilla to Gaza, killing 10 activists – again in international waters – almost exactly 15 years ago.

Then as now, Israel's western patrons gave a shrug of the shoulders. It was seen, then as now, as ok to put Gaza's people 'on a diet', even if a far less severe one than now. Then as now, the West denied that the Palestinians were under a brutal Israeli military occupation that deprived them of their most fundamental human rights. Then as now, those who tried to speak up were smeared or physically attacked.

All of this is the missing context for the groundswell of popular support in Gaza for resistance to the life Israel engineered for them inside a concentration camp that's now been turned into a death camp.

We have not only normalised Israel's slaughter and starvation of Gaza's children, but we have also normalised violence, whether rhetorical or physical, against those trying to stop Israel's genocidal campaign against Gaza.