Mohamed Lashtar, July 21st 2025
The Occupation army launches its war on the Gaza Resistance, its wooden wheels and four legs
In a scene reflecting the brutality of the Israeli occupation and the absurdity of its policies, Israel has begun confiscating donkeys in the Gaza Strip under the pretext that the Palestinians are using them to transport weapons. In a surreal image, it seems that mules suddenly transform into armored tanks to threaten the security of one of the most powerful armies in the world.
In one of the most absurd and grotesque chapters of the occupation, the “most advanced army in the Middle East” has decided to launch a security operation against... donkeys. Yes, donkeys. For this paranoid State, these animals, which can barely manage to feed themselves - represent a "strategic" threat to its national security. Have you ever seen a donkey crash through the Iron Dome? Or blast a Merkava tank off the battlefield?
Well, yes, it seems that's what the Zionist occupation has done.
With hospitals destroyed, fuel cut off and infrastructure collapsed, donkeys have become the last vital resource in Gaza: transporting wounded and martyrs, carrying sacks of flour or dragging away the rubble of demolished homes, among desperate attempts to rebuild. However, instead of seeing them as a symbol of human and animal resistance, the occupation sees them as a risk that must be eliminated. These rickety wooden carts, pulled by starving animals, have been included by the Israeli security doctrine as “means of transporting ammunition” and even, according to their paranoid imagination, as possible missile launchers.
Not satisfied with shooting at children, the occupation army is now targeting donkeys as well. Human rights organizations have documented deliberate attacks on these animals in areas where vehicles cannot reach, because they have become the only way to rescue survivors under the rubble. The result? Injured people who die on the streets because their mode of transport “represents a security threat.”
Israel did not stop at the confiscation, but even launched a fake public relations campaign claiming that it “rescues animals from psychological trauma”, as if it were not the same army that bombs humans and animals alike. In a scene as ironic as it is cruel, some donkeys were "evacuated” to Europe with the help of “animal rights” organizations, received as “refugees from the hell of Gaza”, while their human owners are deprived even of a sip of water or a piece of bread.
Apparently, some European countries open their doors to donkeys, but close them to Palestinians. Animals get “right of asylum”, while the legitimate owners of the land are treated as a threat to international security. A scene in which logic has collapsed and insanity blends with satire.
The will to live... an essential threat. In fact, the reality is that the danger lies not in the donkeys themselves, but in what they represent. In Gaza, these animals have ceased to be simply means of transportation. They have become a symbol of the will to live, of simplicity that defeats complexity, of weakness that confounds power.
The Occupation is not afraid of the donkey, but of the person who leads it, the Palestinian who, despite hunger and the siege, refuses to die in submission, but with his donkey drags the cart laden with hope through the rubble of death. When a defenseless animal is considered a threat to security, we are not dealing with a protective measure, but with a manifestation of colonial hysteria. A nuclear armed State that fears a wooden cart pulled by a donkey needs, not an army, but a psychiatrist.
The Israeli army's operation against donkeys: ”a veterinary operation"... the Israeli way. In all seriousness, the Israeli army has carried out confiscation operations under the pretext of what it called “veterinary rescue,” without contacting their owners or considering the needs of the besieged population of Gaza. In a scene worthy of the theater of the absurd, donkeys are confiscated under the slogan of "animal protection”" while Palestinian human beings are abandoned to a slow death.
Have donkeys become fighters?
What is happening is simply another chapter of the “annihilation of life” policy. After stealing the land, water, medicine, sea and air, now Israel confiscates even he few remaining animals. There is nothing left that has not been criminalized: the human being is guilty for being Palestinian, the child for being born in Gaza, and the donkey for continuing to walk.
Donkeys have become a symbol of the indestructible dignity, of the unwavering patience, of a people that continues to rise up among the ruins with the determination of its faithful animal. The occupation is not afraid of donkeys because of what they are, but because of what they mean. They are living proof that this People lives on.
Are they really afraid of donkeys? Or is what really terrifies them the will to live of a People who have only their donkey, but still do not surrender? Have tents become battlefronts? Is a wagon carrying an injured child more dangerous than a Merkava tank?
This is not a war against donkeys... this is a war against life itself. When Israel confiscated the land, they said, "This is a land without a people." When they confiscated the sea, they said, "We protect against smuggling." And today they confiscate even the donkeys… Will they say tomorrow: "Gaza is lifeless, it does not deserve to exist"?
The truth is that Gaza, even when it creaks along on wooden wheels, still leads the world in the battle for dignity. The occupation has tanks, Gaza has donkeys. The difference is clear, between a killing machine and a symbol of life. It's not about the animal... it's about an Occupation trembling before every living being.
The message is clear: as long as there is a living being breathing in Gaza, even if it is just a single donkey walking along, the Palestinian people continue to resist and will never stop fighting.