Palestinian photographer Samar Abu Elouf won the World Press Photo of the Year award this Thursday for an image of a 9-year-old boy from Gaza, who lost both arms in an Israeli attack in March 2024 and was evacuated to Doha for treatment.

Forgive me if I'm a bit out of touch and some information gets to me late, but it's hard not to be moved to tears (crying is also for men) when I see the image of a boy from Gaza with amputated arms asking his mother how he can hug her.

A silent photo that speaks powerfully. It tells the story of a child, but also the story of a broader Zionist genocidal war that will have an impact for generations.

A grim picture in which some 15,000 children were also killed by Israeli bombing and sniper fire so they wouldn't grow up and take revenge, as well as an equal number of women, so they wouldn't have children.

In the specific Palestinian case, it was known in advance that the actions of the Hamas movement, fueled by so much pent-up hatred, against Israeli civilians and soldiers would provoke an even more brutal response, which has already resulted in more than 51,000 deaths, not counting the corpses under the rubble. The pretext, backed by weapons and political support from the United States, was to exterminate or expel the residents of Gaza and continue similar actions in the West Bank.

This is just one point in the broader panorama of terror—state terrorism—ethnic cleansing, which takes on various forms and instruments of death, through the Zionist Mossad and the US Central Intelligence Agency, creators of groups with leaders who try to make people believe they are anti-American entities.

Without leaving the Middle East, it becomes clear that this terrorism is the work of falsely Muslim organizations that, I emphasize, are mostly made up of mercenaries in the service of Israel and the United States, as well as religious fanatics from all over the world.

Terrorism that overflows throughout the region, emerging in Israel whose genocidal ruler is trying to free himself from proven accusations of corruption and trying to perpetuate himself in power through the unconditional support of the United States, which rewards him with support for the total expulsion of Palestinians from the land that belongs to them and converting it into an emporium of neoliberalism.

SEPTEMBER 11

It would be endless to list and explain each of the actions that fall under the heading of state terrorism, but undoubtedly the one that falls under this umbrella is the murder of more than 3,000 people that took place on September 11, 2001, which served as a pretext for US imperialism to attack and invade smaller nations with impunity, with millions of victims, and the theft of natural resources and cultural assets.

Forty-eight hours after the plane crash into the Twin Towers in New York and the attack on the Pentagon, Granma International published a commentary about how suspicious it was that two days earlier, more than 200 Israeli officials working in the offices at the top of one of the skyscrapers had been given a day off, even though it wasn't a holiday.

It’s also striking that communications in this regard, controlled by Israeli businessmen living in Tel Aviv, failed to draw attention to anything suspicious, and that strict official control was added to prevent a thorough investigation.

This is corroborated by former US Congressman Cyrus Weldon, who stated in an interview with journalist Tucker Carlson that the report of the commission of inquiry into the attacks "is a 1,000% cover-up, it's a pile of garbage."

During the conversation, Weldon said that John Crane, former inspector Deputy Assistant Secretary General at the U.S. Department of Defense, asked to be given "whistleblower status because he was told to lie to Congress and lie about pre-9/11 intelligence." "They told him to misinform Congress. I have it in writing, Tucker," he said, adding that Philip Zelikow, who led the commission, was "the ringleader of the cover-up."

"The 9/11 report has no credibility, I don't believe anything in it, it's a pile of garbage, it's a pile of paper that has no substance," he maintained. "What I can tell you unequivocally is that there was a cover-up," he declared.

Let's remember that, according to the official version, the September 11 attacks were perpetrated by the terrorist organization Al Qaeda.

On September 11, 2001, four passenger planes were hijacked with the sole purpose of crashing them into various strategic targets on U.S. soil.

Two crashed into the famous Twin Towers, a third plane hit the west facade of the Pentagon in Virginia, while the fourth hijacked plane crashed in an open field in Pennsylvania as the passengers and crew tried to regain control of the aircraft.

BEATING AND TORTURE

The alleged mastermind behind the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, was subjected to beatings and torture by CIA interrogators, who wanted to extract information from him about alleged al-Qaeda plans for a nuclear attack against the United States, according to military psychologist James Mitchell, who testified to The New York Times.

Mitchell, who participated in those interrogations conducted in March 2003, said that he and other psychologists slammed the suspect against a wall whenever he tried to talk about the attacks.

He also stated that during his first month of detention, the alleged criminal was subjected 183 times to "waterboarding," a form of water torture that simulates drowning, in a CIA black site.

Mohammed is among five men facing terrorism charges for the 2001 attack. His accused accomplices are Walid bin Attash, Ammar al-Baluchi, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, and Mustafa al-Hawsawi. All have been held since 2006 in the US prison in the illegally occupied Cuban territory of Gitmo.

Mitchell's testimony could influence the fate of the suspects in the terrorist attacks if it’s proven that the CIA and FBI were complicit in torturing the detainees and that "advanced interrogation techniques" were implemented at the government level in violation of their human rights.

In statements reported this time by The Guardian, Mitchell stated that "the CIA was never interested in prosecuting" those involved and that its agents intended to "reach the line of what was legal, step on it, and lean forward."

The five defendants could face the death penalty if found guilty, and now the key question is whether the court decides to exclude the testimonies they gave under torture as evidence against them.

Translated by Amilkal Labañino / CubaSí Translation Staff