Illustration by Paola Bilancieri.
More than one year after the brutal attack on innocent Israelis that left more than 1,200 dead and scores of injured, as well as more than 42,000 Palestinians dead and hundreds of thousands injured, an essential question remains unanswered? Why did Hamas do it?
Why did they sacrifice their lives, those of their families and friends and the rest of the Palestinians in Gaza? Why did they decide to confront one of the most powerful armies in the world, using the most elementary weapons?
Do we remember dozens of Palestinians riding on motorbikes through a fence on Israeli territory? On motorbikes?
Do we remember children throwing stones to powerfully armored Israeli soldiers? Stones vs bullets?
Under Netanyahu’s orders these soldiers, armed with the latest and most destructive weapons have caused enormous civilian damage. The bombing is unrelenting. According to the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR,) 70 percent of those killed by the Israeli army are women and children.
A 5-year-old child is rescued from a building bombed to smithereens in Northern Gaza. She is crying due to her serious injuries, and she is asking for her mother and father who, unknown to her, died during the bombing. Rescue workers have to tell her that she is now alone in the world.
This is happening as the whole world watches in terrified silence, unable or unwilling to stop this cruel insanity. Except for a few brave soldiers who have spoken against the war in Gaza, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) remains deaf to calls for justice from the highest international law organizations, which have repeatedly condemned it for its genocidal actions against the Palestinians.
On October 30, 2024, in a statement to the UN Security Council, Mr. Cheikh Niang, Chair of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, stated, “For more than a year we have witnessed unimaginable destruction and civilian casualties and gross violations of international law, including humanitarian and human rights law, in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem. Hopes for an immediate and lasting ceasefire have all but vanished, in spite of the calls of this Security Council, the General Assembly and the international community at large. The assault by Israel, the Occupying Power, on the Gaza Strip has reached unprecedented levels, with northern Gaza now facing near-total devastation. An estimated 400,000 Palestinians are being forcibly displaced before our eyes. This is not an “evacuation” but forced displacement and ethnic cleansing – civilians are being forced to leave their homes and shelters under bombs and gunfire and starved with little or no aid. Most alarming is the Security Council’s passive tolerance of the killing and maiming of civilian and wanton destruction of civilian property, repeatedly and wrongly justified by Israel and other members as “self-defense,” and the fading hopes for progress in interminably sabotaged negotiations for a ceasefire. The critical urgency to enforce a ceasefire has been completely lost, eclipsed by the relentless violence by Israel’s occupying forces and a soaring Palestinian civilian death toll. Instead, the bloodshed continues unabated, marking a profound failure of our collective humanity and the Council’s fundamental Charter duty.”
Netanyahu, a destroyer of lives, hope and human decency, is willing to burn and annihilate any sign of life in Gaza. In an unquenched thirst for blood, under his command, the IDF is slaughtering tens of thousands of lives and condemning hundreds of thousands to a miserable life, maimed in body and mind with injuries they will never overcome.
Are Palestinians suicidal fools to continue fighting in abysmally unequal conditions without any hope of winning a most bloody and vicious battle?
Can they be so clueless as to let their homes, hospitals, schools, water and sanitation systems, parks, recreation centers, and religious building be destroyed without accepting defeat?
Or is it that they have a higher calling, a most elemental desire to live in their own land, ruling their own lives in freedom and dignity? As Mahmoud Darwish, the Palestinian poet and literary icon, wrote in 1973,
“Enemies might triumph over Gaza (the storming sea might triumph over an island. . . they might chop down all its trees).
They might break its bones.
They might implant tanks on the insides of its children and women. They might throw it into the sea, sand, or blood.
But it will not repeat lies and say “Yes” to invaders.
It will continue to explode.
It is neither death, nor suicide. It is Gaza’s way of declaring that it deserves to live.
It will continue to explode.
It is neither death, nor suicide. It is Gaza’s way of declaring that it deserves to live.
