Gaza: …and the people suffer
I watched a programme yesterday on the Al Jazeera television channel on the attack on Gaza, and I am still distressed.
The programme titled ‘Khuzaa: Attack and Aftermath’ showed the death and destruction that took place in a small town called Khuzaa in the Gaza Strip.
The destruction was horrible: there was ruin and rubble everywhere. It was especially painful when the TV camera focused on dead people.
The wailing of women and the tears of some of those who spoke to the Al Jazeera journalist were heart-rending.
One woman screamed: “Our children have been murdered”; another said: “God you are the only one we have with us in Gaza”; yet another said “We are on our own while the Arabs fight each other.”
One woman asked, “What crimes have we committed to deserve this?” while another prayed, “Give us patience, for the days and nights will be long, dear God.”
In mid-July, I saw pictures of the conflict between the Israeli army and Hamas in The Daily Mail that caused agony. The pictures showed families and friends of those who had died in the fighting weeping and mourning.
There were many photographs of Palestinians in grief; and there were a few photographs of Israelis in grief, too. These families, and friends, had lost their loved ones.
One picture was of relatives and friends of an Israeli civilian who had been killed when a short-range rocket fired by Palestinian militants from Gaza exploded beside the vehicle he was travelling on near the border with the Gaza Strip.
Another picture showed a Palestinian mother wailing, with both hands on her head. Her son was among four children who had died when Israeli soldiers shelled the beach the children had been playing on from a gunboat.
Several pictures of children crying and screaming at the funeral of the four boys tore at my heart.
As I saw the pictures, I was reminded once again, that pain knows no colour or creed; that grief knows no race or religion.
Anyone who has lost a loved one knows the pain; the agony. But to lose your loved ones in senseless killings, in senseless fighting is the greatest tragedy.
Most of the Palestinians who died, or were injured, in this latest outbreak of violence were ordinary people.
When soldiers die, we honour them. We grieve over it, but we know that as soldiers they are always closer to death than civilians. We realise that they would have died knowing they were doing their job.
But when innocent people get caught in any conflict, it is tragically painful. And that is what is happening, not only in Gaza, but also in Syria and Iraq and Libya and Ukraine and the Central African Republic. (I will write about this in another post).
According to the United Nations, at least 1,948 Palestinians, the majority of them civilians, were killed in the latest violence. A total of 67 Israelis, mostly soldiers, died, too.
How can those in the Israeli government and military sleep, knowing that their orders have led to the death of hundreds of civilians, including children? Isn’t this murder?
Israel even had the impunity to shell UN facilities.
But is Hamas indirectly complicit in the death of Palestinian civilians? There are reports that Hamas members fire rockets from civilian areas, knowing full well that the Israelis will retaliate.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which looks after Palestinian refugees, said late last month that it found a cache of rockets stored in one of its schools in the Gaza Strip.
Parties to a conflict will certainly make claims and counter claims, but what is clear is that it is the people who suffer.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says about 425,000 people are seeking shelter due to the recent outbreak of violence. It also says about 11,855 housing units in Gaza have been destroyed or severely damaged by Israeli attacks.
Soon, the task of rebuilding will begin. But how long will those structures stand? Whenever there is a fresh outbreak of violence, the buildings are destroyed or damaged. And the Palestinian economy, if it can be called an economy, has suffered untold damage.
This cycle of build, destroy; build, destroy; build, destroy must stop.
The fact that this conflict has been going on for decades says much about the intransigence of the leadership on both sides and the failure of international bodies such as the United Nations and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation to bring about peace in the region.
Egypt has brokered another 72-hour unconditional humanitarian ceasefire between Hamas and the Israeli government. I pray that it will lead to further talks and a permanent resolution to the conflict between the Palestinians and Israelis.
I don’t wish to see more pictures or videos of people suffering.
The camera image of a young Palestinian girl, sitting silently with tears flowing down her cheeks, at the end of the Al Jazeera programme that I mentioned earlier, is still haunting me.
