The Electronic Intifada 16 December 2023
Palestinians attend a funeral for those killed by Israeli attacks in Deir al-Balah, Gaza, 14 December 2023.
APA imagesThe people of Gaza are angry at the world’s silence.
Israel’s war on Gaza is a hideous war against humanity. The horrific scenes of destruction have been constant since 7 October, but no one has moved to save Gaza.
The levels of suffering in Gaza are hard to fathom: repeated displacement, a lack of supplies, the scarcity of electricity, fuel and water. As we undergo this great deprivation in Gaza, we wonder why the world is silent.
Children in Gaza are dying of hunger. Their mothers bid them farewell knowing that their children were martyred while hungry.
The Israeli attacks do not stop. It has activated its heavy military machinery against the entirety of Gaza. Israel has annihilated entire residential neighborhoods, sparing nobody. Israel has killed our most prominent scientists, doctors, intellectuals and journalists.
Gaza screams out for this war to end.
A war against children
Sahar Kamal, 28, said: “We have been waiting for the war to stop from the moment it began. Weeks have passed, and the war has not stopped.
“We’ve seen all the colors of death. We pray every moment for the war to stop. We hug our children so that we will die with them.
“To whom should I leave my children? To the unjust world that failed them and left them under severe, merciless bombardment.
“There is no such thing in this world as human rights. They killed humanity in Gaza and have been watching all of this silently. They watched the houses fall on our heads, and they did not stop the destruction and killing.
“We are very disappointed because of this silence that has allowed the occupation to kill us with such brutality. I have two children, and I have no confidence that this world will give them a better future.”
With this war, with the world’s silence, we saw the racism that underlies who receives the world’s sympathy and who does not. Ukraine has received an outpouring of support and sympathy from the world, from governments.
But in Gaza, we are left to die. The world did nothing for Gaza.
Nowhere left to go
Khaled Arar, 55, said: “Is it fair for a Ukrainian child to be in a European country, with all the necessities of life available to him, while our children cannot find bread to eat?
“Is it fair for a fierce war to continue for more than two months against citizens who are not safe in their homes and are besieged without water or food?
“Where are the human rights institutions that hold annual and monthly conferences? After what we saw in the war on Gaza, is there anyone who believes in the humanity of this unjust world?
“I hope that these institutions will remain silent because they are of no use at all.
“There are 30 people in my house who are displaced. They came from the north of the Gaza Strip. They left their homes, which were safe and stable, and walked to reach Khan Younis to escape death.
“Since the start of the ground operation in Khan Younis, we have been displaced yet again.”
We’ve lost the meaning of life in Gaza. How can we grasp on to meaning when our children are starving? Even if the shops were full of food, we could not afford the prices. Our hospitals have been destroyed.
What is our future? Disease and epidemics? Continued starvation? We feel hopeless.
Nakba in 2023
Marwa Khaled, 35, said: “For more than 60 days, I have been trying to save water. My children cannot bathe. More than a month goes by without us bathing. This causes them skin ailments.
“There are no medicines or ointments. There is no life.
“Here in Gaza, it is painful that the world only watches us without doing anything for us. We only have God.”
Others around the world have joined us in protest, to call for an end to this genocidal war. But since 2007, and even long before, moments of peace and safety in Gaza have been rare.
Every year, Israel attacks Gaza, and we experience losses greater than those of the year before.
But 2023 is the worst that we have experienced in recent history. It brought back the Nakba with scenes of migration, starvation and fear among Palestinians. We are losing hope. We need this war to end.
Ruwaida Amer is a journalist based in Gaza.
