Several months or a year from now, when the Israeli military has completed its operation in Gaza and has razed most of the Gaza Strip and claimed it has successfully destroyed Hamas some international politicians will admit they could have worked more to protect civilians inside Gaza during the months of intense Israeli bombing that killed more than twelve thousand people especially as more than half of these more than twelve thousand people who were bombed were Gazan women and children.
These politicans from Europe and the United States of America will stand or sit in front of international journalists with their hands folded, and acknowledge that the death toll especially of women and children and particularly the numbers of whole Gazan families who were crushed to death when their homes exploded into rubble in the North and the South of Gaza which included many families who fled their homes as they were ordered to by the Israeli military, was unacceptably high, and that innocent Gazan civilians paid a very high price for Israel to rid itself of Hamas terrorists.
These politicians will phrase their words with attention and will be careful not to overtly criticise the government of Israel and nevertheless some of their opponents will accuse them of being on the wrong side of history because what happened in Gaza had to happen and the death toll was all the fault of Hamas after it massacred Israeli civilians and they will emphasise that regardless of the death toll and the number of Gazans who are maimed or who died inside bombed hospitals the Israeli military was acting within international law. And while these politicians debate the tragedies of Gaza in passive aggressive language international corporations will be bidding for the huge contracts and consultancies that the reconstuction of Gaza will require regardless of who is going to govern what is left of Gaza, because two million people can’t live in tents forever.
Postscript: the title of this piece translates as ‘Gaza on my mind’ a phrase that is often used by Gazans as well as friends of Gaza around the world. When Israel began to bomb Gaza on 7th October I predicted that eight to ten thousand Gazans would die but I fear I was very conservative in my estimation, and this is heartbreaking.
