The words below from an UNRWA spokesperson convey the situation in northern Gaza for Palestinians and, simultaneously, voice the frustration on the ground in Gaza for those who do their best to tell the world to wake up and act.
We’re running out of words; we’re running out of ways to describe to the world how awful it is on the ground and how much worse it’s getting.” Louise Wateridge, UNRWA.
What can we do when we cannot find words adequate to match the horror of what is being inflicted by Israel on people in Gaza, especially in the north? When language, that quintessentially necessary human tool, seems insufficient to convey the suffering of the oppressed and the enormity of the crimes being committed, we know that we are in dark times indeed.
Recently, a series of appalling crimes, all of which merit front page coverage in the UK mainstream press – have come to light yet are denied pre-eminent positions.
For example,Journalist Motasem Dalloul, posted this on social media from the north of Gaza:
Israeli soldiers separated children from their mothers and pushed the children into a pit. Then an Israeli tank circled around the pit, covering the children in sand, terrorising them and the women watching. Eventually, the soldiers removed children from the pit and threw them over to the women.
Whoever caught a child was ordered to carry him and move away quickly, with no guarantee that the child would be their own. Many mothers carried children who were not their own, and were forced to leave with them, leaving their own children in the hands of other mothers. This marked the beginning of a new chapter of suffering, with mothers searching for their children in the arms of other women, trying to calm the children they held until they found their real mothers.
As Jeremy Stoner, Save the Children’s Regional Director for the Middle East, North Africa and Eastern Europe said:
The damage caused has shattered the very foundations of life in Gaza and will threaten the future of Palestinian children for generations to come.
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