GAZA SEEN FROM THE GROUND

A view from inside the war

Scene of the destruction following the Israeli airstrike on the Zeitoun Martyrs School, a shelter for displaced Palestinians in Gaza City, on September 14. At least five Palestinians, including two children and a woman, were killed, and several others were injured in the attack. / Photo by Dawoud Abo Alkas/Anadolu via Getty Images.

This week I spoke to a Canadian citizen who has been working as a researcher in Gaza. She speaks Arabic and knows the people and the territory, once a Mediterranean oasis of grand gardens and exotic fruits from ancient times that, since the Hamas attack last October 7 and the Israeli response, has become a barren death trap. I am not at liberty to tell you much more about her. She acknowledges the shock and horror of Hamas’s attack on Israel last October 7, but sees it in the context of decades of brutal Israeli suppression of life in Gaza.

She has come over the years to know the Palestinian people well and to admire what she calls “their willingness to adjust and accommodate. Let’s put it this way,” she said, “if you had to destroy one particular group of people—what can I tell you? The military campaign in Gaza has opened up a new terrain of violence against civilians. In the next war, whether in Lebanon or another part of the world, systematically targeting hospitals won’t be so shocking because we’ve seen the live raids of hospitals, four or five of them. And targeting journalists won’t be shocking. Multiple images of beheaded babies on a livestream won’t be shocking.