I would prefer to write this story in the Gaza Strip, not Jerusalem. After many years of covering wars, since the one in El Salvador in 1989, I am convinced that nothing beats first-hand reporting.
Unfortunately, in this terrible war, international journalists cannot do that.
Israel and Egypt, the two countries that control Gaza’s borders, do not want us there reporting freely.
Israel allows some closely supervised visits with its military. I’ve only been to one of them, in November.
Since we cannot enter, we depend on Palestinian journalists who cannot leave. I have great admiration for your bravery and dedication to truthful information.
Fortunately, in the modern world it is impossible to completely eclipse what happens in a war. This is because ordinary people can film with a phone and, with a few clicks, post their photos online.
We can also talk to them, if communications have not been cut off.
Israel and Hamas upload their own videos. Everything must be verified and verified, especially now that artificial intelligence is much easier to use.
With all those limitations in mind, This is what the war looks like from Jerusalem on a February day.
The humanitarian crisis
Just after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defense minister, announced: “We are putting a complete siege on Gaza… No electricity, no food, no water, no gas. Everything is closed”.
“We are fighting against human animals,” he added, “and we act accordingly.”
Under pressure from US President Joe Biden, Israel is now allowing limited supplies of food, water and medicine into Gaza.
But continues to restrict the entry of aid supplies into Gaza and the movement of humanitarian convoys within the Strip.
Israel affirms that what it receives is adequate. International aid groups say that preventing the entry of aid is starving and depriving necessary medical care of a civilian population already piling up dead and wounded from the bombings.
The Geneva Convention says that retaliating against civilians for crimes they did not commit It amounts to collective punishment and constitutes a war crime.
Since October 7, Americans have urged Israel to respect the laws of war in Gaza, stressing that they must stop killing so many Palestinian civilians.
The fact that US officials, from President Biden on down, continue to repeat and accentuate their criticisms shows that they believe Israel has ignored them.
On his visit here in early February, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken issued his most outspoken public criticism yet of Israel’s handling of the war.
He stated that the cruelty of Hamas’ attacks against Israel cannot be used to justify the brutal treatment of Palestinians.
“Israelis were dehumanized in the most horrible way on October 7,” he said at a news conference in Tel Aviv. “Since then, hostages have been dehumanized every day. But that cannot be a license to dehumanize others.”
“The overwhelming majority of the population of Gaza had nothing to do with the October 7 attacks,” Blinken continued.
“The families in Gaza whose survival depends on Israel’s help are like our families. They are mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, who want to earn a decent living, send their children to school and have a normal life. That is what they are. That’s what they want.”
Even so, The United States has chosen not to place conditions on its enormous military and diplomatic support for Israel.
It continues to supply weapons to Israel, even though it does not approve of the way they are used.
Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner general of UNRWA, the UN agency leading the humanitarian operation in Gaza, issued his own warning about the long-term consequences of the war for young people in Gaza.
I spoke to him this week and he said, “I’m extremely worried.” “Everyone is deeply traumatized by this unprecedented war. “They live in absolutely miserable conditions.”
“If the war ends tomorrow, our first priority should be to find ways to return these children to an educational system… [o] “We will only be sowing the seeds of more resentment and hatred in the future.”
Israel will not be impressed by Lazzarini’s comments. His government has made serious accusations against UNRWA, accusing it of instigating and assisting Hamas.
Lazzarini has been fighting to save the agency since Israel submitted a dossier to the Americans saying that about a dozen UNRWA staff members participated in the October 7 attacks.
UNRWA has fired the accused employees and is trying to reassure the 16 major donor countries that have suspended funding.
Lazzarini says he takes the allegations very seriously and is determined to root out any Hamas sympathizers. but Israel has still not delivered the file it sent to the United States.
Israel believes UNRWA is corrupt. The crisis surrounding the agency is undoubtedly another impediment to the aid operation.
Northern Gaza is virtually inaccessible to the UN and other aid organizations.
Word has spread, and local people living in the ruins report widespread famine and widespread malnutrition among children that will likely have lifelong health consequences for those who survive.
We received more information from southern Gaza, where two million people They are trying to stay alive.
About 1.4 million people are in Rafah, in a desperate situation near the Egyptian border.
Most people live in tents made of plastic tarps, next to puddles of sewage.
Unlike journalists, aid workers from organizations involved in the relief effort can enter and leave Gaza.
I have spoken to several UN officials with decades of experience in war zones. Everyone said it was the worst thing they had ever seen. One told me: “I have never seen anything of this size, scale and depth.”
Another said Gaza was the most dangerous and difficult place he had ever been, not only because of Israeli bombing, but because law and order has disappeared.
He added: “There are a lot of weapons in Gaza, but on top of that, there are a lot of big, angry men with clubs.”
The UN moves its aid convoys in the wee hours of the morning to prevent them from being attacked.
The war in Gaza
Palestinians in Rafah are on the verge of panic over a ground attack by Israeli troops on the city.
A BBC Arabic Service colleague spoke to Jabr al-Burdini, a middle-aged man from Rafah who had just pulled dead children from the ruins of a neighbour’s house.
“If there were Israeli operations here, thousands of people would die. The children are terrified and so are the adults. Look at the children. “They can’t sleep.”
Lazzarini told me that a large-scale Israeli attack on Rafah would “aggravate the chaos in the Gaza Strip.”
He said that in the last four months around 5% of the population – about 100,000 people – They have died, been injured or have disappeared, probably dead under the rubble.
“And then we have the rest of the population now concentrated almost outdoors in Rafah. And then if a military operation is carried out in this place, you can only add an additional disastrous layer of tragedy. And this should be totally avoided.”
Airstrikes are already killing many people in Rafah, but despite American calls for restraint, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he has ordered the army to attack the city once it has a plan to remove the Palestinian civilians in Rafah.
Since nowhere in Gaza is safe, residents do not find that reassuring. Perhaps Netanyahu is trying to appease Biden.
Another possible recipient of the message is the International Court of Justice in The Hague, which has ruled that Israel faces accusations of genocide brought against Israel for what is happening in Gaza as “plausible.”
Israel has set the bar very high for what it would consider a victory, so high that it could prove unattainable even after many months.
He wants to eliminate Hamas, restore Israel’s security and release the hostages kidnapped on October 7.
Many of the families of the Israelis held in Gaza and their supporters do not believe the prime minister’s argument that only force will free the hostages.
They want a ceasefire agreement because they fear that the longer the war goes on, the less likely they will be seen again.
Israel has inflicted considerable damage on Hamas, but it has not broken his ability to fight.
A senior Western intelligence official told me that Israel had killed about a third of its forces and destroyed about a third of the tunnel network that has underpinned Hamas’s resistance in recent years.
Netanyahu has also said that Israel would like to kill Hamas leaders, starting with Yahya Sinwar, the man believed to have instigated and directed the October 7 attacks.
So far, Sinwar and his closest lieutenants are believed to be alive, perhaps living in the network of tunnels protected by Israeli hostages.
An extended war in the Middle East
In four months, the seismic waves of the war in Gaza have spread throughout the Middle East. Iran’s network of allies, which it calls the resistance axis, is involved in a broader war.
After three American soldiers were killed in Jordan in an attack by a militia trained and financed by Iran, the United States began an ongoing program of airstrikes in Syria and Iraq.
Together with the United Kingdom, it has also bombed the Houthis who attack ships in the Red Sea from Yemen.
Hardliners in the United States and Israel want the U.S. military to bomb Iran.
The Houthis and other allies of Iran say they are acting in solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza.
Iran’s most powerful ally is Hezbollah in Lebanon. Its border war with Israel is becoming more serious and intense every day. Pressure is growing within Israel to send troops to southern Lebanon.
Americans are trying to build a path to a peaceful future in the Middle East.
Secretary of State Blinken has laid out an approach for Saudi Arabia to normalize relations with Israel if the Israelis allow the Palestinians to have an independent state. you own.
But Prime Minister Netanyahu says Palestinian independence will not happen. He insists that Israel will continue until it achieves “total victory.”
This war continues and there is no immediate prospect of a ceasefire. The longer it lasts, the more difficult it will be to control the consequences of what is happening in Gaza.
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- What Rafah is like, the city that houses the largest number of Gaza refugees and on which Israel ordered its army to “prepare to operate”
- Metula, the Israeli city surrounded by Lebanon and which is considered “the most dangerous border in the Middle East”