10 Oct 08:13—Afterword (in advance): I’ve updated events as they unfold and I learn more. In response to Hamas’s grotesque act of terrorism, Israel gives terror to terror and plays into the terrorists’ hands. Truly there can be no peace without justice for the Palestinians. Eliminating Hamas may be possible. But one must be attuned to a question: How do you eliminate the hatred and longing for retribution that arises when you deprive a people of a life worth living?
October 8, 2023 04:03
1.
An ugly war and all that came before.
“Ugly”—a tired cliche—and true.
The context: a history.
Not “on the other hand.”
2.
The stories a friend from there—so far away—once told me.
(So far ‘away’ autocorrected to ‘await’.)
She said, “The Occupation. The Blockade. Lethal barbed wire borders. The checkpoints. Impenetrable with most unable to leave.”
So much hunger for another life.
For decades or let us count the years, the killing of their unnamed children by committed overseers.
Homes bulldozed to oblivion along with the slight body of a young American woman named “Rachel”.
“Fanatics,” she said, “grotesque.”
Suffering recorded.
Unrecorded.
3.
Yesterday’s video clips of war. The shudder of scary weeping as close as this phone in my hands.
‘Open-air-prison’ resistance.
Another grotesque spectacle.
(‘Grotesque’—the word from ‘grotto’. Up from under. Entering the tunnel, she read: “What one cannot overcome, one must undergo.”)
4.
Undergoing, winged men glide and swoop over the fence in lethal rainbow flying machines. Their flight documented like a desert marathon. As cinematic as the knife-sharp sunrise teeth of bulldozers that follow.
Their destination, the SuperNova desert music concert where over 3000 partygoers’ temporary paradise transforms into a nightmare. Haunting spectres of paragliders soar overhead as the dancers at dawn party. Soon enough the nightmare arrives. Rockets and bullets kill motororists attempting to drive out. Hundreds of young people flee on foot only to be mowed down — more than 260 revellers die — others scooped up and taken hostage to Gaza.
Meanwhile. An elderly skirted barefoot woman is paraded through the streets, silent, dazed, as particular as I am on this stolen land.
Meanwhile. Settlers in 22 villages hide in concrete bunkers. For how long? Imagine the bunker, a bungalow selling point. Many have unlocked doors – they anticipate no visitors, just bombs. Thus the terror of hundreds of children, women, babies, men murdered in and kidnapped from the safe haven of their homes. Just like that.
Meanwhile. Soldiers pulled out of their tank snout are rounded up and beaten with pipes in the back of a truck.
Repetition. An eye for an eye.
The refrain.
Suffering and hatred.
In the shaking video, a younger bloodied and disheveled woman man-handled from the back of a jeep to the back seat on the passenger side. In the street, she stagger walks, the rear of her torn grey sweat pants bloodied. A smear. As though life goes on.
Dehumanization breeds dehumanization. “We are fighting animals, and we will act accordingly,” pledges the Minister as retaliatory bombing begins in earnest.
No electricity, water, power for Gazans. “A total blockade” on Gaza, “including a ban on admitting food and fuel, amid increasing indications of a possible ground operation. Such a siege by the Israeli army, with the intent to starve a population, is a war crime under United Nations statutes.”
In response—threats of hostage executions.
Three hundred thousand Israeli men and women are called up for military duty the largest in Israel’s history. The death toll rises and rises.
Notes:
“We are fighting animals…” Israel declares Gaza siege as Hamas fires rockets and toll mounts
“A total blockade”… Israel-Hamas war live news: Israeli bombing rocks Gaza through the night
No Gate No Lock 
I’m glad you wrote this Janice.
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Thank you, Susan. Such a terrible struggle and so much suffering there.
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