[[{"content_id":420302,"content_number":0,"portal_id":2,"lang_id":"en","content_title":"Gaza genocide:\r\nHow Israel made horror a ritual of daily life","content_rtitr":"","content_short_title":null,"content_summary":" Hossam Shaker","content_summary_fill":1,"content_body":"&nbsp;\r\n\r\nLife under genocide has its familiar daily rituals. A discerning eye detects latent horrors in the scenes that unfold in succession across screens.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nElsewhere, the scene itself disappears beneath rubble, entombing the bodies of thousands of Palestinians whose breath was cut off below, while their families remain unable to retrieve them.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nIn the Gaza Strip, modern brutality has made its terrible presence felt through atrocity after atrocity, in full view of the entire world.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nThese horrors were caused not by a natural disaster, but by the tsunami of modern genocide carried out by Israel using American and western weapons, munitions and technologies.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nGenocide has taken possession of the defining features of everyday life in all their details, leaving its tragic imprint on the population in every sphere.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nThe fragments that follow are drawn from that reality.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nThe children of Gaza know no daily life without a menacing sound accompanying them day and night, without pause. This has been the case almost since the moment they first opened their eyes to the world.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nSonic terror\r\n\r\nThe sound that accompanies Gaza day and night is the buzzing of Israeli military drones, which circle overhead in swarms and tirelessly monitor every part of the Gaza Strip around the clock.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nThese drones acquired their local name from their disturbing acoustic effect: residents call them &ldquo;zanana&rdquo;, an Arabic coinage derived from the buzzing sound they emit.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nYoung children besieged in this narrow strip overlooking the flank of the Mediterranean Sea may find it difficult to imagine a world free of the noise, a noise that entrenches within them a constant sense of threat, of bombardment that may come at any moment.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nIn this way, the occupation seizes control of the soundscape and sends its inhabitants a message: they are being watched relentlessly and the next projectile may strike one of them here or there, killing or wounding that person together with everyone nearby.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nThis thunderous hovering is a mixture of auditory domination, sonic terror and psychological intimidation.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nEvery Palestinian in Gaza has personal experience of tragedies associated with these military drones in their various forms, through witnessing firsthand the bombardments that took the lives of relatives, neighbors and loved ones, whose bodies were torn apart while their memories remained.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nAir strikes were unknown before the modern age. They began to develop during the First World War and gave rise to a preventive practice: warning sirens were sounded so people could take cover and seek refuge in shelters prepared for that purpose.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nThe genocidal campaign targeting the Palestinian people in Gaza since October 2023 has employed the most advanced instruments of warfare of its time, including squadrons of American-made warplanes and drones sharing the work of aerial bombardment.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nYet not a single warning siren has sounded in Gaza.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nThis is not the result of negligence or malfunction. The very idea of warning sirens has become absurd as bombardment has continued without interruption, making any warning a cruel joke.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nMore importantly, there is no shelter for residents to flee to, no possibility of protection from the exploding horrors falling from the sky.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nThe crowding of civilians into an underground shelter would itself pose a grave risk to their lives. Heavy munitions penetrate deep below the surface and leave vast craters, as has been seen in the heart of residential neighborhoods, in refugee camps, around hospitals and near places of worship.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nThe primitive tools available cannot retrieve those trapped beneath the rubble.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nThe world has come to know that there is no shelter in Gaza, and nowhere within it that is safe.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nEven United Nations schools in which displaced families sought refuge were turned into traps for repeated mass killings. The same was true of Muslim and Christian places of worship, which were crushed. Not even historic monasteries were spared.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nHospitals were reduced to ruins, ambulance crews were massacred, Red Cross facilities were not spared, and seven World Central Kitchen aid workers were killed when their convoy was struck in Deir al-Balah on 1 April 2024.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nArt of survival\r\n\r\nDaily life in Gaza means enduring without water taps and without any guaranteed, safe opportunity to quench one&rsquo;s thirst.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nAt the outset, the occupation army destroyed Gaza&rsquo;s water networks. On 9 October 2023, then Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced a &ldquo;complete siege&rdquo; of the strip. Water supplies to its more than 2 million people were cut off.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nWith most homes destroyed and civilian infrastructure devastated, the ordinary household tap has almost disappeared. Only a few water points remain, where residents crowd to fill containers by rudimentary means. What once took seconds at a tap has become a prolonged daily journey, one with no guarantee of a safe return.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nIsraeli strikes have repeatedly targeted Palestinian men and women of every age, including children, during their march of torment in search of water.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nPalestinian families have had to divide these daily tasks among their members: one person must fetch whatever water can be found; others carry empty vessels in the hope of filling them with scarce food that falls far short of the nutritional needs of children and adults alike; still others endure the hardship of searching for flour and other necessities of life.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nThey may find nothing. They may return wounded by Israeli bullets, or with bodies reduced to pieces by the projectiles of what calls itself &ldquo;the most moral army in the world&rdquo;.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nWhen obtaining water requires such threatening and arduous effort, attempting to meet ordinary human needs, such as relieving oneself or bathing, must take place under degrading conditions, particularly for women and girls.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nPalestinian women in Gaza deserve recognition for their mastery of the art of survival under these crushing circumstances.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nThey have had to take the lead in moving their families from the ruins of destroyed homes to an open space by the roadside or on the sands of the beach. They help erect tents from whatever materials are available, in a form of forced recycling.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nIn this punishing mode of life, everything our age knows about perfumes, cosmetics and skincare products must be forgotten. Women and girls must adapt to a reality in which even basic necessities like feminine hygiene supplies and ordinary toilets are unavailable.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nMoreover, women of all ages bear an immense burden in circumstances where privacy has been reduced to an absolute minimum.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nThe kitchen as ordinary families know it has vanished entirely. Whatever food is available must be cooked over a stove made of clay or stone, which mothers are forced to fuel by burning materials harmful to health and the environment.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nThis method may itself ignite fires that consume the crowded tents of displaced families.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nWhen a person in Gaza speaks, we may notice things they would not ordinarily disclose. They may have permanently lost some of their teeth, like vast numbers of residents upon whom the genocide has left its mark in this respect as well.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nThis occurred after the occupation army crushed dental clinics throughout the strip and destroyed, burned or put out of service hospitals that had previously treated dental patients. It also inflicted heavy casualties among medical personnel.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nFor a prolonged period, residents suffered under a ban on the entry of medicines, therapeutic supplies and medical equipment.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nSimply obtaining toothpaste and a toothbrush from the market became an unattainable luxury.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nThis wretched reality has caused a collective deterioration in dental health, affecting every generation. This society of crumbling teeth is an eloquent image of the enforced deprivation imposed upon a population in a territory where a suffocating siege strangles daily life, stripping teeth from the pale faces of its people and, at times, leaving them with no food worth chewing.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nBarefoot witnesses\r\n\r\nThe Israeli occupation army has forced most of the Gaza Strip&rsquo;s population into repeated displacement from one area to another, through sudden expulsion orders or intensified attacks.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nTime and time again, residents have had to surge along rough roads torn up by bulldozers, or move between heaps of rubble and refuse towards some destination within the strip, carrying their belongings and the materials needed for rudimentary camping.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nNo sooner do they settle there than the army may compel them to flee once again towards another destination, and so the cycle continues.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nPalestinians, young and old, have experienced displacement in conflicting directions: on foot, aboard carts pulled by horses or donkeys, or in whatever vehicles remain.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nAmong the scenes witnessed by the world were displaced people walking in worn-out sandals, or even barefoot, after their shoes had disintegrated during the long journey and no suitable replacements could be found.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nResidents are forced to patch their shoes and repair frayed sandals.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nAs the occupation authorities have prevented the entry of the population&rsquo;s many basic necessities, acquiring a new pair of shoes, or even a simple pair of sandals, has become an unattainable aspiration for many.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nThe cruelty of everyday life in Gaza is revealed in many such scenes: children and adults lacking usable shoes as they endure long marches along the routes of displacement. Yet in this merciless reality, this is far from their greatest concern.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nOne of the most horrifying truths is that there is scarcely a child in Gaza who has not repeatedly seen torn human remains.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nSome of those remains may belong to people the child knew well: their family members, neighbors or friends. Some of these fragments remain lodged in children&rsquo;s minds. They may come to regard life stained with blood and human remains as something ordinary in this particular part of the world.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nA child in this genocide is not merely a witness to what is taking place but a direct victim, as confirmed by the terrifying statistical indicators documented in specialized UN reports.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nA child who spends a prolonged period beneath the rubble does not emerge unscathed.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nSuspended between life and death, watching the breath of those around them extinguished in utter darkness, the child nearly loses all hope of emerging alive &ndash; until a hand finally reaches down and, with immense difficulty, pulls them back to the surface of life.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nIn this new life, the child will find no home in which to live. They may be almost the only member of their family left alive.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nYet their compounded tragedy will offer no opportunity to contemplate all that has happened, because the moving machinery of genocide may crush them at any moment.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nWhat have the horrors of genocide left of the conventions intended to protect childhood, in a world that has allowed all this visible brutality against Palestinian children to continue year after year, its atrocities broadcast live, without the world restraining them?\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n-Hossam Shaker is a journalist and an author who has extensively covered the topic of migration in Europe. His article appeared in The Middle East Eye.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;","content_html":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size:16px;\">Life under genocide has its familiar daily rituals. A discerning eye detects latent horrors in the scenes that unfold in succession across screens.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size:16px;\">Elsewhere, the scene itself disappears beneath rubble, entombing the bodies of thousands of Palestinians whose breath was cut off below, while their families remain unable to retrieve them.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size:16px;\">In the Gaza Strip, modern brutality has made its terrible presence felt through atrocity after atrocity, in full view of the entire world.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size:16px;\">These horrors were caused not by a natural disaster, but by the tsunami of modern genocide carried out by Israel using American and western weapons, munitions and technologies.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size:16px;\">Genocide has taken possession of the defining features of everyday life in all their details, leaving its tragic imprint on the population in every sphere.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size:16px;\">The fragments that follow are drawn from that reality.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size:16px;\">The children of Gaza know no daily life without a menacing sound accompanying them day and night, without pause. This has been the case almost since the moment they first opened their eyes to the world.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size:16px;\">Sonic terror<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size:16px;\">The sound that accompanies Gaza day and night is the buzzing of Israeli military drones, which circle overhead in swarms and tirelessly monitor every part of the Gaza Strip around the clock.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size:16px;\">These drones acquired their local name from their disturbing acoustic effect: residents call them &ldquo;zanana&rdquo;, an Arabic coinage derived from the buzzing sound they emit.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size:16px;\">Young children besieged in this narrow strip overlooking the flank of the Mediterranean Sea may find it difficult to imagine a world free of the noise, a noise that entrenches within them a constant sense of threat, of bombardment that may come at any moment.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size:16px;\">In this way, the occupation seizes control of the soundscape and sends its inhabitants a message: they are being watched relentlessly and the next projectile may strike one of them here or there, killing or wounding that person together with everyone nearby.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size:16px;\">This thunderous hovering is a mixture of auditory domination, sonic terror and psychological intimidation.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size:16px;\">Every Palestinian in Gaza has personal experience of tragedies associated with these military drones in their various forms, through witnessing firsthand the bombardments that took the lives of relatives, neighbors and loved ones, whose bodies were torn apart while their memories remained.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size:16px;\">Air strikes were unknown before the modern age. They began to develop during the First World War and gave rise to a preventive practice: warning sirens were sounded so people could take cover and seek refuge in shelters prepared for that purpose.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size:16px;\">The genocidal campaign targeting the Palestinian people in Gaza since October 2023 has employed the most advanced instruments of warfare of its time, including squadrons of American-made warplanes and drones sharing the work of aerial bombardment.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size:16px;\">Yet not a single warning siren has sounded in Gaza.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size:16px;\">This is not the result of negligence or malfunction. The very idea of warning sirens has become absurd as bombardment has continued without interruption, making any warning a cruel joke.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size:16px;\">More importantly, there is no shelter for residents to flee to, no possibility of protection from the exploding horrors falling from the sky.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size:16px;\">The crowding of civilians into an underground shelter would itself pose a grave risk to their lives. Heavy munitions penetrate deep below the surface and leave vast craters, as has been seen in the heart of residential neighborhoods, in refugee camps, around hospitals and near places of worship.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size:16px;\">The primitive tools available cannot retrieve those trapped beneath the rubble.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size:16px;\">The world has come to know that there is no shelter in Gaza, and nowhere within it that is safe.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size:16px;\">Even United Nations schools in which displaced families sought refuge were turned into traps for repeated mass killings. The same was true of Muslim and Christian places of worship, which were crushed. Not even historic monasteries were spared.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size:16px;\">Hospitals were reduced to ruins, ambulance crews were massacred, Red Cross facilities were not spared, and seven World Central Kitchen aid workers were killed when their convoy was struck in Deir al-Balah on 1 April 2024.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size:16px;\">Art of survival<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size:16px;\">Daily life in Gaza means enduring without water taps and without any guaranteed, safe opportunity to quench one&rsquo;s thirst.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size:16px;\">At the outset, the occupation army destroyed Gaza&rsquo;s water networks. On 9 October 2023, then Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced a &ldquo;complete siege&rdquo; of the strip. Water supplies to its more than 2 million people were cut off.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size:16px;\">With most homes destroyed and civilian infrastructure devastated, the ordinary household tap has almost disappeared. Only a few water points remain, where residents crowd to fill containers by rudimentary means. What once took seconds at a tap has become a prolonged daily journey, one with no guarantee of a safe return.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size:16px;\">Israeli strikes have repeatedly targeted Palestinian men and women of every age, including children, during their march of torment in search of water.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size:16px;\">Palestinian families have had to divide these daily tasks among their members: one person must fetch whatever water can be found; others carry empty vessels in the hope of filling them with scarce food that falls far short of the nutritional needs of children and adults alike; still others endure the hardship of searching for flour and other necessities of life.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size:16px;\">They may find nothing. They may return wounded by Israeli bullets, or with bodies reduced to pieces by the projectiles of what calls itself &ldquo;the most moral army in the world&rdquo;.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size:16px;\">When obtaining water requires such threatening and arduous effort, attempting to meet ordinary human needs, such as relieving oneself or bathing, must take place under degrading conditions, particularly for women and girls.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size:16px;\">Palestinian women in Gaza deserve recognition for their mastery of the art of survival under these crushing circumstances.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size:16px;\">They have had to take the lead in moving their families from the ruins of destroyed homes to an open space by the roadside or on the sands of the beach. They help erect tents from whatever materials are available, in a form of forced recycling.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size:16px;\">In this punishing mode of life, everything our age knows about perfumes, cosmetics and skincare products must be forgotten. Women and girls must adapt to a reality in which even basic necessities like feminine hygiene supplies and ordinary toilets are unavailable.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size:16px;\">Moreover, women of all ages bear an immense burden in circumstances where privacy has been reduced to an absolute minimum.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size:16px;\">The kitchen as ordinary families know it has vanished entirely. Whatever food is available must be cooked over a stove made of clay or stone, which mothers are forced to fuel by burning materials harmful to health and the environment.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size:16px;\">This method may itself ignite fires that consume the crowded tents of displaced families.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size:16px;\">When a person in Gaza speaks, we may notice things they would not ordinarily disclose. They may have permanently lost some of their teeth, like vast numbers of residents upon whom the genocide has left its mark in this respect as well.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size:16px;\">This occurred after the occupation army crushed dental clinics throughout the strip and destroyed, burned or put out of service hospitals that had previously treated dental patients. It also inflicted heavy casualties among medical personnel.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size:16px;\">For a prolonged period, residents suffered under a ban on the entry of medicines, therapeutic supplies and medical equipment.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size:16px;\">Simply obtaining toothpaste and a toothbrush from the market became an unattainable luxury.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size:16px;\">This wretched reality has caused a collective deterioration in dental health, affecting every generation. This society of crumbling teeth is an eloquent image of the enforced deprivation imposed upon a population in a territory where a suffocating siege strangles daily life, stripping teeth from the pale faces of its people and, at times, leaving them with no food worth chewing.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size:16px;\">Barefoot witnesses<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size:16px;\">The Israeli occupation army has forced most of the Gaza Strip&rsquo;s population into repeated displacement from one area to another, through sudden expulsion orders or intensified attacks.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size:16px;\">Time and time again, residents have had to surge along rough roads torn up by bulldozers, or move between heaps of rubble and refuse towards some destination within the strip, carrying their belongings and the materials needed for rudimentary camping.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size:16px;\">No sooner do they settle there than the army may compel them to flee once again towards another destination, and so the cycle continues.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size:16px;\">Palestinians, young and old, have experienced displacement in conflicting directions: on foot, aboard carts pulled by horses or donkeys, or in whatever vehicles remain.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size:16px;\">Among the scenes witnessed by the world were displaced people walking in worn-out sandals, or even barefoot, after their shoes had disintegrated during the long journey and no suitable replacements could be found.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size:16px;\">Residents are forced to patch their shoes and repair frayed sandals.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size:16px;\">As the occupation authorities have prevented the entry of the population&rsquo;s many basic necessities, acquiring a new pair of shoes, or even a simple pair of sandals, has become an unattainable aspiration for many.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size:16px;\">The cruelty of everyday life in Gaza is revealed in many such scenes: children and adults lacking usable shoes as they endure long marches along the routes of displacement. Yet in this merciless reality, this is far from their greatest concern.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size:16px;\">One of the most horrifying truths is that there is scarcely a child in Gaza who has not repeatedly seen torn human remains.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size:16px;\">Some of those remains may belong to people the child knew well: their family members, neighbors or friends. Some of these fragments remain lodged in children&rsquo;s minds. They may come to regard life stained with blood and human remains as something ordinary in this particular part of the world.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size:16px;\">A child in this genocide is not merely a witness to what is taking place but a direct victim, as confirmed by the terrifying statistical indicators documented in specialized UN reports.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size:16px;\">A child who spends a prolonged period beneath the rubble does not emerge unscathed.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size:16px;\">Suspended between life and death, watching the breath of those around them extinguished in utter darkness, the child nearly loses all hope of emerging alive &ndash; until a hand finally reaches down and, with immense difficulty, pulls them back to the surface of life.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size:16px;\">In this new life, the child will find no home in which to live. They may be almost the only member of their family left alive.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size:16px;\">Yet their compounded tragedy will offer no opportunity to contemplate all that has happened, because the moving machinery of genocide may crush them at any moment.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size:16px;\">What have the horrors of genocide left of the conventions intended to protect childhood, in a world that has allowed all this visible brutality against Palestinian children to continue year after year, its atrocities broadcast live, without the world restraining them?<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size:16px;\">-Hossam Shaker is a journalist and an author who has extensively covered the topic of migration in Europe. His article appeared in The Middle East Eye.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>","content_source":"","content_url":"","content_date_start":"2026-08-17 14:12:34","content_date_event":"2026-08-17 14:12:34","content_date_event_start":null,"content_date_event_end":null,"content_show_title_slider":1,"content_date_last_edit":"2026-08-17 14:13:20","content_date_register":"2026-08-17 14:13:20","content_columns":0,"content_show_img":1,"content_show_details":0,"content_show_related_img":0,"content_show_slider":1,"content_comment":1,"content_score":0,"tag_id":0,"score_average":null,"score_count":null,"score_date_last":null,"uid":43,"eid":0,"attach_title":"Gaza genocide:\r\n\r\nHow Israel made horror a ritual of daily life","attaches":[{"sizes":{"150":".\/cache\/2\/attach\/202608\/573415_2780283734_150_150.webp","300":".\/cache\/2\/attach\/202608\/573415_2780283734_250_250.jpg","400":".\/cache\/2\/attach\/202608\/573415_2780283734_250_250.jpg","600":".\/cache\/2\/attach\/202608\/573415_2780283734_250_250.jpg","900":".\/cache\/2\/attach\/202608\/573415_2780283734_250_250.jpg","1200":".\/cache\/2\/attach\/202608\/573415_2780283734_250_250.jpg"},"ext":"jpg","file_media":1,"token":2780283734,"files":{"original":{"url":".\/file\/2\/attach\/202608\/573415_2780283734.jpg","width":250,"height":250,"size":0}}}]}]]