Israel and Palestine update, November 2023
The context of what’s happening in Israel and Palestine explained.
These past few months have been very rough for both Palestine and Israel. On October, 7th 2023, Hamas launched an assault on various locations across the Israeli-Palestine border. More than 1,300 Israeli people were killed in the assault. In response, Israel has been launching responsive strikes across Palestine. More than 8,000 Palestinians have been killed in the crossfire, as buildings, houses, cars, and even refugee camps have been bombarded. Families are being displaced and children are being left without a mom or dad, and communication was lost in Gaza, but thankfully it came back after being gone for over a month. One of Israel’s many missile strikes even hit the roof of a hospital in Gaza. More than 1,100 people have evacuated the Gaza strip and many more are still leaving currently.
This war has made people lose their livelihoods as well as their lives; construction sites that haven’t even been finished have been destroyed because of all the bombs being launched. Supposedly, people are saying that the number of people that have died in this war already passed the year’s death toll, meaning that the number has passed the amount of people dying in ways unrelated to this conflict. It’s very devastating to see other countries suffer when we in the U.S have so many different opportunities and we are so lucky that we don’t have to face these challenges other countries are facing. The Israeli army has even dropped white phosphorus, which is illegal under international law due to the horrific burns it causes.
While Hamas is a terrorist group, and they did fire the first shot, civilians the world over have expressed that they don’t understand how that justifies Israel committing acts of terror against Palestinian civilians. Survivors from the holocaust that have experienced something similar are speaking up about the situation as well. 80-year old Marione Ingram, in an interview with Democracy Now, stated, “What Israel is doing will not end this conflict, it will only exacerbate it.”Marione and Omer Bartov holocaust scholar have recently decided to speak up on this topic and make a change for society. Omer Bartov said that the Israeli government resulting in not wanting to agree with Palestinians is leading to this.
In response, people are protesting in large groups all over the world, in places such as California, Washington, Georgia, and Pakistan. These people are doing everything they can to make sure that their voices can be heard no matter what part of the world they are in. Big franchises are going bankrupt or are getting bashed on because they don’t support Palestine or because they support Israel and for perpetuating genocide. Many Starbucks stores are boycotting and going out of business; some Starbucks stores in Turkey have not even a single customer in store due to the boycotts. Another big company known as ‘SHEIN’ the popular fast fashion clothes website, is also getting bashed by people for selling the Palestinian flag but not the Israel one. They have called to boycott the website and all free deliveries to Israel have been canceled.
Civilians and other people are calling for a ceasefire. Some people are not agreeing with this because even if they call for a ceasefire, it will not be able to bring back loved ones, houses or anything that has been lost in the war. The biggest hospital on the Gaza Strip was hit by a bomb killing hundreds of people, cutting off electricity and leaving many dead bodies laying on the hospital floor. Babies who were in the NICU had the incubators disconnected causing many of them to pass away. Hospitals in Gaza are asking for protection because nobody can go inside or out of the hospital because they will be targeted by weapons. All of us have many questions but we don’t really have enough answers or we don’t fully know what’s going on in our world right now. Seeing all of this happen in our world is very sad that this is what it has come down to. All because of who gets the land and how it’s going to be controlled. There are many other ways to solve this problem but violence is certainly not the answer.
