A year on, Gaza, a narrow strip of land just 41 kilometers long and 6 to 12 kilometers wide, has become a bloody shroud over the eyes of the world. Imagine if half the area of Hyderabad, the second-largest city in Sindh, were bombarded from the sky with explosives equivalent to four Hiroshima bombs over the course of a year. What would remain? Who would survive? Not even the smallest piece of land from World Wars I and II, Vietnam, Iraq, or Afghanistan has endured this level of destruction over such a short period.
Over the past year, two percent of Gaza’s population has died. More than 100,000 are injured. As many are missing, presumed buried under rubble or claimed by scavenging animals. Countless children, some mere hours old, have perished from bombs, shells, bullets, or explosions. Why were they even born? To Israel, all of them alive or unborn are terrorists.
In this year, Gaza has been deprived of water, electricity, fuel, and medical facilities. There are no hospitals, clinics, schools, libraries, government offices, museums, shops, trees, or fields left intact. There is no route to escape, no food to eat, and no shelter to be found. Nearly 80% of mosques, churches, and 40% of cemeteries have been destroyed.
Logic dictates that by now, Gaza’s entire population should have perished. Yet 2.2 million of Gaza’s 2.3 million people still breathe, a living miracle. O steadfastness, thy name is Palestine.
Under these circumstances, groups like Hamas should have been obliterated or surrendered unconditionally. The entire population has been displaced 17 times within the 365 square kilometers of this confined strip. Gaza City, Khan Yunis, Rafah, and Nuseirat Refugee Camp have been reduced to rubble four times over. Yet rockets continue to launch from Gaza, reaching Israel.
For the first time since 1967, Israel is using warplanes and helicopters against unarmed Palestinians in the West Bank. Around 20,000 Palestinians are detained in Israeli prisons. In death or imprisonment, children, youth, elders, men, and women are all equal.
Yet Gaza has not died; it has become a sigh that reverberates. This sigh has dried up the Suez Canal’s maritime traffic. The Red Sea, extending to the Arabian Sea, has become a snare for commercial ships. After five years of bombarding Yemen, the “brotherly” Arab nations, along with the U.S., U.K., and Israel, have not prevented drones and missiles from Yemen from reaching Israel’s Eilat and Tel Aviv.
Northern Israel’s border areas are deserted under Hezbollah’s rocket fire, and despite Israel’s ground incursions into southern Lebanon, they have failed to capture a single village. The devastation unfolding in Gaza and Beirut is wrought by Israeli planes armed with American bombs.
While Israel has wiped out much of Hamas and Hezbollah’s leadership, it has achieved no military objective in Gaza or Lebanon, despite unlimited Western support.
The International Court of Justice, the United Nations General Assembly, and human rights organizations, both local and international, are all condemning Israel. Despite the Western media’s one-sided coverage, Israel can no longer sell its victim narrative on global streets or university campuses. In its frustration, Israel clenches its fists at the International Court of Justice and accuses the entire UN of anti-Semitism. Israel’s recent ban on the UN Secretary-General from entering the country was the final nail in its diplomatic coffin.
While Israel’s Iron Dome has protected it from many rockets and missiles, and it enjoys blind support from the U.S., U.K., and three out of five permanent members of the Security Council, the Israeli leadership now faces war crime charges. Beyond a handful of countries, they cannot travel anywhere, as nations upholding the International Criminal Court are legally obligated to arrest war criminals.
The elderly who remember Hitler’s atrocities against Jews are gone. Today’s youth see Hitler in Netanyahu. Israel cannot indefinitely garner sympathy by showing old images of the Holocaust, especially when it is increasingly seen as Nazi Germany reincarnated.
In this past year, Gaza has exposed the West and its media, deflating the Abraham Accords between Israel and the Gulf states. Moral pressure is so great that even Saudi Arabia has shelved its plans to normalize relations with Israel.
While Iran’s hundreds of missiles have not physically destroyed Israel, they have prompted Arab states to declare neutrality in the Israel-Iran conflict.
The risk remains that even a few misplaced missiles could strike oil refineries, oil wells, or duty-free ports on the other side of the Gulf, or sink oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, disrupting 20% of the world’s oil supply and potentially destabilizing several regimes.
According to Netanyahu, now is the golden opportunity to redraw the region’s map. His dream is on the verge of realization. The region is about to change so drastically that even the U.S. might not recognize it. The genie that was bottled up 75 years ago has slipped through its handlers’ fingers.