Israel did not return Gaza to the ‘Stone Age’– during that time there was human life
What Israel did in Gaza is worse than the Nakba. The dimension of the destruction of cities and villages inhabited by human beings, human communities, is a crime against humanity. There is no justification for it, and there cannot be any justification for it.
By Rogel Alpher • Translated by Sol Salbe
A Hamas audit has found that the task of rebuilding Gaza and caring for its residents is beyond its capabilities. 69 per cent of Gaza’s infrastructure — water, electricity, sewage — is destroyed; This is what [veteran journalist and very frequent visitor to Australia] Ehud Yaari says, based on a Hamas probe. The restoration will cost at least US$18.5 billion and will take at least five years. In Gaza, 37 million tonnes of garbage have accumulated for removal and 50 million tonnes of rubble — and the removal will require at least 15 years of work. In addition, 68 per cent of the agricultural land is unfit for cultivation.
While Yaari detailed the extent of the destruction, the other half of the screen revealed the familiar images: buildings upon buildings upon of buildings along dusty roads. They stand naked, grey, empty. Ghost-like buildings as far as the eye can see. An apocalypse has taken place in Gaza. It looks like the end of the world. But it was not returned to the Stone Age, as our defence ministers tend to brag. During the Stone Age the world did not look so lifeless as if its intestines have been torn out. It didn’t look as if it had experienced horrific violence. There was life during the Stone Age. There is no life in Gaza. It cannot sustain life. An apocalypse took place in Gaza, and Israel is responsible for it. It did not return Gaza to the Stone Age, but rather took it to a dystopian future. Gaza looks like the human race’s nightmare: a world that humans have destroyed with their own hands.
What Israel did in Gaza is worse than the Nakba. The dimension of the destruction of cities and villages inhabited by human beings, human communities, is a crime against humanity. There is no justification for it, and there cannot be any justification for it. Not in the practical aspect, since Hamas still controls Gaza [removing it was the war’s stated aim], and Hamas still hold those abductees who have not been killed or murdered directly or indirectly by IDF operations. It cannot be justified by the moral aspect, since such dimensions of destruction (not to mention the killing of non-combatants) attest to the dehumanisation of the residents of Gaza. Therefore, it is a crime against humanity, even if international law would not rule that way. Because to treat a human inhabited place in this way is a crime against humanity. It degrades the value of human life. The indifference of Israeli society to the apocalypse it caused — the matter had not even come up for discussion between Yaari and Ben Ami — is a mark of barbarism.
It must be stated clearly: Israel has been wiping out Gaza. About six months after a senior government minister said that the state should wipe out Hawara, it began wiping out Gaza. And the country is divided into two camps: those who want to resume the implementation of the apocalypse now, and those who prefer to do it later, after all the abductees have been returned. And this apocalypse, according to the TikTok videos, was being carried out with glee by IDF soldiers, on behalf of an Israeli public that is enthusiastic at worst and indifferent at best. This too is dehumanisation of the Gazans. Fascists often say that the first wiping out is always the hardest. From here on out it will be much easier. Jenin, get ready.
