Last weekend, I young woman entered my phone screen and briefly stepped into my life. She was filming about her life in Gaza. The place on earth right now, of which from our safe homes we can see the misery, the rubble, the displaced people panicking after the bombings.

Any human being with a heart gets a lump in his or her throat at the sight of this endless suffering. The young woman, only 25, Bisan is her name, speaks English into the camera while she shows her current home: an overcrowded refugee camp. She was, before the war broke out, a storyteller, making videos in a beautiful film studio, now razed to the ground by bombs from Israel. A burnt-out, destroyed building I see on my screen. She cries. A little later, she talks to a few children on the busy streets.

Total chaos

I am struck by how many people are on the streets, the total chaos I see. Bisan shows the little bit of water she could still get for the day. A few sips and it’s gone. Half a slice of bread. One bite and it’s gone. And yet she doesn’t show defeat, not yet. She smiles. I symphatize with this Palestinian young woman. The way she shows the world what is happening in Gaza is extraordinary in her situation. She does not judge, she is not hateful. Despite the pure misery she is currently living in, she says into the camera: ‘Enjoy your life, the good people around you. Life can be so short. It can change so suddenly because of anything.’ In her case war.

Despair and sadness

Today I go to her Instagram-account for a more recent update and now I see the despair in her eyes, her voice trembles, there is anger, defeat, fear, sadness, hunger, thirst.

Are you still sleeping well? Almost every night I am arguing in my sleep. Questions like who’s wrong, who’s right are coming to the surface. During the day, I try to seek some nuance in response to all the one-sided stories I see passing by, but you’re often called a coward if you do so, because you don’t explicitly choose a side. Or you wouldn’t understand what ‘justice’ means when you try to look beyond who the oppressor and who the victim is. Sharing nuanced thoughts in the lion’s den seems fruitless.

Sneer in response

My opponent in the digital Israel-Palestine discussion, working in journalism at a radical left-wing magazine, who, with the acclaim of her followers, accused me of not understanding anything about ‘justice’, doesn’t know that I once went to law school for that very reason. To bring more justice in the world. Only to quickly find out that law and justice often have nothing to do with each other. I tried and now I am holding back on social media channels, as I have no desire to receive so much hostality each time. To many the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — which is a war — is a done deal.

Meanwhile, I hold my heart. For the hostility in the West that this war is unleashing, the deep hatred that has come to the surface, for the beast that is loose. But most of all for the thousands of lives that are already been lost and there seems no end in sight. Also humanity which seems completely lost, the way other lives are so easily decided. Is one life more worth than the other? As Israel tries to defeat Hamas, there are new Hamas-men in the making. They should know this, right?

It seems like a repetition of 9/11 in which the US President Bush Jr decisively expressed the words “we smoke them out” about the fight against another Muslim fundamentalist terrorist group, Al-Qaida. The difference here is that Hamas terrorists are hiding in overpopulated Gaza. And they too are firing rockets. At Israelis at the other side. Meanwhile, Hamas has been holding around 200 Israeli men, women and children hostage for weeks now (since 7th Oct). Where are they? Are they still alive?

Jewish-French woman stabbed in her home

Almost every day there’s news about violence or anti-semitic incidents against random Jews closer to home. To distinguish individuals and the actions of a government which isn’t even theirs does not happen. Hate and madness have already taken over. A Jewish 30-year-old woman was stabbed in her belly while she was in her home in Lyon, France, last Saturday. Luckily she survived. The perpetrator left a swastika on her door. The beast is loose.

Killing the beast is the only solution. It must be destroyed. Even if it costs thousands of innocent people their lives, because they have nowhere to escape to, they’re fair game? Is there no other way? A Hamas representative, Ghazi Hamad, says in an interview on an Arab channel he wants to destroy Israel no matter what, repeating the horrific massacres of 7 October. That’s clear language.

Should countries support this fight against Hamas in the name of self-preservation and freedom for Israel, but also for Gaza living under Hamas’ yoke? Is anything accepted in this, even if we become blind to all the humanitarian suffering? Are there no boundaries anymore?

No ordinary war

Boundaries have already been far crossed by Hamas and the Israeli state. This is no ordinary war. Like fair game in Gaza, the people have nowhere to go. Defenseless civilians who did not choose this hell. As the Israeli young people at the dance festival, they are trapped. How many more lives have to be destroyed before someone says: stop this! Will there be ever a chance for peace for Palestinians and Israelis? A chance for rest in this hell without dying?

Bisan, the Palestinian young woman, reports from the war zone as often as possible, when the internet connection permits. It may well be her last day.

Every morning when I wake up I light a candle to bring some light into the darkness. For her, her people, the Israeli hostages, the Jewish diaspora, and for all others in agony in this inhumane fight.

Stop the violence. Stop the bombing.

Published in Dutch on Reporters Online.

With hope,

Eva

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