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Children in Gaza ‘developing severe trauma’ after 16 days of bombing
(www.theguardian.com)
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this post was submitted on 22 Oct 2023
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People who condemn Hamas need to reconcile with this:
Those people were once children who were traumatized by occupation. Maybe they saw their parents die. Maybe they saw their siblings die. Maybe it was their uncle or their best friends. Maybe they were buried under rubble for days and barely survived. Maybe they were shot at. Maybe they saw their homes destroyed.
And then they had to just keep living under occupation. Go through checkpoints, live in cramped conditions, ration their own food, and know that their life expectancy is 40.
Those are the people who attacked Israel. Can you even imagine the pain and terror and hate they must feel? Little traumas and humiliations every day of their lives, only differentiated by spikes of severe trauma when the IDF mows the lawn.
I'd have killed myself. These people are incredible for hanging on despite everything. How dare you judge them?
Don't forget a strong dose of propaganda and radicalisation towards violence, along with training in Iran. This wasn't exactly an emotional outburst from people pushed to the brink, it was a heavily coordinated strike planned months in advance.
This actually makes it all the more horrible, because it's quite clear from the outside that the strike would not achieve any of their objectives for the Palestinian people. It begs the question: who wanted this to happen, who encouraged them?
Hasn't the strike literally achieved their objectives? Everyone's talking about them (instead of Ukraine), the Arab world is uniting behind them, and the West is progressively alienating their friends in the Global South.
If Israel had just let things lie, the status quo would have continued and Israel could have kept encroaching on the West Bank and slowly suffocating the Gaza Strip with their blockade. Instead, people are literally turning their backs on the US at the UN, there are massive protests around the world, and the Palestinian struggle is now front and center.
The only way Israel can pull a victory out of this complete and categorical defeat is by annexing the Gaza Strip.
This is all just noise, not meaningful change.
I'm not sure that victory is really the goal here. Frankly, I think the goal is merely to make war, and in turn make money by facilitating it. Always has been.