If we do not understand the pain and misery on both sides of this war, then we cannot begin to think of how to help stop the never-ending cycle of pain and misery in Gaza, writes John Lyons.
It means that right now people are having major operations without painkillers and anaesthetics. Doctors say people are screaming with pain during operations.
Imagine cutting Canberra in half and then putting roughly the population of Brisbane into it. Then dropping 6,000 bombs onto it — on average 16 bombs per square kilometre. That's the Gaza Strip right now. I spoke to doctors in Gaza who insisted it was white phosphorous — they could tell from the burns it caused. The Israeli army "strenuously denied" this.
In those "good times" I visited a children's hospital. The doctors took me to see a baby in intensive care who only had a few days to live because Israel was not allowing a particular medicine in. At Tel Aviv airport I met a woman who had set up a tent with her husband. It was a perfect setting, she said, a time to enjoy music with her husband.
Fear is the look on the face of the mother as she holds a picture of her daughter, pleading for her captors in Gaza to release her. Fear is the way Israelis locked themselves into their homes on the Friday after the massacre, worried the so-called Day of Rage by the Arab world could mean infiltrators.
One attack plan, according to documents obtained by CNN, said the aim of Hamas was to "inflict the maximum possible human casualties". Their knowledge of the kibbutzim was "horribly accurate”, said one woman.Both sides are in fear and pain. Yet again, the dreadful cycle of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict claims more victims.
And Jeremy Ben-Ami, the president of J Street, a pro-Israel lobby group in the US, said he thought a two-state solution was also the only answer — that such an option would mean people on both sides had something to live for, rather than something to die for. What sustains the business model of all these groups is Israel's occupation of the West Bank and blockade of Gaza. But the occupation is opposed not just by these groups but much of the international community and some Israelis.
If they plead guilty, they get three months in prison. If they contest the charge, they often spend eight or nine months in jail, so their lawyers urge them to plead guilty.Gaza is facing an "unprecedented human catastrophe": the latest on the ground
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