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Courtenay
Saturday, February 8, 2025

What difference does it make?

Your children haven’t been in school since October 8th last year, when the bombing started. Soon after, you all had to leave your homes because of it. Like your grandparents who came to Gaza in ‘48, you left with only the clothes on your back. You brought your cell, but it was useless without any place to charge it. You went south according to directions because Rafah in the south was said by Israel to be a “safe zone”. It was a walk of 25 miles because you live in the north of tiny Gaza and Rafah is on the southern border with Egypt.

You walked with many thousands of others – in fact, 2 million of Gaza’s 2.3 million population are now displaced from their homes – so it was chaotic and terrifying with your young children in tow, not knowing what to expect or when and if you’d be able to get back home. The incessant sound of drones, the bombs dropping, and missiles raining down seemed never- ending.

Eventually, you and most of your family made it to Rafah. Others went missing or you learned were killed in the bombing. You were provided a tent in a UN camp, but Israel then did bomb Rafah and a huge fire erupted in your tent camp, burning people alive and killing many.

Netanyahu first described it as a “terrible mistake”; now Israel’s giving some other reason.

You have to leave the Rafah camp and are now on your way back to your former home. The roads you walk are littered with rotting corpses, the stench is over-powering. You just got your period but there are no stores anymore, so you can’t get supplies. Besides, the banks have been bombed, so you can’t get any money. Your husband has not been able to work, but then the school he taught in has been bombed, so there is no school anymore.

Everyone is hungry all the time. Several of your children need medical attention. They have the distended stomachs of the malnourished, but there are no hospitals or clinics anymore. They have all been razed to the ground. There is no clean water, no sanitation, almost no food, no electricity, no shelter to speak of, no way of knowing which of your neighbours and relatives are alive or buried under the rubble. It is very hot in Gaza right now. Your children are not sleeping very well and they are tired all the time (and so are you), they cry a lot and they want answers from you. You have no answers to give them. You are living an ongoing nightmare.

You eventually get back to the area of your home and find that there is no home anymore. In fact, there is no neighbourhood; it has all been flattened by bombs. Where will you go? How will you survive?

You heard someone said that the World Court is going to decide if you have a right to be free from Genocide. Apparently it would be misleading to suggest they will rule on whether or not a Genocide is actually being committed. Does that mean that Palestinians in Gaza actually might not have a right to be free from Genocide?

How do those words matter? What difference does it make?

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