Gaza’s pain, one year after the October 7 attack
When I spoke to right-wing Orthodox Jewish settlers working in Gaza growing tomatoes in greenhouses and swimming fully clothed in the sea, they swore to me that the land was theirs. . When I spoke to Arabs claiming ownership of lands in the West Bank, now occupied by Israeli settlers, they swore to me that the land was theirs alone. their. Who was right? I see Russian and Ethiopian immigrants, people who were not born Jewish but converted, people who migrated to Israel, now have more rights than Palestinians who still hold the keys to the homes that Their ancestors were deported in 1947. I saw the Shabab protesting, risking bullets and tear gas, hurling stones like David’s legion against the mighty Goliath. I then interviewed the families of the Palestinian suicide bombers and the families of their victims. I once spent time traveling between the families of two 17-year-old girls, one Jewish, one Palestinian, who lived a few miles apart, not far from Bethlehem. Their mothers united in pain.
In a sense, my life’s work was honed through the years of research for my book on the First Intifada and the Second Intifada, which came out a decade later. But what struck me was the deep sense of injustice and lawlessness, something Langer and her colleagues worked tirelessly for. At the time of the first Gulf War, in 1990–91, I flew to Vienna to see Langer receive a major human rights award. But by then she was exhausted after years of filing and suing in Israeli military courts and being ridiculed by judges. She lost most of the cases she tried, but she kept going. Not long after, she emigrated to Germany to teach law at Heidelberg University and lived a life far removed from the profession that haunted her.
October 7 was a terrible act of barbarity. The sadistic glee with which the perpetrators carried out their carnage—captured on their own cell phones and Go-Pro cameras—is evil personified. But the plot and execution of the October 7 plan by Hamas – while inexcusable – did not happen as the UN Secretary General said. Antonio Guterres There is a famous saying “happens in a vacuum”. Before that there was not only the Nakba of 1947 when Palestinians were expelled from their land following the birth of the fledgling state of Israel, but also the first and second Intifadas. The summer before October 7, radical West Bank settlers, seemingly in line with Netanyahu’s radical expansionist policy, ran amok in the West Bank, burning Palestinian land, terrorizing and killing harm civilians. What is it like to be born in a land where you know your people have no rights and no dignity, and where you cannot defend yourself? Somewhere you don’t have powerful friends like the United States, Germany or the United Kingdom? Generation after generation, Palestinian children grow up scarred, bitter, angry and broken.
Visitors walk around portraits of people taken hostage or killed in the Hamas attack on the Supernova music festival on October 7, at the festival site near Kibbutz Reim in the south Israel on May 13, 2024.By Jack Guez/AFP/Getty Images.
In 2021–22, Vanity fair gave me an unusual mission to Gaza and focus not on the misery and deprivation but to speak to millennials and members of Generation Z who are succeeding and thriving despite blockades on both sides of the Gaza Strip by both Israel and Egypt. This does not mean that their situation is not miserable – it is. Daily power cuts; cannot leave Gaza for studies or conferences; Even sending an Apple computer was impossible. But I still meet extraordinary—and incredibly resourceful—young people who I believe are the key to Gaza’s future: a future beyond Hamas. I greatly admire their talent, perseverance and drive, despite the limitations placed on them at every turn.
The terrible events of October 7 traumatized Israeli society. They also destroy any hope that people like my young friends have for peace or for a life beyond conflict. These are the people I am counting on for peace. Many people are now dead. Gaza Sky Geek is a cheerfully based computer coding academy, bearing signs from places programmers would never go—New York, Berlin, London—where I like to hang out . But many of those young programmers died or were displaced. The music store and recording studio where I go to listen to my favorite rock bands, Osprey Vhas disappeared. These young people hold the promise of a Palestine tomorrow, a country where Israelis and Palestinians can live together in peace. But since the indiscriminate destruction of Gaza – and the constant rain of rockets and missiles being exchanged between Hamas, Iran, Hezbollah, the Houthis and Israel – that is simply impossible. It won’t happen in the near future.
