The many October 7s

What happened on 7 October 2023 at the Nova dance festival and neighbouring villages in Israel was barbaric.

No young person who was having fun at that festival should have expected to see their friends massacred in cold blood; raped; humiliated and taken hostage.

What Hamas militants did on that day was despicable and should be condemned outright.

It is hard to believe, indeed shocking, that one year later scores of hostages taken by Hamas are still trapped inside Gaza; their fate unknown.

And yet as we condemn Hamas’s actions and affirm Israel’s right to defend itself we cannot forget the many more October 7s that have been happening in Gaza since then.

The Israeli reaction has been disproportionate, brutal and murderous. Just as it was very wrong to have 1,200 innocent Israelis killed in cold blood, it was equally wrong to have more than 40,000 Palestinians killed beneath the rubble of their homes, on their streets, in schools and hospitals where they sought shelter.

The Palestinians in Gaza have suffered far too much. The enclave, only just bigger than Malta, is besieged, unliveable and will likely remain so for many years.

For every Israeli mother crying the death of her son or daughter at the hands of Hamas there are 33 Palestinian mothers crying the death of their children at the hands of Israeli military action.

For every Israeli father anxiously waiting to discover the fate of their child kidnapped by Hamas, there are scores of Palestinian fathers anxiously waiting to see if their son or daughter is still alive under the rubble of a bombed residential building.

There is a lot of pain and suffering on both sides and yet it is not war that will solve this.

Incredibly, Hamas continues to sporadically shoot rockets into Israel until this very day. These actions are reckless and counterproductive for the Palestinian cause but they go to show that Israel’s war goal to completely eliminate Hamas has failed.

The militant group has been severely weakened militarily and politically but not decimated.

In these circumstances, prolonging the Gaza siege and genocide is nothing short of pure madness coming from an Israeli far-right government whose apparent aim is to permanently occupy the whole of Palestine.

Only an immediate ceasefire, the unconditional release of all hostages and the unrestricted delivery of humanitarian supplies will suffice to alleviate the suffering of Palestinians and Israelis alike.

At the same time Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon must stop the cross-border skirmishes and bombings. Lebanon must not become a second Gaza. Just as Israel has a duty not to turn Lebanon into a failed state so does Hezbollah have a duty to desist from attacking Israel.

12 months after October 7, the Middle East is like a tinder keg about to explode. If it does, the result will only mean more suffering, more pain, more mothers and fathers crying their dead children, more destruction of buildings, communities and lives, more anger and hate.

People living ‘from the river to the sea’, irrespective of who they are and what nationality they hold or aspire to hold, deserve much better.

They deserve to live in peace and security as dignified human beings. They deserve a better life and leaders on all sides have a duty to make this happen