Never Seen

By Randy Alonso Falcón on December 27, 2023

Wars leave sad traces; they are the terrible expression of the failure of human intelligence. Each is unique in its horrors. But few in modern times have left so many marks in such a short space of time as the genocidal Israeli war against the Palestinian people in Gaza.

This past Sunday, December 24, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) reported that 142 of its employees in the Gaza Strip have been killed in less than 80 days of fighting.

“Our teams are doing their utmost to help people in need. We mourn the loss of more UNRWA colleagues killed in Gaza, now 142, most with their families, the UN agency communicated on its social network account X.

It is something “never seen” in the UN’s history, the organization’s secretary-general, Antonio Guterres, said on Saturday.

The day before, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) had confirmed the death of one of its workers, Issam al-Mughrabi, his wife and five children in an Israeli bombing on the outskirts of Gaza City. Dozens more family members were reportedly killed in the attack.

“For nearly 30 years, Issam has worked with UNDP through our Programme of Assistance to the Palestinian People (PAPP). He will be remembered as a beloved member of the PAPP team. The death of Issam and his family has affected us all deeply. The UN and the civilians of Gaza are not a target,” denounced UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner.

The worst place in the world to be a child

The “never-before-seen” Israeli genocide also extends to the massacre of children. No other recent conflict has had such a large proportion of infant killings, before the undaunted eyes of the international community. Not even the U.S. brutality in Iraq, Libya or Syria.

Intense Israeli bombardment in two and a half months of offensive has claimed the lives of at least 20,400 Gazans – including more than 8,000 children – and injured more than 54,000; in addition to an estimated 7,500 bodies trapped under the rubble, according to the latest Health Ministry count.

“As hundreds more children remain trapped under the rubble of destroyed buildings with little chance of survival, the total number of child deaths is likely to exceed 10,000,” warns human rights organization Euro-Med Monitor

“I am truly furious,” said Jamed Elder, the UNICEF spokesman, during a press conference in Geneva on December 19, after spending two weeks in Gaza. “I am furious that those in power are shrugging their shoulders at the humanitarian nightmares unleashed on a million children,” he said.

The Unicef spokesman lamented that the thousands of children killed in Gaza “become statistics.” “It angers me that hypocrisy crushes any empathy” and “I am furious with myself for not having been able to do more,” he added.

The hospitals that are still functioning are full of children and their parents, all of them with “the horrific wounds of war,” Elder said, noting that during his time in the Strip he encountered many young amputees. About 1,000 children in Gaza have lost one or both legs, he detailed.

“I don’t think in my 20 years with Unicef I have seen this many children with war wounds,” Elder told the BBC.

Lives cut short that will never know adulthood. “Parents go to sleep hugging their children tightly, not knowing if they will wake up alive the next morning,” relates Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, after a recent visit to the Gaza Strip. “Fear and anxiety are constant for more than 2 million people in Gaza, whether they are children, women or the elderly,” he admits. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned weeks ago that Gaza was on its way to becoming “a graveyard for children.”

A profession at risk from bombs

Never before has a war seen more journalists killed than days of fighting. Already 103 colleagues have been killed in 79 days of violent shelling and strafing in Gaza, the Al Jazeera television network reported on 24 December.

Never before have so many press professionals been killed in such a small territory as that of the Strip occupied by the Israeli army. Never before in this century have so many journalists been killed in an entire year.

The Israeli army does not respect any of the international conventions protecting the exercise of war journalism. For the Zionist entity, the best journalist in the enemy’s camp is the dead journalist. The truth of the genocide must not be told.

The losing logic of war

Where Jesus was supposed to be born, there was no room to celebrate Christmas. The city of Bethlehem (West Bank), where according to the Bible Christ was born, was these days a ghost town, without festive lights or typical decorations in the Manger Square. Mayor Hanna Hanania explained that they decided to cancel the Christmas celebrations this year because they considered them inappropriate at a time when Israel continues its attacks on the Gaza Strip.

“The birth of Jesus is a message of hope for all the children of the world, and we cannot celebrate when thousands of children are being killed in the Gaza Strip,” Hanania explained to the German media outlet Berliner Zeitung.

“We cannot celebrate when our brothers and sisters in the Holy Land are suffering hunger and death,” Catholic parish priest Rami Asakrieh told EFE from St. Catherine’s Church, adjacent to the Orthodox Basilica of the Nativity, the main center of pilgrimage of Christians from all over the world to Bethlehem.

This December 25, in the Urbi et Orbi blessing, in which he lamented the slaughter of innocent people caused by armed conflicts in the world, and called for an end to wars, Pope Francis again referred to the slaughter against the Palestinian people, as he has done several times in recent weeks: “that military operations cease, with their dramatic consequences of innocent civilian victims, and that the desperate humanitarian situation be remedied by allowing the arrival of aid”.

“That violence and hatred no longer be fueled, but that a solution be found to the Palestinian question, through sincere and persevering dialogue between the parties, sustained by strong political will and the support of the international community”, he demanded.

Peace is necessary, so that Palestinian lands do not continue to write “never before” of horror and genocide. Silence is not an option in the face of so much slaughter. It is not admissible that the losing logic of war prevails.

Source: Cubadebate, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English