I person covered galore wars successful the past but nothing—absolutely nothing—prepared maine for the brutality, cruelty, and the sheer savagery of Israel’s warfare successful Gaza. I wasn’t alone. Veteran colleagues astatine Al Jazeera—battle-hardened reporters who had walked the ruins of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, the Balkans, and Ukraine—confessed they had ne'er seen specified merciless devastation.
The relentless bombing of the tiny Gaza Strip aft Hamas’s devastating onslaught connected the subject installations and communities of confederate Israel connected October 7, 2023, has been compared to the worst wars successful memory. In conscionable 2 months, the Associated Press reported, the Israeli warfare had “wreaked much demolition than the razing of Syria’s Aleppo betwixt 2012 and 2016, Ukraine’s Mariupol or, proportionally, the Allied bombing of Germany successful World War II. It has killed much civilians than the US-led conjugation did successful its three-year run against the Islamic State group.” It has been “the struggle for children successful modern times,” arsenic good arsenic the warfare that has seen an unprecedented targeting of journalists, doctors, humanitarian workers, and United Nations staff. No 1 was spared. Nothing was sacred. A Brown University study concluded that “more journalists person been killed successful Gaza than successful the US civilian war, some satellite wars, the Korean war, the Vietnam war, the wars successful Yugoslavia and the US warfare successful Afghanistan combined.”
Israeli premier curate Benjamin Netanyahu besides saw Israel’s warfare successful a humanities perspective. Just a fewer weeks aft the October 7 attack, Netanyahu justified Israel’s obliteration of civilians successful Gaza with a examination to Operation Carthage, a British aerial raid successful World War II that targeted the Nazi quality office successful Copenhagen but alternatively deed a schoolhouse and killed eighty-six children. Netanyahu claimed that the deaths of these children were the tragic consequences of a morganatic enactment of war, but “not a warfare crime.” Drawing an equivalence betwixt Nazi Germany, which dominated overmuch of Europe successful World War II, and Gaza, the biggest open-air situation successful the satellite that is location to the oldest exile camp, is not simply an overreach, it is grotesque and absurd.
Israel’s warfare successful Gaza echoed the Nakba of 1948. Once again, communities were driven from their homes; lone this time, they did truthful nether drones and satellites.
Israel’s warfare wasn’t conscionable a humanities comparison. Many of america lived the conflict, successful existent time, twenty-four hours a day, done telephone screens we gripped successful our trembling hands. There was obscurity to turn, obscurity to hide. It tested our sanity to support normalcy amid the carnage. Each time opened a caller abyss. Nonstop scenes of panic and chaos, of children crying for parents they would ne'er spot again; of parents clutching the mutilated remains of their toddlers; of full families massacred.
Israel’s warfare successful Gaza echoed the Nakba of 1948. Once again, communities were driven from their homes; lone this time, they did truthful nether drones and satellites. Israeli soldiers filmed themselves successful precocious explanation laughing, looting homes, destroying full rows of buildings, humiliating civilians, adjacent sidesplitting them. Gone are the days erstwhile Israelis saw themselves “shooting and crying,” projecting an representation of a radical averse to killing. They present broadcast their exploits live, unashamed and proud. To telephone specified televised brutality sick would beryllium to insult the sick. This was thing else. This was cruelty made spectacle.
It soon got personal. Our colleagues, friends, and loved ones were gone, blown into pieces by faceless drones, casualties of Israel’s vengeful war. These were not random casualties oregon collateral damage, but targeted erasures. Faces we knew, radical we had laughed with, abruptly vanished. And yet those who survived kept reporting, unintimidated, undeterred, chronicling massacres arsenic they moved betwixt funerals and infirmary shifts.
Curious what the perpetrators of this warfare were thinking, feeling, and saying, I work the Hebrew-language newspapers and watched Israeli television, but the horrific images of civilian casualties successful Gaza seldom made it into the media. Instead, Israeli networks broadcast orgies of hate. News anchors, generals, and adjacent celebrities competed to spot who could shriek the loudest: “Punish them!” “Kill them all!” “Nuke them!” A authorities curate openly mused astir dropping a atomic weaponry connected Gaza. A erstwhile Knesset subordinate warned, “Every kid successful Gaza is the enemy.” A popular prima demanded: “Erase Gaza completely.” This wasn’t rational debate. It was racist dehumanization. The Israeli media were fundamentally “drafted to the main extremity of winning the war,” arsenic a elder Israeli investigative reporter, Raviv Dror, enactment it successful January 2024. The state that prided itself connected being an oasis of ideology successful the Middle East had replaced state of look with the unfettered close to incite vengeance.
What began arsenic Israel’s subject effect to Hamas’s brutal onslaught connected October 7 rapidly morphed into 1 of the astir destructive subject campaigns against civilians successful modern times. By the clip the UN Security Council adopted a toothless, American-diluted ceasefire solution successful March 2024, Gaza had endured six months of pulverizing bombardment, medieval siege conditions, and engineered deprivation.
The images from this clip were unbearable. Children were not conscionable wounded, but near utterly alone; the grim acronym WCNSF—wounded child, nary surviving family—should not beryllium successful immoderate language, yet it became portion of our regular vocabulary. Entire families were vaporized by a azygous two-thousand-pound bomb. The unit was not precisely indiscriminate; it was monolithic but selectively engineered for maximum devastation, systematically engulfing homes, hospitals, schools, UN shelters, and exile camps. Nothing was spared.
The demolition was staggering, concern successful magnitude. By March 2024, 90 percent of Gaza’s population, implicit 2 cardinal people, had been displaced. More than 92 percent of Gaza’s homes had been damaged oregon destroyed. Neighborhoods were flattened. Schools, bakeries, clinics, civilian infrastructure, each gone. Open markets were turned into graveyards. This wasn’t a battlefield; it was an extermination zone. Gaza’s wellness strategy collapsed. Its largest aesculapian center, Al-Shifa Hospital, was besieged, bombed, and raided, nether mendacious pretexts, resulting successful hundreds of deaths inside. Medical unit operated without anesthesia, electricity, oregon basal sterilization. Patients died untreated successful hallways. Gaza’s wellness attraction strategy was already fragile nether seventeen years of blockade; present it was crippled.
Over a cardinal radical successful Gaza faced catastrophic hunger arsenic Israel tightened its blockade, bombed farmland, and destroyed h2o supplies. In bluish Gaza, children died from malnutrition and dehydration. In March 2024, Josep Borrell, a apical EU diplomat, accused Israel of creating a famine and utilizing starvation arsenic a limb of war. “In Gaza we are nary longer connected the brink of famine,” said Borrell, “we are successful a authorities of famine, affecting thousands of people.”
International instrumentality seemed incapable to halt the devastation. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled successful January 2024 that it was “plausible” Israel’s actions successful Gaza could magnitude to genocide nether the 1948 Genocide Convention. The ICJ ordered six provisional measures, including a halt to genocidal actions, unfettered humanitarian aid, and the punishment of those inciting genocide, but to nary avail. The International Commission of Jurists confirmed that Israel failed to comply with the ruling. A UN Commission of Inquiry recovered successful May 2024 that Israeli forces had committed galore superior violations of planetary instrumentality betwixt October and December 2023. These incidents included warfare crimes and crimes against humanity: weaponizing hunger; intentionally targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure; murder; intersexual and gender-based violence; torture; arbitrary detention; and the forcible transportation of civilians. Israel again rejected the commission’s findings. In November 2024, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued warrants for the apprehension of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and erstwhile defence curate Yoav Gallant, who were accused of utilizing starvation arsenic a method of warfare. (The ICC besides issued warrants for the apprehension of Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Muhammad Deif, and Ismail Haniyeh, but they had each been killed by Israel.) The warrants marked a uncommon lawsuit of the ICC targeting an state of the United States. Predictably, the ICC rapidly faced retaliation from Washington, which imposed sanctions against its prosecutors alternatively of reprimanding Israel.
Despite allowing Israel a escaped manus successful waging its war, US president Joe Biden could not person Netanyahu to let assistance into Gaza done Israel oregon adjacent 1 of the Egyptian crossing points. In March 2024 Biden truthful announced that the United States would physique a peculiar offshore pier connected the seashore of Gaza to person planetary aid, which would beryllium shipped from Cyprus aft being inspected by Israel. Constructed astatine a outgo to the US payer of $300 million, the pier was retired aft operating poorly and sporadically for conscionable 20 days. It was a textbook boondoggle, a classical Bidenism—failure to face Netanyahu astatine US expense. To telephone it absurd hardly scratches the surface.
Adding insult to injury, Biden’s different initiative, the alleged Day After bid plan, ignored the unfolding genocide to suggest diplomatic normalization betwixt Israel and Saudi Arabia. The program promised Saudi designation of the State of Israel, including information guarantees, successful speech for a pathway to Palestinian statehood that was ostensibly “clear and credible” but really vague and unrealistic. Despite Biden’s willingness to reward the Israeli genocide by brokering an unprecedented bid deal, Netanyahu rejected his proposal. Instead, helium insisted connected a agelong warfare that would pb to a decisive victory, with Hamas eliminated and Gaza uninhabitable. The generals who had joined Netanyahu’s warfare furniture resigned, bushed of his shenanigans. But the bombing continued.
The warfare connected Gaza was not a war. It was a reckoning: a reckoning with civilization itself. As Gaza was reduced to ashes, the full satellite watched—and turned away. Gaza wasn’t lone destroyed. It was abandoned.
Yet Gaza endured. As did Israel. As did the suffering.
In those acheronian times, penning was my lone sanctuary successful the midst of mayhem; it threw maine a lifeline. Eventually, arsenic the roar of the warfare drowned retired each different sounds, adjacent penning failed me. Writing portion bombs were falling felt similar playing the violin wrong the backmost of an ambulance racing done a catastrophe zone. I inactive commented connected the struggle for television, but I could nary longer find the words to write.
As Gaza was reduced to ashes, the full satellite watched—and turned away. Gaza wasn’t lone destroyed. It was abandoned.
There was nary flight from the fearfulness streaming unrecorded connected our screens. You asked yourself: Am I the lone 1 watching? Where is the outrage? Where are the values? So you took it retired connected the technology. You cursed astatine the TV. You damned the computer. You screamed astatine the phone. You adjacent tried to crushed with the tablet. It each fell connected deaf ears. Siri wasn’t listening. Alexa didn’t care. There was lone silence. They win; you lose. You crawled backmost defeated, watching successful disbelief, indignant astatine some the fearfulness and the hypocrisy of the elected politicians and the alleged wide media who preach astir humanity but condone quality suffering, proclaim cosmopolitan values yet ace down connected planetary solidarity. If protests astatine the sidesplitting of children are criminalized, what is near to protest? Yesterday they cried for Ukraine, screaming “genocide” astatine Russia. Today they whisper, mumble, and stutter arsenic genocide devours Gaza. You wonderment why. You cognize why. You’ve ever known. You’ve been successful denial. Denial gave mode to rage, past rage collapsed into despair, for determination is nary bargain to beryllium made with genocide. But despair doesn’t suit you. You drawback back…but what tin you do?
A temporary, three-phase ceasefire began successful January 2025, much than a twelvemonth excessively late. It promised a imperishable cessation of hostilities and the reconstruction of Gaza. But, arsenic expected, Israel opted retired aft Phase One, taking vantage of the US statesmanlike modulation from Biden to Donald Trump. If you thought the concern couldn’t get immoderate worse, the advent of the Trump medication showed it surely could. In February, lone 1 period into office, Trump advocated for transferring Palestinians retired of Gaza, paving the mode for its takeover and reconstruction by the United States, and turning it into an eastbound Mediterranean Riviera aft the war. The taste cleansing of Gaza would beryllium permanent.
On March 18, 2025, Israel resumed bombing.
“Bombing what?” you mightiness good ask! There was thing left, yet inactive they bombed. Each clip you thought Netanyahu couldn’t descend lower, helium amazed you. It took The New York Times until July 2025 to reason that Netanyahu had cynically “prolonged the warfare to enactment successful power,” arsenic if staying successful power, not starring a genocide, was the worst happening a person could do.
By then, by the summertime of 2025, estimates of those killed successful bombings and airstrikes surged to implicit sixty 1000 Palestinians, two-thirds of whom were women and children. A Lancet survey had earlier reported the existent decease toll mightiness beryllium 40 percent higher than the authoritative number. In August 2025, it was revealed that astatine slightest 5 successful six Palestinians killed were civilians, according to the Israeli military’s ain data. The UN reported that astatine slightest 1 100 children were killed oregon injured each azygous time aft the strikes resumed. Gaza was reduced to ruins, and its radical were trapped successful a rhythm of nonaccomplishment and suffering, arsenic the struggle continued to rage. The colonisation was inactive displaced. Homes were inactive flattened. People were inactive starved.
Then Gaza’s theatre of cruelty took a surreal turn. To regenerate the food-aid organisation strategy antecedently tally by UNRWA—the UN bureau for Palestine refugees—which Israel had efficaciously banned successful October 2024, an American consortium of self-styled entrepreneurs, mercenaries, and evangelicals established a caller nonprofit, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), successful February 2025. Under expanding planetary unit to halt weaponizing hunger, Israel supported the GHF to weaponize assistance itself. Gruesome, stomach-turning scenes unfolded each time astatine GHF nutrient organisation sites, wherever hundreds, adjacent thousands, of starving children were changeable astatine arsenic they rushed desperately to cod nutrient for their families. Thousands much children died of starvation.
If you thought it couldn’t get immoderate much nihilist, deliberation again. In May 2025, Netanyahu told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, “We are destroying much and much homes, they person obscurity to instrumentality to. The lone inevitable result volition beryllium the tendency of Gazans to emigrate extracurricular of the Gaza Strip.” He clarified to the parliamentarians that the “main problem” preventing Palestinians from leaving the Strip is with the countries wherever they would emigrate to, not Israel. The relentless bombing continued done the summertime and into the 2nd day of October 7, erstwhile a ceasefire was yet agreed and announced by President Trump the pursuing day.
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After a yearlong hiatus I returned to writing—my lone weapon—as Israel’s warfare successful Gaza roared backmost into our lives successful outpouring 2025. I decided that I had nary volition of letting the bombs person the past word, nor would I let the engineers of demolition to constitute the last section successful Gaza’s blood. Headfirst and bosom heavy, I threw myself into penning the publication that became Twelve Days That Shook the Middle East, a chronicle of the archetypal 12 days of the warfare that shattered Israel and shook the precise foundations of the Middle East.
Why twelve days? Why not more, oregon less? Well, due to the fact that 12 days were enough. It took nary much than 12 days, from Netanyahu’s October 7 warfare code to Biden’s October 19 uncommon Oval Office speech, to exposure the anatomy of Israel’s war, its intent, its strategy, and the method to its madness. After that, the remainder is history. Horrific history. Although disguised successful the connection of “security” and “self-defense,” what followed was nary mishap of warfare oregon collateral damage. After those 12 days, the bloodshed followed a deliberate design. The genocide was not a slip; it was the effect of a predetermined strategy for which determination existed a blueprint, if not a premeditated decision.
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From Twelve Days That Shook the Middle East: Origins of a Genocide by Marwan Bishara. Copyright © 2026. Available from Haymarket Books.
English (US) ·