“Before, we used to ask ourselves whether we will die or not on this war, but in the past two days since Friday, we fear it is just a matter of time.

I am a resident of Gaza City, then we moved to Al-Karara in southern Gaza Strip and yesterday we fled to deeper shelter in Khan Younis and today we are trying to flee under the bombardment to Rafah.” These are the words of Mahar, the 37-year-old Palestinian father of three, recently carried by global print and broadcast media alike.

His ordeal presents a sardonic comment on gross insensitivity of the world powers in particular who have failed to help stop Israel’s growing belligerence in the Gaza Strip where over 17,000 Palestinians have been killed in little over two months and where 16 years of an Israeli land, air and sea blockade has already crippled its economy. That Gaza is in ruins is a fact.

Its 80 percent of its population of 2.3 million has been displaced. Mahar is one of those Gazans who had moved from northern Gaza to its southern part and now pressing towards the Rafah border after Israeli armed forces launched their ground offensive in Gaza. This border crossing into Egypt is only land crossing in and out of Gaza, not controlled by Israel.

This crossing has not only been witnessing the scenes of statistics in terms of arrival of Palestinians, it is also attesting human stories of suffering, anguish and loss.

The crimes Israel has been committing against Palestinians are too bad or horrific. No media report, in my view, can convey the unspeakable suffering that Israel has been causing day in and day out. Russia’s foreign minister Sergie Lavrov has been quoted as saying that “Israel cannot carry out collective punishment of people in Gaza”.

No doubt, his stance deserves a lot of praise, but I request him to do something meaningful and concrete without any further loss of time because world powers, so far, have only paid lip service to the plight of Palestinians.

Abu Adnan (Karachi)

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023