War in Gaza | The Israeli street rumbles, finally

There was something comforting to see hundreds of thousands of Israelis demonstrating in the major cities of the country on Sunday to claim the release of hostages and the end of the war in the Gaza Strip. Finally, the Israeli street rumbles. Finally, she shouts her revolt in the face of the unspeakable.

Of course, the Hebrew state is not reduced to its government, especially not to the exalted of the extreme religious right, within the cabinet, for whom the atrocities of October 7 – have become a pretext to reoccupy Gaza and conquer more territories in the West Bank, hooking Palestine as a piece of Gruyère in the hope that it will soon become a bad memory.

All the same: until then, the discordant voices had been rather shy in Israel. In a survey conducted at the end of July, 79 % of Israeli Jews had declared that they were not concerned about the information of hunger and suffering of the inhabitants in Gaza. A disturbing indifference within this nation which knows better than any other nation where the dehumanization of a population can lead.

It must be said that, for almost two years, the Israelis have not had access to the same information as the rest of the planet. We are not talking about Gaza on Israeli TV as we talk elsewhere in the world. To news ballots, we rarely show bloody images, ruined districts, desperate children who tend their empty bowls.

We don’t talk about it because a lot of people there don’t want to know. Let’s try to put us in their place, two seconds.

Many of us would have reacted in the same way if, with us, villages had been attacked, if families had been massacred, if innocent people have been languishing for 22 months in dark tunnels. We too would like everything to be done to eradicate the existential threat weighing on our heads. But that is no longer what it is.

Today, neither the Israelis nor the rest of the world can look away. Faced with evidence, the inexpressible suffering, no one can deny that, far from carrying out a just war against Hamas, the Israeli government engaged in appalling war crimes in Gaza.

The mood of the Israelis is therefore beginning to change. Reservists are reluctant to wage an endless war. Journalists note the differences between their coverage of the conflict and that of the international media. Intellectuals are demanding the end of the war. Politicians rally – including two former prime ministers, Ehud Olmert and Ehud Barak. “My heart is broken, but I must say: it is a genocide,” said David Grossman, one of the most famous novelists in the country.

Even more significant, 600 members of the army and the intelligence services, including former heads of Mossad and Shin Bet, published a letter calling at the end of the military operation in Gaza. “According to our professional judgment, Hamas no longer represents a strategic threat to Israel,” they wrote. Most of the military objectives have been achieved; Continuing would be useless. It could even endanger the life of the last hostages.

Locked up in a destructive warlike logic, Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu unfortunately has no intention to stop. At all costs, he continues his flight forward. Next disaster to come: taking control of the city of Gaza. Officially, to eradicate what remains of Hamas.

But according to the Wall Street Journal, Israel is said to be negotiating at the moment with Egypt, Libya, South Sudan, Somaliland and Syria so that these countries open their doors to the Palestinians who “accept” to leave Gaza.

I write all this knowing that some will tell me that a) I go a little strong, anyway, or b) I lack courage, it must be written black on white, it is a genocide. Maybe. Call it as you want, it doesn’t change the horrors that Gazaouis have endeavored for almost two years.

Now let’s try to put us in their place, two seconds. The Gaza Strip covers a territory of 365 km²or the area of the city of Montreal. We are besieged. Impossible to flee. Food aid enters the dropper. Around us, people are coming to hungry. Or something else. We have already been sent 100,000 tonnes of explosives on our heads – more than received by the cities of London, Dresden and Hamburg gathered during the Second World War!

The extent of destruction is incredible: 70 % of the city’s infrastructure is in ruins. Hospitals and skills in the city center have been collapsed for a long time. Most of us have been moved several times. This time, we will no longer be able to go home: our neighborhood has been shaved to the bulldozer. The latest official assessment reports 62,004 dead – but there would be much more, according to an assessment of the medical newspaper The Lancet.

Residents tell their heartbreaking stories to the planet’s media, through social networks. The humanitarian workers who work on the spot speak of an unprecedented humanitarian crisis. But our attackers say that all this is false. Pure propaganda. At the same time, they prohibit foreign correspondents with access to our besieged city to account for what is really going on.

Worse, they eliminate local journalists who collaborate with the foreign press by accusing them of being terrorists. Each time, they cut one of our last links with the rest of the world. And that is not a fake news.