How many dead children is too many dead children? There’s a sentence I never thought I would be thinking on a daily basis, let alone typing into my computer for publication.
When I was a new mother, I would be struck with momentary intermittent dread at the thought of something happening to my baby in their sleep. The thought would be a chaotic mixture of panic and sorrow, and the deep, gut wrenching, soul destroying sense of loss it would be if that beautiful feeling of their little body in my arms would be reduced to a memory. I would die. I would crumble. Even the imagined death of my child made me certain that I am not strong enough to endure such agony. Of that I am still certain.
Now, I am having an increasingly difficult time enduring the thought of the agony I know every parent, every child, every person in Palestine is feeling as they embrace the lifeless body of their loved one for what they know will be the very last time. It is an experience that Palestinians have endured more than 35,000 times over the past seven months as Israel inflicts disproportionate pain and carnage on the population of Gaza in response to Hamas’ incursion into Israel on October 7, 2023.
If Israel’s actions are aimed at seeing their hostages freed, deploying bunker busting bombs to decimate the areas where hostages may be held is a twisted way to go about it. If this entire genocidal affair inflicted by an occupier against the occupied is in the name of eliminating Hamas in Gaza, then what does Israel have to say for the rampant violence of illegal Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank?
Stop. Enough. No more. Scream it in the streets. Disrupt daily life. Bring institutions to a halt. Use your voice, use your power, use your freedom to do something. Anything.
Make it stop now.
This post is the editorial of The Reykjavík Grapevine, vol. 21, issue 6. Read the issue’s feature article on the local anti-war movement.
Buy subscriptions, t-shirts and more from our shop right here!
