Posted on January 29, 2024, by State of the Nation

So here we Palestinians are living in a Paradise known as Gaza, while the rest of the world, jealous of our gorgeous accommodations, does everything humanly (and devilishly) possible to steal away our various comforts and luxuries.

Submitted by A Palestinian Living In The Bombed-Out Gaza Concentration Camp

First, there was the time when we lived peacefully on our land with our many neighbors.

Then the United Nations, with the yeoman’s work done by the United States and United Kingdom, decided to give away our little slice of paradise.

Okay, so we looked the other way and did our level best to co-exist with our new neighbors who were not even Semitic people like us.

Next, we found ourselves waking up every other day to the sound of bulldozers in our backyard.  As we peered out the window we saw that our ancient olive groves were being bulldozed.  There went our way of life and treasured ancient culture.

Okay, what can we do, the machine is much mightier than the man so we accepted, for the moment, that perhaps ‘might makes right’.

Then, not long after, we started hearing the bulldozers coming much closer to the home.  The neighbor’s dwelling got knocked down, although the operator did make sure the residents first had the chance to vacate the premises.

Some years later, we found ourselves often waking up to the sound of other types of machinery all around us.  Come to find out that they were erecting these massive barriers between our properties and the properties of our once-friendly neighbors.

Not sure if they were trying to keep the neighbors off our lawns, or if they were preventing us from entering those new gated communities.  And, by the way, those barriers were not very attractive standing as giant concrete monoliths endlessly strung together, or never-ending chained linked fences topped with forbidding concertina wire.  Very bad for the local property values, mind you.

Anyway, we simply chalked it up to: “You know how the neighbors can be!”  

Next, we began to experience a periodic series of quite unsettling intrusions into our neck of the woods.  First, someone in our neighborhood would let loose some fireworks across the barriers … and then the neighbors would quickly return fire, so to speak.

Shortly thereafter was the rather jolting response from what was much more powerful firepower, which meant our whole day was wrecked.

While some folks called it a full-scale war, the force of the military operation that quickly swept over and through our communities was like a tornado came and went.  But the damage left in its wake was always far worse than even the worst tornado swarm we ever saw.

Now we are told that this is all happening regularly because we are not at all good neighbors.  You know, we do keep our homes nice the gardens weeded and our pets under control.  But somehow that’s not ever quite good enough.

So, it appears that these sporadic invasions (at least that's what I would call them) are being carried out to keep us in line.  Just not sure why each of these incursions seems to get worse and worse as the years go by.

This brings me to the latest rather distressing encroachment of our property(ies).

It all started in October of 2023, on the very day after the conclusion of the Fall religious holidays celebrated by our neighbors.

All of a sudden, there was this fireworks display like we never saw before being conducted over the neighbor's side of the BIG fence.

Then there was some calm for a little bit, which was quickly followed by this deafening thunder and lightning, but it was manmade.

Of course, what was soon to follow was a full-blown bombardment of what we now call our little “concentration camp”.  And we weren’t even trying to escape.

In any event, the bombs just kept dropping and the missiles kept on flying through the air, once after another—non-stop!

Well, you can imagine that we could not imagine what we could have possibly done to so anger our neighbors.

Nonetheless, each of those protracted bombing campaigns got closer and louder until, when it was safe to even look out the window, everything that was once in sight was now gone … flattened … burned out … collapsed … or just plain demolished.

Now this over-reaction (our characterization) by the neighbors has not even stopped yet.

We heard through the grapevine that even all the local hospitals have either been destroyed or taken over by some military-looking characters who are searching for terrorists.

By the way, this whole, what I would now call a full-scale invasion, began shortly after October 7, 2023.  And it’s now January 29, 2024, and this thing has no signs of letting up.  The neighbors on the other side of the wall have even said that this ‘response’ will go on for the whole year.

Well, what’s the point?

Shouldn’t someone out there in the civilized world try to put a stop to this dustup … especially before it turns into a much bigger deal?

I mean here we are with no place to live in Gaza, no place to go because no one wants to take in any more refugees, and no medical care to tend to our life-threatening wounds and illnesses (it’s been a very cold, rainy winter here so everyone catching a cold and worse).

Now we just heard that the desperately needed aid is being stopped because someone said the main aid organizations are somehow working with those nasty terrorists.

Not sure what’s true and what’s not anymore, but all I know is that my whole family is dead (47 in the extended family all gone), our homes have all been smashed to smithereens so our possessions are inaccessible, edible food and clean water is very difficult to come by, both medicine and medical help is virtually non-existent, and we can’t leave where we are because the warnings are coming from every direction that no place is safe from the missiles and bombs, bullets and grenades, etc.

Honestly, if I didn’t know better I’d swear we were being driven to suicide.

It seems that someone, somewhere, is trying very hard to make things so hopeless for us Palestinians that we see no way out but mass suicide.

They want us to believe that self-slaying may not be a bad idea at this point of despair and hopelessness!

They want us to think about: “Would I rather get crushed on the ground floor of a soon-to-be bombed cement apartment building writhing in pain waiting for a medic who never comes because he is also flailing in pain in his bombed-out hospital……”

“Or to think, would I rather leave on my own terms in an extremely scarce and miraculous moment of peace via an adequate dose of Nembutal?”

Now I do think we’re getting somewhere.

Perhaps there’s a plot afoot to get all of my fellow Palestinians to commit the worst sin of taking their own lives–all together–after creating such an utterly hopeless and increasingly tragic situation.

Heck, after the neighbors finish dropping their bombs, and the leaflets telling us where to go to avoid the bombs the locations of which are then bombed, maybe they will drop packages of  Nembutal, you know, the Pentobarbital pills which guarantee a quick and painless death.

Or

Oh, and by the way, where are all of our other neighbors who are our friends?  Their painful silence throughout this entire ordeal has been quite mysterious and inexplicable, which only further validates that: 

“It seems like they’re all driving us to mass suicide!” 

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