The thing about war

Every Sunday, I get a physical copy of the newspaper delivered to my house. It’s old fashioned (and probably wasteful to some extent), but I like feeling that I am preserving an old custom. 

I had already seen the videos of the bombings, the raids, and the hostages throughout the weekend, but the front page still brought tears to my eyes–missiles flying through clouded skies and men screaming in agony as they grappled with a terrifying reality. War had come, and no one had expected it.

Violence arrived in all forms: young adults being murdered at music festivals in remote areas of the Gaza desert, children’s bodies found outside ransacked homes, and innocent bystanders being taken hostage by terrorists. 

The horrific attack on Israel by Hamas, a radical Palestinian militant sub-group based in Gaza, began on October 7 after citizens had faced years of atrocious living conditions caused by Israeli blockades and strikes. 

Over the past 17 years, Gaza has become a prison full of indiscriminate killings and food insecurity. In 2006, Hamas won control of the area and has maintained tension at the Israeli border ever since.

However, it is important to make a distinction between Hamas and the State of Palestine. Hamas is a terrorist group that is leading the current attack on Israel. The State of Palestine is governed officially by the Palestinian Authority; Hamas controls the Gaza strip exclusively. 

Hamas has a blurry history that has left Israeli officials puzzled as to how they have been able to carry out such a large scale retaliation. Although there is speculation that Iran could be assisting the terrorists behind the scenes, the truth is, their capabilities come less from their artillery and more from long, pent-up anger.  

The root of this tension boils down to two things–land and religion. To put this intense conflict in simple terms, both Hamas and Israel want total control over the same region, which includes the Holy Land and West Bank, an area that holds immense religious significance for both Jews and Muslims. 

This long-waged war has taken everything from both sides of the conflict, most devastatingly, innocent lives. The next generation of youth in the Gaza strip, which accounts for 40% of the total population in the region, is essentially being wiped out.

But no agreement can be reached. Both sides lack trust that would be pivotal to share this territory. 

That lack of trust has deep roots in religious differences. After British control over Palestine ended and created separate Jewish and Arab states in the post-colonial Middle East, Israel declared its independence which sparked a full scale war in 1948. This distinction between states on the basis of religious practices set a harsh divide that is still felt today and continues to fuel this war. 

A one-state solution, the idea that both Israelis and Palestinians can just share this region, has been dismissed by several scholars as unrealistically utopian, which leaves many at a loss over what should happen next. 

A two-state solution has been tried before. In 1991, the United Nations created resolutions for a peace process that resulted in the basis for negotiations to separate the disputed territory amongst the Palestinians and the Israeli governments.  

The main issue with this resolution was that a lot less land was given to Palestinians than they needed. Many Palestinians retaliated against the treaties and war began once more. 

Furthermore, settlements housing over 700,000 illegal Jewish settlers are all over the West Bank. This has made the two-state solution virtually impossible due to political and religious divisions created over demographic shifts in the region.

Instead of seeing difference as an enemy, both Israelis and Palenstinians must call for a ceasefire and commence diplomatic negotiation. No political agenda should take innocent lives. 

Nobel prize winner and anti-war activist, Malala Yousafzai, released a statement on Tuesday with similar sentiments.

“War never spares children,” she said. “I think of the Palestinian and Israeli children caught in the middle.” 

Peace and treaties take time, and it could take another hundred years to create an agreement, but it must be done for the sake of preserving a new generation. 

We cannot endure another century of war. If we allow this war to continue, there will be no land left to dispute. There will be no more innocent lives to be taken. Gaza, and possibly all of Israel, will fall into silence, devoid of life. 

I can read a million articles and watch a million videos, but I will never understand why our world has continued to work counterintuitively against peace for so long. I know a lot about wars, but I do not know war. 

No one should have to. 

No child should have to know the smell of a missile with smoke trapped in their lungs every time they take a breath. No one should have to open the front page of a newspaper on a quiet Sunday morning and see what I saw last weekend, but even more so–no one should have to live it. 

And that’s the thing about war–it’s unrelenting. Sometimes, it’s never ending. But every day, we can wake up and hope for peace and a new front page, against all odds.