The Nerve-Wracking War Has Just Begun!

 

Day 25: October 31

The Nerve-Wracking War Has Just Begun!

As a Palestinian growing up in the West Bank and experiencing several phases of this struggle, like the first and second Intifada, I understood one cultural value, an ideological and political theme in our struggle called “AL-Soumood.” It means “steadfastness” or “perseverance”. It is a major concept developed to challenge a political system set to remove us from our land as a group of people. That was one response to the Zionist ideology that was calling for the establishment of a state for the Jews seeking to drive us, the Palestinians, who are both Christian and Muslim, through multiple discriminatory laws, military rule, and excessive retaliatory wars to leave this land. Sometimes, this process is done slowly, targeting individuals, or fast by using military justifications to empty certain villages, or as is happening now in Gaza.

It is natural, and some may argue imperative, for any group of people who are faced with either slow ethnic cleansing or a fast one to hold on to their existence on the land they grew up in to preserve identity. “AL-Soumood,” or “staying put where you are,” for Palestinians, guaranteed our preservation as a people. It also ensured that we would never be displaced or become refugees again, as was the case in 1948 and 1967.  So, I grew up hearing my father, who was a refugee himself, saying, “We are never leaving again, we will die here, they will never scare us out of this land again,” or he said, “What happens to others, happens to us,” because we knew that if we left, we were never coming back. Of course, many young men and women immigrate, just like in any other culture. Still, every single one of us is encouraged not to leave what is ‘left of Palestine’ as a patriotic act because, unfortunately, we know this is an existential struggle.

So, understanding this ideology explains the monumental challenge the Israeli army will face in this nerve-wracking phase of the war. The Israeli army, on this fourth day of military incursion, has only entered a few kilometers of agricultural areas empty of any civilian population. They are trying to surround several heavily populated areas in the Northern part of the Strip. This is why they were asking people to leave to the South of the Gaza Strip, even though the South is still heavily bombarded. Through its redeployment, the Israeli army is trying to divide Gaza in half and reoccupy Gaza City, a major city in the northern part of the Strip, and the surrounding neighborhoods of Gaza City, two of which are major refugee camps whose populations, as a result of Israel’s establishment in 1948, were displaced to. “AL-Soumood” ideology will be even stronger among those young men and women who have experienced the harsh life of a refugee. According to these refugees, the question is, why leave? To become refugees again? The parents and grandparents of these families remember living under tents and recounted the miseries they have endured to transform these tents into the homes these younger generations live in today.  

Even though many who are afraid for their lives have left these heavily bombarded areas - over half a million have left for the South- many would have stayed behind, preferring to die rather than relive the miseries of their parents. This is why, as the Israeli army attempts not to enter and fight among a civilian population, it commits atrocities to try and drive people out of these populated areas. This afternoon, Israel launched six missiles, hitting several residential towers and killing over 400 hundred civilians. Many more are still under the rubble.  There were many similar massacres committed in these 25 days of continuous shelling and bombing. Many men, women, and even children were left alone without any member of their families, and their homes were demolished. These have nothing to lose and will probably not leave.

The coming days, weeks, or months will witness the most brutal battle yet for the Palestinians, who are staying steadfast in the face of the second Nakba, or the 1948 catastrophe where eighty percent of Palestinians were thrown out of their land in buses and trucks after fears of being massacred as was the case in some villages. They were told they would come back when the fighting ended. They never did.

The Israeli army will probably encounter fierce resistance in these areas that they still didn’t enter, filled with rubble from the intense bombardment, and have a civilian population that is desperate, defiant, and refusing to leave. In addition to all of this, there are probably underground tunnels that Hamas’ military faction and other factions use as a basis for resistance.

Palestinians are genuinely facing yet another global effort to dissolve almost two million of its population in the form of a third displacement. Israel and the United States seek to turn a huge military and intelligence failure into a historic victory. The ultimate victory they wish to achieve and that they will keep pushing for both diplomatically and militarily is to get rid of the two million people in Gaza using different diplomatic phrases and war tactics.

As people around the world will likely begin to lose interest in this war on Gaza, the most critical phase of the war has just begun. I hope I succeed in keeping you informed and engaged. I appreciate anyone seeking to learn about this cause and key struggle in the Middle East.