To the editor: Visitor contributor Nisreen Qawas’ op-ed was heart-wrenching (“Gaza remains a crisis of children’s mental health,” Feb. 15). There’s no query that the youngsters of Gaza have suffered, each bodily and emotionally, from the warfare between Israel and Hamas.
However we should ask ourselves to what extent that struggling rests on the ft of Hamas. The 1988 Hamas Charter known as for the elimination of the state of Israel and killing Jews earlier than the “Day of Judgment.” It rejects negotiated political settlements, no matter any value to Palestinian civilians.
Along with cash and weapons supplied by Iran, Hamas taxes the population of Gaza and has used a lot of that cash for weapons and to construct a whole bunch of miles of tunnels, often under civilian neighborhoods. There, Hamas leaders and combatants, not the youngsters of Gaza, disguise from Israel’s retaliation for the unprovoked Oct. 7, 2023, slaughter of civilians in Israel, together with many ladies and youngsters.
Hamas has additionally used faculties and hospitals as staging areas for his or her rockets and different weapons. So, who’s accountable when Israel targets these areas, though it warns civilians?
Warfare is hell and tragic. Make no mistake about it, what’s going on in Gaza is warfare; it isn’t genocide, though there are genocides occurring in different elements of the world that nobody within the West protests.
Hamas might finish the struggling in Gaza at any time.
Hank Schlinger, Glendale
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To the editor: Throughout this yr’s Palm Springs Worldwide Movie Competition, I attended a screening of “The Voice of Hind Rajab.”
The movie, which has the precise recording of the voice of Hind Rajab, a 5-year-old lady who was trapped in a automotive together with her lifeless relations after they have been killed by Israeli forces, was heartbreaking. As Qawas recounts, after hours of attempting to get clearance from the IDF, a Palestinian ambulance lastly obtained near rescuing Hind. Simply once you thought this 5-year-old lady was going to make it, IDF forces not solely struck Hind’s automotive however the ambulance, additionally killing two volunteer medics working within the Gaza Strip.
There was deafening silence within the theater. It was troublesome to understand the dearth of humanity.
Whereas Israel says there isn’t any genocide, the world is witnessing the near destruction of Gaza — hospitals, faculties, universities, companies, all semblance of what was as soon as a thriving strip. Whereas there was allegedly a ceasefire, Israel continues the bombardment. In accordance with Gaza’s Ministry of Health, greater than 600 Palestinians have been killed because the ceasefire settlement. Israel also halted operations of a number of giant assist organizations over guidelines about disclosing workers data.
Within the meantime, Israel confiscates more land within the West Financial institution and demolishes more homes. Will the Palestinians ever style freedom and dwell a standard life? Will the youngsters survive with out psychological and bodily assist?
Thanks, Los Angeles Instances, for having the braveness to print Qawas’ op-ed on the youngsters of Gaza.
George Mouro, Rancho Mirage
