Gaza in the rubble
Like so many people in this country and around the world, I have watched in horror as the beauty that was once the Gaza Strip has been buried by continual bombing by the Israeli military. Whole neighborhoods have been decimated since the Gaza war began on Oct. 7, 2023, with the Gaza Ministry of Health reporting that the Palestinian death toll in the region has surpassed 73,400. These numbers are so staggering that I think our brains can’t absorb the horror of what has happened to people just like us. Thousands of men, women — and most tragically, children — have died while simply trying to live their daily lives. Picture a mother trying to shield her infant in her arms as a building falls around them.
In the small area of the strip where Palestinians have been squeezed, the Gaza Civil Defense project has been launched, with the goal of recovering the bodies of men, women and children, under the rubble. A shortage of heavy machinery has created an almost impossible situation.
Now Israeli forces and civilian contractors have moved into the larger area Palestinians used to call home to process and clear the rubble, an effort to destroy evidence of ongoing genocide.
Think of the mother sheltering her child, and when you vote both in the primary on Sept. 8 and in the general election in November, vote for candidates who support an end to the genocide in Gaza.