Jan 12 2009
The heartbreak that is Gaza
In an age of inexplicable natural disasters that inflict unthinkable devastation like tsunamis and earthquakes, it seems almost crazy that humans should continue to fight against each other, killing sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, cousins, grandparents. Each day that I’ve read the news over the past 3 weeks or so, I’ve been confronted by tragic and often horrific footage coming out of the Gaza strip: badly injured children being rushed out of ambulances into poorly equipped hospitals, bomb ravaged landscapes, grief-stricken mourners at funerals, bloodied corpses wrapped in shrouds lined up in endless rows. You see a lot of tragedy and pain in a lot of news footage and after a while you sort of desensitize yourself as a means of self-preservation. Somehow though, as a mother perhaps now, I find it very difficult to get over what’s happening in the Gaza strip.
This is not meant to be a polemic about who’s to blame in the complex quagmire that is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and I don’t even know how to begin to think about solutions for the violent impasse that has been going on for decades. In my opinion, both sides of enough blood on their hands to launch any number of war crimes tribunals. In situations like these in any case, at this point, does it really matter who we point the finger at? Innocent civilians are caught in the crossfire and more die every day in the most terrifying ways that can be imagined. What must it be like to know that nowhere is safe? Especially if you’re a child and are even more sensitive to this lack of security?
In the news station we often get access to footage that is more explicit than we deem it fit to broadcast, often images that are too disturbing are edited out for the sake of the viewers. I’ve edited some of this footage, and a lot of what I’ve left out cannot even be described here. Very often we think of war and conflict as this abstract happening that’s far away, and paradoxically in this age of instant reporting, blogs and 24 hour network news, it’s sometimes both farther away and nearer.
How do politicians and army generals think of abstract “operations” and “missions” and “collateral damage”? All I can see is the too small limp bodies of children, carried barely alive by grief stricken, hollow eyed paramedics .
2 responses so far
Joanne Leow is a producer-presenter with Channel NewsAsia. She is married with 2 young sons and spends her free time reading, writing, swimming, doing yoga and cooking up a storm.
Well Joanne,
It make us realise the world’s not perfect, while we sip tea and enjoy our day, worrying about the economy over here, people over there would be wondering if they will live through to see the day to see the next… It a reminder of how fortunate we are and we should stop whinning about how diificult our live is over here.
We want a completely new Palestine state free of Hamas or Fatah.We want a UN controlled land strip 5km in width running parallel to the Israel/Egypt borders for our outsider brothers/sisters of Gaza Strip and the West Bank together with Asians,Africans and Europeans building harmoniously 2 seaports facing the Mediterranean Sea and the Aquaba Gulf link by a land railway across the Sinai desert for an alternative shipping route from the Suez Canal for the world trades in transit…..