Those Who Survive

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Those who survive the unrelenting bombing and terror in Gaza, and there will be some survivors, will carry with them, throughout their lives, a primal need for revenge for all of the horrors they were forced to endure, and that will be especially true for the children and for those who struggled to protect them from the ravages of war.  This barbaric, genocidal "conflict" is spreading the seeds for the next campaign of terror, and the one after that.  

I heard the term "child-wasting" in a news broadcast about the shameful situation in Gaza this morning.  I didn't need to look it up because here in the Ozakrs many of us are already familiar with "wasting."  Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) is a malady that affects the local deer populations rendering the deer sick, then dead, and ultimately unfit to eat.  Wasting in children could not be a good thing.

Yet there are already signs that it is happening in Gaza, an isolated stretch of land where residents can currently neither produce nor import food, and are dependent on aid deliveries of food, safe drinking water, and and medicines.  Deliveries are restricted through two ports-of-entry and are woefully slow and far between.

Those who survive will carry the memories of hunger, thirst, and pain with them throughout their lives, and there will come a time when those horrors of childhood manifest themselves in future hostilities.

The report that I heard this morning said that children in Gaza are on the brink of massive amounts of "wasting" and rampant malnutrition.  Parents are skipping meals in order to give the limited amounts of food to their children.  The entire population is hungry and thirsty, and many are also injured or ill - or both - or all of the above.  People are sleeping outside, in the cold, in the rubble, and watching helplessly as the planes and drones fly overhead dropping their bombs indiscriminately with the singular intention of killing as many Palestinians as possible and creating an unlivable landscape.  

And it's not just food and water that are in dangerously short supply.  Doctors and hunmanitarian aid workers are having difficulty gaining entry to the war zone, and when they do get in they encounter clinics and hospitals that have been ruined beyond use, as well as a lack of medicines, medical supplies, and equipment.   A news report from Gaza a week ago said that an average of ten children are losing one or both legs each day as a result of war injuries, and that often their legs are amputated without the use of anesthesia.  

What is happening in Gaza today will not end terrorism - it is just creating the next generation of terrorists.  Some will survive, and those who survive will remember.

The world owns this disaster, and the world needs to fix it - now - for peace today and tomorrow.  Those who survive will never forget what they have been forced to endure while the world looked away.