The world forgets about Gaza at its peril

This week, much of the world has watched aghast as Israeli forces followed their devastating urban bombing campaign in Lebanon with the beginning of a ground invasion of its vulnerable neighbour. The additional sight of Iranian ballistic missiles hurtling through international airspace to land on Israeli targets made it clear that the region is running the risk of a full-scale war. For the long-suffering people of Gaza , however, such escalations are the backdrop to almost a year of unrelenting collective punishment through non-stop bombardment and displacement. On Wednesday, as the UN Security Council met to discuss the spiralling situation in Lebanon, Gazans were counting the cost of the latest Israeli attacks across the Palestinian enclave. At least 70 people were killed on Tuesday, including at a school sheltering the displaced. The consequences of a military campaign that has reduced Gaza to rubble are felt most keenly by children, many of whom have suffered life-changing injuries. In an interview with The National , Gazan resident Shifaa Al Dogee described how her nieces Hanan and Misk, aged three and 18 months respectively, lost limbs in an Israeli air strike last month that killed their mother. “The situation is heartbreaking – Misk had just learnt to walk and now she can’t,” Ms Al Dogee said. Hanan, who lost both legs, “asks why other children have legs but she doesn’t”. Such suffering is a particularly poignant reminder of the terrible cost Gaza’s civilians have paid for the Hamas attack a year ago that claimed more than 1,200 Israeli lives, many of them civilian. The pain of those communities is raw and real, and more than 100 Israelis are still being held hostage. Israeli society is using its resources to try to heal the physical and psychological hurt inflicted on its people by October 7, but despite the considerable aid efforts of Arab states and the international community, many Palestinians in Gaza lack essentials such as food, medicine and safe water, let alone long-term care. Gaza is pivotal to stopping the regional march to war; an immediate ceasefire there would help to reduce tensions and retaliatory attacks that now stretch from the Levant to Yemen. Diplomatic stunts such as banning UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres from Israel must not be allowed to distract from the catastrophe that continues to unfold in Gaza. Aside from Israeli strikes, Gazans continue to suffer from hunger, disease and homelessness. Aid workers and UN staff have been killed, and every red line laid down by international law breached. Even if a ceasefire were to be called tomorrow, the ruin visited on the enclave is so profound that it will take decades to rebuild. Given Gaza’s centrality to the crises spreading across the Levant and wider Middle East, the international community cannot afford to become inured to the enclave’s suffering or be complacent, thinking this is a situation that can be managed. Although the bombardment and invasion of Lebanon by Israel requires immediate attention, the situation in Gaza, like in the West Bank, must not be overlooked. Too much is at stake.