Only today, 20 October 2025, has the British government and others; after months of deaths, destruction, famine and blockade; decided to condemn Israel for its actions and increased violence. And after Israel broke the ceasefire agreement which promised the release of the hostages in the second ceasefire phase. In addition, Israel continues to bomb Lebanon and Syria for reasons unclear. I fear for retaliation around the world from Palestinian sympathisers and how Palestinian children who have witnessed the horrific carnage will respond in future years. Will Trump finally stop Israel? Will there ever be peaceful coexistence?

The unremitting slaughter and destruction being perpetrated by the Israeli army and its governmental leaders on Gaza and The West Bank is unprecedented, even in the context of Palestine’s long, complex and troubled past. What is happening now harks back to 1948 and the confiscation of lands and homes from a once highly cultured, historic and commercially successful Palestine (where different religions lived together in harmony). Almost half of Palestine’s population (around 700,000) were forced from their homes and land. How Israel with its holocaust past can behave as it is now is beyond me. With over 53,000 dead, over 120,000 injured (many seriously), most homes and public institutions destroyed, 200 journalists killed and over 200 aid staff murdered. The West Bank has also been under attack with homes and roads destroyed and nearly 500 Palestinians killed. And while 58 Israeli hostages require urgent freedom, the 8,500 West Bank Palestinians detained without charge and subject to horrendous conditions including torture are ignored. It seems to me that Netanyahu has taken a page or two out of the Putin playbook with limits placed on press freedom, assassinations, carpet bombing, false imprisonment… While there were international protests at the Iranian retaliatory attacks on Israel, not a word of criticism on Israel’s destruction of the Iranian embassy in Damascus (with several Iranians killed).

“We have only twelve days left in our own home. forced to say farewell to everything that has become dear to you over the years - it’s frightening to have to take such a step into the unknown, to flee like a thief in the night to a village of V. in the Gelderse Achterhock, where the E. family is prepared to hide us, to try to keep us out of the hands of the cruel occupier...”

Rosa De Winter-Levy. Auschwitz - A Mother’s Story, 2023

“Massacre?” “After the 1982 Israeli invasion. The Phalangists did it, but the Israelis planned it.” I look up the incident later. In September 1982, following weeks of fierce battles, Israel successfully drove the PLO out of Lebanon and moved its troops into West Beirut. They then ordered their Christian allies to enter Shatila camp and destroy the remaining ‘terrorists’ inside. During the two-day slaughter between 460 and 3,500 were killed, including many women and children. In 1983, the Israeli Kahan Commission found that Ariel Sharon - the defence minister and future prime minister - bore “personal responsibility” for the attack, which is believed to have sparked the Middle East’s first ever suicide bombing in Tyre in November 1982.

Rebecca Lowe. The Slow Road To Tehran, 2022

“Jordon is doing its best in a difficult situation,” Peter continues. “Security personnel are not as bigoted or brutal as those elsewhere, and state subsidies are generous compared to Europe and the Gulf.” “Though of course,” he adds “this still means huge suffering for the people involved. It means sleeping in flimsy shelters and enduring hardship and disease. It means living with no independence and limited privacy or control. It means suffering the indignities of incarceration when you’ve committed no offence. Can you imagine living like that?” he asks. For a moment, I try to. I try to imagine being driven from my home into such a place, with no escape and nobody on my side…”No” I admit. “I can’t.”

Rebecca Lowe. The Slow Road to Tehran, 2022

I don’t know how even to begin to articulate the cruelty, the inhumanity, the torture of such a cold and calculated murder of innocents…this was a despicable place where unspeakable acts had been perpetrated for the sport of barbaric men.

Sue Black. All That Remains, 2023