Part of my weekly commentary on The Sunday Times of Malta was dedicated to the man-made hell called Gaza. I gave three examples that manifest the gravity of what is happening. You can access the commentary from http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140803/opinion/The-shame-in-attacking-sleeping-children.530349

When I promised in that commentary that I was going to follow-up on the subject in my blog I did not image that the headlines of the Monday papers would be as bad as they turned out to be given that there was a cease fire in the offing. Following another attack by the Israelis on another UN school in Gaza Ban Ki-Moon, the General Secretary of the UNO, said that the deadly attack was a “moral outrage and a criminal act” as well as a “gross violation of international humanitarian law.”

This, once more makes it very clear that Gaza means dead people, particularly children. Gaza means an unprecedented horror. Take the reportage of, for example, Sara Hussein, AFP Middle East correspondent. This is not the first war that she is covering. It is not even the first war in Gaza that she is covering. But she says that this is a different war.

"I've seen dead children before, but never like during this war in Gaza. Never so many, never so often."

That’s a chilling sentence but it is not the worst one of her report. She contextualises her statement saying at the schools run by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA, there are more than 160,000 people seeking shelter after fleeing their homes. Some of these schools were attacked by the Jews. Children were killed in their sleep.

Hossein’s description of the dead children at the morgue is horrifying. The pictures accompanying her report are beyond belief. If you want to read and see the picture follow this link, but be warned. http://www.alternet.org/i-cried-i-took-notes-reporter-gazas-child-victims?akid=12075.14519.fq8VK9&rd=1&src=newsletter1013553&t=16&paging=off&current_page=1#bookmark

The following few lines from Hossein’s report suffice:

“It was hard to remain composed in the morgue … …. I slipped inside before the scrum of journalists entered, and I stood quietly in the corner as the team worked and three family members inside swung between anger and extreme pain. I continued to take notes and observe, but I cried as I did so. And when I wrote about it later, I cried again.

The rockets launched by Hamas against Israel are also a form of unacceptable aggression. But when one compares the damage done to Israel by these rockets and the catastrophe caused by Israel in Gaza there is no comparison. There is no justification.

A group of international legal scholars said in a statement released recently that what Israel is doing is unacceptable. “Most of the recent heavy bombings in Gaza lack an acceptable military justification and, instead, appear to be designed to terrorize the civilian population.”