Scenes from the War on Gaza

[Kryztian]

I know it can be disturbing enough to hear about what is going on in the Gaza Strip, so for those who do not want to see graphic images, I think these pictures deserve their own thread. In my first post I haven't posted any included any mangled body parts - I don't that that is necessary if one wants to see how truly awful and evil the assault on Gazans really is.

Eight months and almost no food.

[Kryztian]

[Kryztian]

[Kryztian]

Palestinians walk past destroyed houses, amid the ongoing conflict between
Israel and Hamas, in Jabalia refugee camp, in the northern Gaza Strip February
22, 2024. The vast amount of rubble including unexploded ordnance left by
Israel's devastating war in the Gaza Strip could take about 14 years to remove,
a United Nations official said.



Palestinians inspect the damages at Al Shifa Hospital after Israeli forces
withdrew from the hospital and the area around it following a two-week
operation in Gaza City April 2, 2024.



A woman sits at her destroyed house in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip,
March 22, 2024.



Israeli soldiers operate in the Gaza Strip, February 8, 2024.



Palestinians carry belongings at the site of an Israeli air strike on a building
in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip March 9, 2024. Hamas ignited the war with
a shock incursion into southern Israel in which militants killed 1,200 people,
according to Israeli tallies. Hamas is believed to still be holding 129 hostages out
of the 253 it took on Oct. 7. At least 34,305 Palestinians have been killed
and 77,293 wounded in Israel's military offensive on Gaza since Oct. 7,
according to Gaza's health ministry.



Palestinians walk at the site of Israeli strikes on houses, in Jabalia refugee camp
in the northern Gaza Strip November, 21, 2023.

More scenes of rubble and destroyed homes and hospitals at:
In pictures: In the rubble of Gaza
https://www.reuters.com/pictures/pic...za-2024-04-26/

[Kryztian]

Relatives carry the bodies of children from the Abu Quta family killed in Israeli
strikes on the Palestinian city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip during their
funeral on October 8, 2023. At least 8,663 children have been killed in Gaza in
Israeli attacks since the beginning of the war on October 7



A Palestinian man inspects the site of an Israeli strike on a mosque in Khan
Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, November 9, 2023. At least 203 places
of worship have been damaged in Israeli strikes in Gaza during the war.



Palestinians line up for a free meal in Rafah on December 21, 2023. International
aid agencies say Gaza is suffering from shortages of food, medicine and other
basic supplies



Trucks with humanitarian aid wait to enter the Palestinian side of Rafah
on the Egyptian border with the Gaza Strip on December 11, 2023



Palestinians search for casualties at the site of Israeli strikes on houses in
the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip on October 31, 2023.
According to the Government Media Office in Gaza, more than 313,000
residential units have been destroyed or damaged in Gaza by Israeli bombing.



People evacuate a wounded girl following an Israeli strike on the Ali ben Abi
Taleb Mosque in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, on December 20, 2023.
More than 7,000 Palestinians missing in Gaza are believed to be buried under
the rubble.



Palestinian medics prepare premature babies evacuated from Gaza City's
al-Shifa Hospital for transfer to Egypt on November 20, 2023. Twenty-nine
premature babies were sent to Egypt after their evacuation from Gaza's
largest hospital, kept under siege and raided by the Israeli army amid claims
that Hamas maintained a command centre beneath it.



A Palestinian prisoner reacts after being released from an Israeli jail in exchange
for Israeli captives released by Hamas in the occupied West Bank on November
28, 2023. During the weeklong humanitarian pause in Gaza, a prisoner swap
took place, resulting in the release by Hamas of 84 Israelis and 24 foreigners,
while Israel released 240 Palestinians from its jails.



Colleagues and family members pray over the body of Al Jazeera cameraman
Samer Abu daqa, killed in Israeli bombardment, during his funeral in Khan Younis
in the southern Gaza Strip on December 16, 2023. The Government Media Office
in Gaza said on Sunday that the number of journalists killed by Israeli forces
has risen to 101 since the start of the war.



A woman inspects the destroyed house of Palestinian journalist Adel Zorob, killed in an Israeli bombing in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, on December 19, 2023



Palestinians flee northern Gaza as Israeli tanks roll deeper into the enclave in
the central Gaza Strip on November 10, 2023. The offensive has driven some
1.9 million people - nearly 85 percent of the Palestinian territory's population
- from their homes.



The bodies of Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes are buried in a mass grave
after they were transported from al-Shifa Hospital to Khan Younis in the
southern Gaza Strip on November 22, 2023. The Government Media Office in
Gaza says that at least 20,424 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli
offensive in Gaza since October 7.



Palestinian children carry pots as they queue to receive food cooked by a
charity kitchen in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on December 14,
2023. According to a report by the Integrated Food Security Phase
Classification (IPC) published on Thursday, 26 percent of Gaza Palestinians,
about 576,600 people, have “exhausted their food supplies and coping
capacities and face catastrophic hunger and starvation”



A man inspects the damage in a room following Israeli bombardment at
Nasser Medical Complex hospital in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip
on December 17, 2023. The war has pushed Gaza’s health sector to collapse.
Only nine of its 36 health facilities, all located in the south, are still
functioning, according to the World Health Organization.



This aerial view of the makeshift tent camps housing Palestinians displaced
by intense Israeli bombardment on the Gaza Strip on December 9, 2023.
People sought refuge around the Raed al-Attar Mosque in Rafah in the
southern Gaza Strip near the Egyptian border.



An injured Palestinian woman, covered in dust and blood, hugs an injured girl at
the hospital following the Israeli bombardment of Khan Younis in the southern
Gaza Strip on November 15, 2023. According to the Government Media Office
in Gaza, more than 54,036 Palestinians have been injured in the Israeli
offensive since October 7.


A nurse writes the identification
information on the body of Sidal Abu Jamea, a Palestinian girl from Khan Younis
who died while sleeping in a tent after a shrapnel fragment hit her in the head.
The Israeli bombardment had hit the nearby Kuwaiti Hospital in Rafah in
the southern Gaza Strip on December 12, 2023.

[Kryztian]

[s7e6e]

It hurts my soul to look at this but I keep looking. Perhaps this topic should be pinned. Along with any others portraying how war really looks like.

[Bill Ryan]

Posted by s7e6e (here)
It hurts my soul to look at this but I keep looking. Perhaps this topic should be pinned. Along with any others portraying how war really looks like.

Here are Roger Waters' most poignant and inspired lyrics of all: On the Turning Away, a most wonderful and powerful song, Pink Floyd's video here.

If you've never heard this, maybe do listen if you have a moment.

~~~

On the turning away
From the pale and downtrodden
And the words they say which we won't understand

Don't accept that, what's happening
Is just a case of other's suffering
Or you'll find that you're joining in
The turning away

It's a sin that somehow
Light is changing to shadow
And casting its shroud over all we have known

Unaware how the ranks have grown
Driven on by a heart of stone
We could find that we're all alone
In the dream of the proud

On the wings of the night
As the daytime is stirring
Where the speechless unite in a silent accord

Using words you will find are strange
Mesmerized as they light the flame
Feel the new wind of change
On the wings of the night

No more turning away
From the weak and the weary
No more turning away from the coldness inside

Just a world that we all must share
It's not enough just to stand and stare
Is it only a dream that there'll be
No more turning away?

[Kryztian]

Every day, new images, new stories, new tragedies ...

[Michel Leclerc]

Brrr... too "beautiful" these photographs, too much selfpity snot of the onlooker making them shine “misery chic” and glossy...

(and of course always with the obligatory bow to the anti-antisemitic crocodile tear gel of “they started it” when it is known it was another 9/11)

too much bad sentimental music of so-called "songs" Bill with the eternally tautological simplistic chord structure and bad coffee-table “poetry”

in periods like these (the Thirty-years war? the World Wars?) art only exists if it is a weapon that disarms the enemy, that inflicts trauma

we do not deserve to be soothed

[Hym]

Hey Kryztian.
When I'm in the thread on Gaza, all of the pictures are gone.

I do see that just having captions describing those crimes, for pictures unseen.... is very powerful. And I don't know if they were purposely removed, or not.
And I do not intend to depersonalize those necessary impressions in those pictures, when all war is always personal.....


I hadn't viewed the thread because I have strong memories of those I've seen live, in experience, ..... I didn't need to see more. I went there today because I have never seen unending mass murders on this scale, done in full view of all, with no one there to go beyond the talk and stop it. Viewing the carnage now should reveal the real reasoning behind it all, even to those who refused to look, in full denial of their own humanities. When wars go on for so very long, even in the midst of the plans for total removal of any group of people, the hidden designs of complicit governments and corporations worldwide reveal themselves.

Murderers, mass murderers, especially those claiming some sort of superiority over those they kill, always have further plans.... where, unknown to them, only the ghosts of their dark deeds are guaranteed to occupy the land they have plowed under.

The dead also have voices that most do not hear, voices that we are here to lend them through the use of our own, but only if we are open to speak.

For some deeper reason I have a skill in speaking their voices when I stand in those spaces, where they have died, where they were tortured...and it is an opening in my being I have sought to suppress this life thru...to no avail. It is an opening I worked hard to find in some long past living, but one I have, since birth here, knew I had to temper. So far it has been totally accurate and useful only to the few who are present to hear. Like all things considered skills or gifts in these bodies, I know that they are accessible to anyone who is taught some focus or taught to remove some block. With all of those pictures and videos, and all of those horrific personal accounts, these insights and the unsolicited voices are completely unnecessary now.


For those who have seen more in their lives of the misery and death that silence cannot bear to hold back, this time of the grown up to show and tell is the measure of everything of worth in living lives. Few will understand that the only mitigating distance between a species and what only appears to be oncoming tidal waves of natural, cyclical destruction is the effort from themselves for the sake of others.....

and I cannot provide any proof of these things I know as fact, just reaching out beyond the simple confines of this primitive form of communication, of writing.... to propose that the power of people working together to alter the material world itself has been done before. There is no ritual of worth when compared to our own silent and powerful personal presence, whose mere existence demands worldly speech.

It has long since past the time when the monks should come down from the mountains to realize that their real enlightenments live in serving in the wars against the darkness. I'm not talking about the superficial powers, the shallow siddhies, learned from the dark ones in the mountains of the Himalayas, dressed in orange, in saffron and cream.

In most cases they have fed that darkness, if only by civilian words we say they have been distracted by their own skills....without any sense of the lessons of Milarepa that are now felt, seen, or heard, the perfume of the deer who is captured by its own smell, its own musk.

I have seen so little of their prayers "for the betterment of all" manifest and living in this world...for a long, long, long time. I know them for their spongy, self-absorption and extremely limited habits of living in the deeper introspection and travels that can only be earned in the service of others. Those castles in the sky, those tulpas in all of their majesty, disappear in the blink of every single explosion suffered upon the women and children, the men in every Gaza we have known.

Update: The VPN location changed and I can now see all pictures. Pictures that are reinforcing my view.

[Bill Ryan]

Posted by Michel Leclerc (here)
Brrr... too "beautiful" these photographs, too much selfpity snot of the onlooker making them shine “misery chic” and glossy...

(and of course always with the obligatory bow to the anti-antisemitic crocodile tear gel of “they started it” when it is known it was another 9/11)

too much bad sentimental music of so-called "songs" Bill with the eternally tautological simplistic chord structure and bad coffee-table “poetry”

in periods like these (the Thirty-years war? the World Wars?) art only exists if it is a weapon that disarms the enemy, that inflicts trauma

we do not deserve to be soothed

Michel, I understand totally, I really do. It's why many decades ago I vowed never again to read National Geographic for any reason.

But here's a serious, sincere request: please, if you have any time, find and post some photos on this thread that are not at all 'beautiful' in the way you describe.

[Kryztian]

Posted by Michel Leclerc (here)
Brrr... too "beautiful" these photographs, too much selfpity snot of the onlooker making them shine “misery chic” and glossy...

(and of course always with the obligatory bow to the anti-antisemitic crocodile tear gel of “they started it” when it is known it was another 9/11)

too much bad sentimental music of so-called "songs" Bill with the eternally tautological simplistic chord structure and bad coffee-table “poetry”

in periods like these (the Thirty-years war? the World Wars?) art only exists if it is a weapon that disarms the enemy, that inflicts trauma

we do not deserve to be soothed

I am not sure that I find anything here that is "soothing" here, but rather deeply, deeply disturbing. Perhaps there are a few pictures here that are a bit consoling - the pictures of the children in the rubble, playing, smiling, as if life is normal and childhood still has happy moments. Or perhaps "inspiring" too - the woman climbing down the barely navigable steps of a bombed out apartment to get a toy scooter for her child (3rd image from top of thread) says a lot about peoples will to go on and make life better for their children.

Yes, these are the types of photos that photographers long to add to their portfolio, and the images that will win them awards. And rightly so, I say, because any photographer who will take the risks of staying in Gaza and risk being murdered by the IDF to bring the world the truth of what is happening there does deserve an award.

And yes, these images are indeed the truth, even if some of the photos are a tad contrived. Perhaps the subjects cried a bit harder and held their position a big longer just for the photographer, just waiting for the light to be right. Yet, these images are our best way to understand the reality that most Gazans are facing now. For each face here you see, there is a very long story, probably quite amazing and awful. One hopes that these people will survive to tell their stories. And for every story that you see on this thread, there are a thousand more stories from people who were not photographed, and who may never live to tell their story.

But "soothing"? Really Michel? I find almost every image here deeply disturbing. And "beautiful"? I see a tremendous ugliness. Perhaps the greatest ugliness I have seen in my lifetime.

About the best I can come up with is "artistic"? Yes, there are some technically good photographers here showing their "artistry". But part of what makes these images "artistic" is because they show us "the truth", the truth of what is really happening in the world, the truth about the evil men can inflict upon each other. The truth of what is really happening in Gaza, because of us, our tax dollars and the leaders we support.

I was hoping not to say much on this thread. I think these images speak well for themselves, and do so accurately, and might be the best vehicle to help us understand the hell on earth that man-unkind has created in Gaza.

[Michel Leclerc]

Kryztian I cursory read your comment and of course resonate with a lot of what you write. I’ll come back to you to respond – I understand my reaction was a bit “raw skin” and not "encompassing all aspects" enough..

When I am witness to an accident that just occurred in front my eyes, I do not first take a photograph but immediately run and try to help.

Bill thank you for the Geographic comparison. But... why should I post pictures that I... that to me... ...(what more words should finish this question?)?

Ravenlocke and other members have in the course of that “war“ waged in Ukraine and Russia and in the course of that "war” waged in Palestine published photographs of what happens in battles enough – in the spur of the moment – motivated also, I guess, by their horror and, I am sure, with an afterthought of “this should not remain hidden, this should be known".. - which I fully endorse and am grateful for to them.

There is something with visual material that may ruin our energy needed for fighting. It paralyses us. It has to do with the (now completely hypocritically undermined) ban on images in Islam.

Tears should not come from our “admiration” or “shock” or ”appalledness” (or any other of those “news” cliches) of photographic skill or “eloquence” but from our conscience inside – the voice of it, the secret of it – that does not need to be “triggered and anaesthetised” in order to hammer on our soul: act!

Many of those image snippets on tik-tok or other smuggled material I’me referring to above, did awaken strong emotions – without anaesthetic –

[Bill Ryan]

Posted by Michel Leclerc (here)
When I am witness to an accident that just occurred in front my eyes, I do not first take a photograph but immediately run and try to help.

Here's a famous photo from the past. (It still gets to me every time. ) I'll only post a small version, as I don't want to detract from the theme of the thread.



The photographer, Kevin Carter, did not help the little child. After taking the photo, he sat under a tree and "talked to God". He won a Pulitzer Prize for the image. 4 months after that, he took his own life.

The moral of the story is that in many cases photographers, even professional ones, are as caught up in the tragedy as the desperate people around them, and are as deeply affected.

[Hym]

And Kevin's Soul knew the reality that the double slit experiment proves....
Seeing is Involvement, like it or not.

The much larger tragedy is that he didn't do anything about that soul, in that body, suffering to his death, when it looks like he could have. So many years of feeling the cruelty, smelling it, watching it.....it all be damned.

I don't see him taking his life as a solution to anything, just a further proof that he still did not do what he could have done for however many years left he could have lived.

And someone gave him a prize for that?

By the way, many war photogs DO get involved, personally. Their risking their lives and lending a physical hand and even some of their own small monies is at times the value they show to themselves in a world that is the cruelest, the most inhumane.....and one of the few, small reinforcements to the reason they are there in war zones risking it all.

[Michel Leclerc]

Thank you Bill, for keeping the photo small.

I remember the context. It is good that it is told as well.

[Ravenlocke]

It’s not just horror but utter disbelief that humans if they are that, can inflict so much cruelty and suffering on other humans, is it lack of conscience, moral standards, no regard or feel for human or other life. The creativity is so perverse and dark in its negative side. The braves are the journalists, medics, ambulance workers and volunteers that dig out all the victims and see the horror condition first hand. They are the ones that need to anesthetize themselves in order to do their work and not give in to utter despair.

Video of a victim, a man with an amputated arm with worms coming out of his infected wound. A young doctor is amazed that he is still alive and tells the horror they face every day trying to help patients.

https://x.com/SuppressedNws/status/1807224859597918260

The young doctor begins his monologue by saying that he has seen some of the worst cases in this genocide but he is still surprised by worse cases that he can’t handle as a human being.

[grapevine]

Posted by Ravenlocke (here)
It’s not just horror but utter disbelief that humans if they are that, can inflict so much cruelty and suffering on other humans, is it lack of conscience, moral standards, no regard or feel for human or other life. The creativity is so perverse and dark in its negative side. The braves are the journalists, medics, ambulance workers and volunteers that dig out all the victims and see the horror condition first hand. They are the ones that need to anesthetize themselves in order to do their work and not give in to utter despair.

Video of a victim, a man with an amputated arm with worms coming out of his infected wound. A young doctor is amazed that he is still alive and tells the horror they face every day trying to help patients.

https://x.com/SuppressedNws/status/1807224859597918260

The young doctor begins his monologue by saying that he has seen some of the worst cases in this genocide but he is still surprised by worse cases that he can’t handle as a human being.

That sounds horrible, Ravenlocke, but the clip seems to have disappeared from X (as so many seem to do these days). But as for the worms . . . maggot therapy is a known positive for wounds in that they eat all the crap quicker than it would take otherwise. They do have to be flushed out with hydrogen peroxide though, but even though it sounds gross, the outcome might be more positive than we think.

[Ravenlocke]

Posted by Miller (here)

Posted by Ravenlocke (here)
It’s not just horror but utter disbelief that humans if they are that, can inflict so much cruelty and suffering on other humans, is it lack of conscience, moral standards, no regard or feel for human or other life. The creativity is so perverse and dark in its negative side. The braves are the journalists, medics, ambulance workers and volunteers that dig out all the victims and see the horror condition first hand. They are the ones that need to anesthetize themselves in order to do their work and not give in to utter despair.

Video of a victim, a man with an amputated arm with worms coming out of his infected wound. A young doctor is amazed that he is still alive and tells the horror they face every day trying to help patients.

https://x.com/SuppressedNws/status/1807224859597918260

The young doctor begins his monologue by saying that he has seen some of the worst cases in this genocide but he is still surprised by worse cases that he can’t handle as a human being.

That sounds horrible, Ravenlocke, but the clip seems to have disappeared from X (as so many seem to do these days). But as for the worms . . . maggot therapy is a known positive for wounds in that they eat all the crap quicker than it would take otherwise. They do have to be flushed out with hydrogen peroxide though, but even though it sounds gross, the outcome might be more positive than we think.

Yes X scrubbed the video inline with their censorship of ProPalestinian voices.

Your maggot therapy explanation does not apply in this situation but thanks for offering that bit of information.