"What is really going on in Gaza?"

Talking with friends yesterday this was a question that came up. I did not comment even when asked for my opinion. 

It is very likely I do know a little more than any of them because they rely solely on local news services for their information. I do not see the "commercial" television stations here. I see almost no television and seventeen minutes an hour devoted to seeing and hearing advertisements is more than I can handle. 

The news I do see on the international news service is perhaps best described as "lop-sided". Yes, bias also comes into it but the footage shown is lop-sided. We are constantly told that "some viewers may find the content in this story distressing".  I wonder however whether a more accurate description might be "many viewers do not see any of this as real". It has simply become alarmingly commonplace.

All the footage of ruined buildings is hard enough but the sight of people living there, especially men carrying tiny bodies wrapped in shrouds, leaves me shaking. It should not be happening...but it is happening.

An aid worker who has been in and out a number of times occasionally gives me small pieces of information. I trust this man as much as I trust anyone in that sort of situation. He is telling me things which rarely get told by those responsible for news broadcasts. Those things matter.

We are not hearing about the protests in Gaza, protests against Hamas. They are apparently growing louder but to protest is dangerous, very dangerous. Hamas does not allow protest unless it is in support of them. Hamas needs to be seen in control.

The control Hamas has is not as secure as we are often led to believe. Hamas is not an army. It is a terrorist organisation with one aim in mind and that is to wipe out the state of Israel. Nothing less than that will satisfy them. They are fanatics. They are radicals. They will stop at nothing to try and get what they want. 

Hamas has no qualms about embedding themselves in among the civilian population. They use homes and schools and hospitals for their own appalling activities. That they might be causing the deaths of innocent civilians by doing this does not concern them. It is a very effective way of working. It makes it so much harder for those they see as the enemy to fight them. 

And yes, they are also using food as a weapon of war.  The problem is not all on the Israeli side. Hamas is also hijacking efforts to distribute aid where it is needed most. They do this in their efforts to keep the civilian population under their control. Hunger and the promise of food are very effective weapons. You provide just enough food to keep people alive but not so much they have the energy and the will to disobey you. Yes, the footage of the bakery with all the bread might look good but the reality is there will be just enough bread to keep people alive. They will not be properly fed and not everyone will get some bread.

Can the UN organise the distribution of food? They say they can. They say they have the means to do it and that they have done it many times before.  Again the reality is rather different. Neither the UN or the Israelis have the means to do it in a safe, fair and equitable way. It requires the cooperation of Hamas as well and that is something which is not likely to happen at present.

The idea that "people can just return the hostages and stop fighting" as one of the group suggested is so far from a solution that I wonder if there will ever be an end to the conflict.