I’ll call him Ahmad. The 6-year-old boy dresses in American T-shirts or hoodies, jeans, baseball hat and sneakers, items likely donated through some charitable organization. His eyes, like dark figs in bowls of milk, glisten as he surveys the streets as a kind of playground – a place of hide and seek in alleyways, of foot races, of make-believe gunfights, and of course football (soccer). He was born here, and it is all he knows.

Later in the day, he does not see the worry in his mother’s eyes as she comes home from work at the hospital. He does not comprehend the urgency of the hushed discussions among his father, uncles and neighbors. He does not understand the purpose of the stern men with real guns who patrol the streets day and night.

That was four years ago. Today, the city streets in which he played are gone – bomb-blasted into piles of concrete and crumpled steel. The city is dead, as is his mother who was buried beneath the rubble during the bombing of the hospital. His father has sent him south with cousins where he might escape the war.

Ahmad is several inches taller now, but his weight is hardly more than it was four years ago. His home is a tent shared with several boys in a makeshift village along a highway. Sometimes they exchange shirts because each child has brought just one or two sets of clothes. They wait for instructions about where to travel to get food. Sometimes they must go at night many miles to a distribution site and to struggle amid huge crowds that sometimes turn violent. The children have been warned about men wearing masks, about unsafe places to drink water, and about the bad tempers of the men guarding the site.

The scenario described here is fictional, though I suspect it is very realistic based on what I have seen and read in the media about the war in Gaza.

By all accounts, it is hell on earth, and those who must live there suffer beyond what we in the rest of the world (save Ukraine) can imagine.

Regular citizens of Gaza, who vastly outnumber the soldiers of Hamas, have been persecuted by a victim-turned-avenger. What began as a rightful mission of strategic military response and recovery has turned into an abomination – an unchecked, unconscionable, unceasing mission of revenge and domination. The victim has become the victimizer. The hated is now the hater, the mirror image of its perceived enemy.

I wonder how the leader of Israel today fancies his place in spiritual history. Does he see himself as the father of a great nation bound by a covenant with God? Is he like Moses or Noah, leading his people to a safer place in a promised land? Is he Joshua at the walls of Jericho ready to manifest a miracle? Is he the humble shepherd David who would slay Goliath with one perfect pitch?

Perhaps it’s more like the story of Abraham, whose blind faith allowed him to be willing to sacrifice his own son. Or like Joseph, whose dreams of seven fat cows came to represent feast, while the seven starving ones foretold terrible famine.

Famine is not a dream in Gaza. It is a growing reality, with more than a half million sufferers likely by the end of next month, according to a United Nations report. With famine comes disease, pestilence, and utter despair. For the children of Gaza, not only have they been denied basic human rights, but they have also been stripped of what we, in a normal, decent world, call innocence. They have no dreams. Their eyes are dull and vacant, and they are numb, hardened, their spirits crushed under the weight of the sins of the world.

The images in the news of near starving children are beyond comprehension. What we are witnessing is the latest chapter in the ancient story of mutual intolerance, hatred, and violence between two cultures. While there are thousands of Jewish people who will never heal from the atrocities committed at the Nova music festival nearly two years ago, there is a new generation of Palestinians who will grow up despising those who have oppressed them.

In the past, America had been a great ray of hope for peace. Presidents understood the dire need for stability in the Middle East. They tried to mediate, and to demonstrate an understanding of both sides. Some even performed great diplomatic feats to mitigate violence.

Today, America’s conspicuous silence speaks loudly in favor of one side. And while the current U.S. President is busy making deals with whoever seems to offer the most material gain, the children of Gaza are starving.

Pete Howard resides in Dunkirk. Comments are welcome at odyssmusic20@gmail.com