Another day, another airstrike. But when the dust settles on Gaza City, it is the human cost that remains. Eleven people are dead after Israeli strikes hit residential areas, including two children and a teacher who had just finished her lesson. The bombs fell in the afternoon, when families were gathered for lunch. Now, the streets are empty except for the wail of ambulances.
British diplomats have condemned the violence and called for ‘immediate de-escalation’. But what does that mean for the man who lost his grocery store? For the woman searching for her son under rubble? In Westminster, it’s a statement. In Gaza, it’s a funeral.
The conflict, as always, is presented as a military calculation. But on the ground, it is a social catastrophe. Neighbourhoods are shredded. Trust is evaporated. Children who once played football now flinch at the sound of drones. The psychological toll is incalculable: a generation growing up with the smell of cordite and the knowledge that the sky can fall at any moment.
Meanwhile, in London, the Foreign Office issues carefully worded press releases. The British public, numbed by news fatigue, scroll past. The disconnect is part of the story. We watch from our sofas as others die. We are horrified, but not enough to change the channel.
This is the cultural shift I see: the normalisation of distant suffering. We have learned to live with the idea that some lives are worth less than others. The rhetoric of ‘de-escalation’ becomes a comfortable euphemism for doing nothing. But the 11 dead are not a number. They were people. And their absence will be felt in every quiet street, every empty chair, every meal that will never be shared again.
