Extract from ABC News
Analysis
The war between Israel and Hamas is escalating dramatically and dangerously.
Besides the main players, 11 countries are now involved, either directly or indirectly: the US, the UK, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Pakistan, Qatar, Egypt and now Jordan.
Jordan became involved after an attack on a US military base in its north-east — near the border with Syria and Iraq — by Iran-backed militia, killing three American soldiers.
US President Joe Biden will almost certainly authorise a military response, given the pressure on him domestically. That will most likely be to hit a facility used by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard in Syria or Iraq.
American presidents have long been reluctant to strike inside Iran — it is so much easier to make these calls when you do not have a president in the White House.
In return for any strike, various Iranian proxies may take up the challenge to escalate attacks on US or Israeli interests.
But it's not just the realpolitik of the Middle East being changed — both Israel and Gaza are different places from what they were before October 7.
If you want to get a sense of how dramatically the war has changed Israel simply hop on a plane. The change is dramatic before you even arrive.
How Israel and Gaza have changed
I've been to Israel three times since October 7. The first was soon after Hamas went on its murderous spree in southern Israel.
That first flight was full of Israelis, all desperate to get home to join what many believed was their country's fight for its existence.
At the baggage carousel in Tel Aviv I met a young Israeli who'd been having a post-army holiday in Broome. He told me stories about fishing and swimming in far north Western Australia.
When news came through of the attacks, it was not a question of whether he and his friends in Western Australia would return, it was a matter of the first flight they could get out of Perth.
How things have changed. On my second trip, there was barely an Israeli on the plane — they had already returned. This time the plane was full of passengers from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Thailand and China.
I returned this week for the third time since October 7. Again, hardly an Israeli to be seen. Thousands of foreign workers are flying into Israel each week. They're flying in to take the place of Palestinians who, before this war, were an integral part of the Israeli economy.
One war, two versions
Before October 7, about 16,000 Palestinians entered Israel from Gaza each day for work. That has dried up to zero. And it is unlikely to go back to what it was for a generation — if ever.
The reason for this is both security and revenge. After October 7, many Israelis have told me they cannot trust Palestinians again. The sentiment is very much: after what they did, why should we help them by giving them jobs?
Israelis and Palestinians have long lived in different cultures, but today this is more pronounced than ever. This was brought home to me by the contrast between Jerusalem and Ramallah.
Last Thursday evening, my colleagues and I had dinner in the German Colony in Jerusalem. The clientele was mainly Israeli. If you arrived here from another country, you wouldn't know this was a country at war.
The next day, we went to Ramallah to talk to Palestinians about the International Court of Justice verdict. How different was this world, as we sat in a cafe the customers watched Al Jazeera Arabic.
Just as Israeli TV is curated to show heroic Israeli soldiers and rarely, if ever, an injured or dead Palestinian, in Ramallah it's the exact opposite. Al Jazeera Arabic shows wall-to-wall dead and injured women and children lying on the floors of chaotic hospitals, often covered in blood.
One war, two versions.
Jerusalem to Ramallah — a 30-minute drive but a universe away, where people have less in common than ever.
So many friendships that had been built between the two sides over decades have been broken.
An Israeli friend — one of the country's most respected journalists — told me of an exchange he had with a Palestinian friend in Ramallah.
The Israeli rang his friend, who was delighted to hear from him. This was the first time the Palestinian had heard from any Israeli since the war began.
It was never going to be an easy conversation. Although the Israeli is of the left — which in Israeli terms means support for a two-state solution — the events of October 7 have been horrific for him, as for all Israelis.
He showed me on his phone a popular image doing the rounds in Israel. The famous words over the gates of Auschwitz — "Arbeit Macht Frei", or "Work Makes you Free" — have been changed to "Consider the Context". This is a criticism of the argument that when considering Hamas' atrocities one needs to consider the context. The view of most Israelis is that this attack was so horrific that no qualifications or context are required.
So this left-of-centre Israeli rang his Palestinian friend. Towards the end of the conversation, the Palestinian said something that shocked the Israeli. "There are 1.8 million of our people in Gaza with no homes, so they are living in the open," the Palestinian said. "You probably have not thought about this, but because Israel has destroyed much of Gaza our women are having to go to the toilet in the open. There is nowhere else. For a Muslim woman, this is a total humiliation. And for this humiliation alone we will never forgive you."
Further apart than ever
Many Israelis, of course, say that they will never forgive Palestinians for what Hamas did. It's this "never forgiving" that puts the two sides further apart than ever in this decades-old conflict.
Israel has also in effect shrunk as a country, at least for the moment. Communities in the south, near the border with Gaza, and in the north, near the border with Lebanon, have largely evacuated and moved towards the centre. Effectively, the parts of the country that are safe and therefore habitable have shrunk.
This has wreaked havoc on schools, jobs and communities in general. Children have had to find alternative schools, if any school at all, and many jobs which were dependent on being in a location have disappeared. For example, an electrician or plumber who worked in towns such as Sderot, near the Gaza border, now has to find work elsewhere as Sderot has become largely a ghost town.
And then to Gaza. Even if the war stopped now, it will probably take a generation — if not longer — to rebuild Gaza. In the first weeks of the war, almost 1,000 Palestinian children a week were being killed.
Fear is everywhere. CNN has just run a major investigation in which they show a Palestinian grandmother in Gaza, walking hand in hand with her grandson, being shot dead in cold blood. She falls to the ground, the boy panics and then runs away.
About 1.8 million of Gaza's 2.3 million people are now homeless. Before the war, it was already a place that struggled.
It's the only place I've ever been where children being born today are physically smaller than children born 15 years ago — the systemic malnutrition is so entrenched that children are getting smaller.
Before the war, Gazans could only eke out of living under the weight of 16 years of an Israeli blockade. Under this blockade, Israel decided what goods and people went in and out, and how fast — or slow — any development would take place. Egypt controlled one crossing, at Rafah, but few things went in and out of Gaza without Israeli approval.
Now, after 14 weeks of war, Gaza has largely been reduced to rubble. Its water system has been destroyed, its electricity system barely operates, its hospital system has collapsed and its roads are barely functional.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says with winter approaching 2.3 million people faced "inhuman squalid conditions".
Hunger is entrenched, with little food or water available. Medicine supplies are low, with most operations happening without painkillers or anaesthetics. Disease is rampant, particularly hepatitis A which is surging due to hundreds of thousands of people setting up tents near overflowing sewage.
One mother who lives with 40 other families in a school told The National newspaper how her 14-year-old son suddenly began suffering from fever, nausea and vomiting. He experienced a gastrointestinal infection then other symptoms, such as yellowing of his eyes. He had hepatitis A.
And then there's the death toll. Dubbed "a children's graveyard" by the United Nations, UNICEF reported:
"With every passing day, children and families in the Gaza Strip face increased risk of death from the sky, disease from lack of safe water, and deprivation from lack of food. And for the two remaining Israeli children still held hostage in Gaza, their nightmare that began on 7 October continues.
"The situation continues to deteriorate rapidly. UNICEF last week spoke of the 'triple threat' stalking children in the Gaza Strip: conflict, disease, and malnutrition. We are doing everything we can, but we are faced with a formidable challenge to address these issues.
"Children in Gaza are running out of time, while most of the lifesaving humanitarian aid they desperately need remains stranded between insufficient access corridors and protracted layers of inspections. Mounting needs and a constrained response is a formula for a disaster of epic proportions."
With the war grinding on, the tragedy of this "children's graveyard" worsens by the day.
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