Ahmed Nehad in The Nation:
On October 6, blood, pain, and suffering in Palestine were of no interest to the world. They were too mundane, too “normal” to be acknowledged. Never mind that “normal” meant a Gaza that had been smothered by a 17-year Israeli blockade and a 56-year occupation. Never mind that it meant a Gaza where Israeli military invasions had become almost routine; with civilians laid to rest after every attack, and with entire neighborhoods leveled—tens of thousands of homes, mosques, churches, hospitals, cultural centers, and educational institutions crumbling to rubble every couple of years.
In Gaza, “normal” was the meager four to 12 hours of electricity a day. Hospitals had become destinations of last resort because, in this “normal,” there were just 1.4 beds for every thousand residents.
It was “normal” for families to starve, for essential medicines to run out, for graduates to stare at bleak futures, and for the vast majority to survive on mere aid.
Yet, this “normal”’ had long been met with a deafening global silence. This “normal” went unnoticed, a mere backdrop to world politics, seldom worth more than a passing remark.
Until recently. Until October 7. When Israeli civilians were killed, the world sat upright. They took note, they discussed, they condemned. They saw the horror of blood spilled in historic Palestine. Conversations about Palestine became mainstream only when the blood took on a different hue.
The very same world that had remained nonchalant about the everyday horrors in Gaza and in all of occupied Palestine was now interested and invested.
