As the World Tightens the Noose

It can be hard to breathe.

Sifting through lies upon lies upon lies swallowed up by the masses - directed at you - at your friends - at their families.

Your friends, who are deep in grief, for their siblings, their best friends, and for MORE THAN A HUNDRED people they had known their entire lives.

The youngest shot dead that day on Kibbutz Be'eri was nine months old, and she was in her mother's arms when they blew her head off.

It can be hard to breathe - when the trucks upon trucks upon trucks of AID - ARE SENT - INTO GAZA - ALL THE TIME - and are LOOTED ON CAMERA - BY HAMAS TERRORISTS - the ones who RAPED us, MURDERED us and continue to TORTURE us.

The ones who are LYING to you.

USING you.

LAUGHING at you.

And yet - they've won.

They won that very day just by getting into our sacred nation and carving people to bits like Vikings, because until today the world hasn't condemned it - even though Hamas themselves filmed it with pride and glee as they laughed while beheading fathers with garden hoes, while their children watched.

They won by ripping 253 civilians of all ages from their beds, their homes, or a rave at dawn....and dragging them from a civilized country to a place where they were beaten and spit at by two-year-old children - children taught to hate Jews - because us Jews are not even human...before they were thrown into tunnels and chained to the floor.

They've had acid poured on them.

They've been connected to car batteries and charged.

They've been beaten nearly to death.

They've been fed half a rotten pita a day.

THEY ARE STILL THERE.

If you think we in Israel are taught something similar (HATE) about those in Gaza or anyone at all, you are wrong, as lately it's the victims themselves sympathizing the most with the people of Gaza.

Tonight I read the father of one of the murdered say that we are to blame for all of this, as it was US who believed in peace. It was US who withdrew from Gaza in 2005 - it was US who fought for their work permits, and who believed in the peaceful ideals the rest of the world throws in our faces, before they swipe to the next TikTok video, and then drive to the mall in SafeVille, "The West."

Us Jews - all we ever do is look in the mirror and question ourselves - and we are doing it now. We have been doing it throughout this war - even people whose own family members were slaughtered, whose entire communities were put up in a hotel for a year and then moved to another location - PEOPLE WHO CAN'T LIVE AT HOME FOR ALMOST TWO YEARS - are at times, empathetic with the people of Gaza and lost in deep thoughts and reflection about Israel's actions during this time.

IT IS WHO WE ARE - TO QUESTION WHO WE ARE.

But the world doesn't question the "Gaza Health Ministry."

The "Gaza Health Ministry" is Hamas, and Hamas - doesn't allow foreign journalists into Gaza.

So...where are the pictures coming from currently determining major decision maker's decisions?

Hamas's PR team - somewhere in Qatar - somewhere with the billionaires - printing the pictures by the thousands of the starving children (IN YEMEN) - or the one REALLY famous "STARVING CHILD" - who was from Gaza, but the ISRAELI GOVERNMENT got him out of Gaza to treat his disease (he isn't starving)...this child is currently receiving life-saving treatment in Italy (because of Israel).

Yet - none of this matters.

What matters is - "The Famine in Gaza," which is infuriating the world and dominating the headlines, as the trucks upon trucks of AID WE PAY FOR - to get to the civilians of Gaza (knowing NONE of it reaches our hostages) - is LEFT TO SIT THERE BY THE UN - AND STOLEN BY HAMAS TO BE SOLD.

And what is the world doing? The CIVILIZED world? France? The UK?

REWARDING Hamas.

They just did - the UK just gave Israel the Ultimatum - and Hamas the win.

So, congratulations to Hamas.

The world will fight to make us leave Gaza, the soldiers less than two miles from me keeping two million people safely away from myself and the one-year-olds I spend my days with, one of whom is the son of a hostage whose body is still being held there.

The world will fight to leave Hamas in charge, for them to come back into Israel and rape us and burn us and cut us into little pieces.

And we all know very well now what I sure didn't know two years ago today, when I naively thought "Never Again" was a worldwide promise.

The world will CHEER for the terrorists with the green bandanas, if and when they should g-d forbid pull off something like that ever again.

It can be heard to breathe - as my phone lets me know that multiple rockets have just been shot into the country.

--

Melanie Preston is a Jewish writer who returned to live in Israel by herself following the attacks of October 7th, 2023. To support her writing and her work, please click the donate button, or visit her GoFundMe page. All donations, no matter how small, go directly to bare-bone expenses in Israel. Thank you and Shalom from the Gaza Envelope.