2 hours agoShareSaveJeremy BowenInternational editor, BBC NewsShareSaveHow do you measure misery? For journalists the usual way is to see it, to feel it, to smell it. Beleaguered Palestinian colleagues in Gaza are doing that, still doing invaluable reporting at great risk to themselves. More than 200 have been killed doing their jobs. Israel does not allow international journalists into Gaza. Denied the chance of eyewitness reporting – one of the best tools of the job – we can study, from a distance, the assessments of aid organisations operating in Gaza.Pascal Hundt, deputy director of operations at the International Committee of the Red Cross said last week that civilians in Gaza faced “an overwhelming daily struggle to survive the dangers of hostilities, cope with relentless displacement, and endure the consequences of being deprived of urgent humanitarian assistance.” He added: “This situation must not—and cannot—be allowed to escalate further.”But it might, if Israel continues the plunge deeper into war that resumed on 18 March when it broke a two-month ceasefire with a massive series of air strikes.Israel had already sealed the gates of Gaza. Since the beginning of March, it has blocked all shipments of humanitarian aid, including food and medical supplies.The return to war ended any chance of moving on to the ceasefire’s proposed second phase, which Israel and Hamas had agreed would end with the release of all the remaining hostages in exchange for a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. That was unacceptable to the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the ultra-nationalist religious extremists who keep him in power. They want Gaza’s Palestinians to be replaced by Jewish settlers. They threatened to topple Netanyahu’s government if he did not go back to war, and the end of Netanyahu’s political career would bring the day of reckoning for his part in Israel’s failure to prevent the deadly Hamas attacks on 7 October 2023. It might also force a conclusion in his long trial on corruption charges.Prime Minister Netanyahu is now promising a new “intense” offensive into Gaza in the days after President Donald Trump finishes his swing through the wealthy Arab oil monarchies in the Gulf later this week.The offensive includes a plan to displace massive numbers of Palestinian civilians on top of waves of artillery, air strikes and death. “To displace” is a cold verb. It means families having only handfuls of minutes to flee for their lives, from an area that might be hit immediately to one that might be hit later. Hundreds of thousands have done so repeatedly since the war began.EPAGaza was one of the most overcrowded places on earth before the war. Israel’s plan is to force as many Gazans as possible into a tiny area in the south, near the ruins of the town of Rafah, which has been almost entirely destroyed. Before that happens, the UN humanitarian office estimates that 70% of Gaza is already effectively off limits to Palestini …
