In the Gaza Strip, which has been largely devastated by Israeli bombs, Palestinians received the news of recognition of their state by France and other European countries on Monday, September 22, with pain. While they understood the political and symbolic significance of the move, they felt it would have no impact on their lives, which are overwhelmed by suffering. After seeing their families killed and their homes destroyed by the Israeli army, after enduring constant displacement culminating in the forced exodus from Gaza City under airstrikes and a ground offensive that have reduced their neighborhoods to ashes, many expressed anger at the international community, seeing it as complicit or passive. In their view, the move came too late – after two years of a war that was triggered by the Hamas attack in October 2023 – and seems pointless, when Israel is in the process of committing what has now been called a "genocide" by a United Nations Human Rights Council commission.

For Dr Hani Badrane, who has just arrived at the Al-Mawassi camp in the southern city Khan Yunis after being driven out of northern Gaza City by a storm of fire, the announcement brought no relief. "You, France, you, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia, you've been silent for two years, you didn't say a word, you did nothing. What does recognizing a Palestinian state mean? And what will I gain from it as a citizen? Will this recognition bring back my family? My job? My name and the scientific standing I had before the war?" the cardiologist said over the phone. (Israel has barred foreign journalists from entering the Palestinian enclave for the past two years.) Badrane, who had worked for 20 years at Al-Shifa Hospital, lost all his children and most of his extended family in an Israeli army airstrike on his home. The recognition "will do nothing for me. The only thing I want now is a second chance, to be able to go on living," he said, as he tried to put up a battered tent for shelter.

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