This Sunday, April 7, will mark six months since Hamas attacked Israel and the relentless bombardment by the Israeli military on the Gaza Strip that followed. While the United Nations Security Council voted to demand an immediate ceasefire in the Palestinian enclave, and as UN experts call for a ban on arms exports to Israel, the IDF has not let up in its military offensive.
Rami Abou Jammous is a Palestinian journalist currently based in Rafah, in the south of the Gaza Strip, who has covered the war on Gaza since it broke out on October 7. Below, with Clothilde Mraffko, a Le Monde journalist based in Jerusalem, Jammous answers readers' questions on the humanitarian and political situation in the Palestinian enclave and the unprecedented nature of this war.
Rami Abou Jammous: Hello Sophie, I'm in Rafah, in the south of the Gaza Strip, after being forced to leave Gaza City, my home. I'm one of the lucky ones to have found a concrete roof, while the majority of the displaced are living in tents and tarpaulins in the streets, schools and village halls.
My daily life is a bit like that of all the displaced. We start our day by looking for water, whether it's drinking water or salted water for our daily needs. We queue for hours to fill our jerry cans and then look for firewood because we cook with wood. We have no gas, no kitchen. Then we look for food. And then I do my job as a journalist.
Jammous: Hello Pacco, unfortunately not. The leaders or representatives of civil society who have remained in Gaza can't find foreign interlocutors because there's no one in Gaza and it's not always practical to exchange information via the internet.
Jammous: The people of Gaza are still in shock. Feelings of sadness, despair, fatigue and anguish are mostly mixed with a lot of fear. This fear increases every day after the threats of a ground invasion because we know what a ground invasion is and what its consequences are: massacres, destruction and killings, like what the Israeli army has already done in Gaza city, in the north of the Gaza Strip and in Khan Yunis.
Jammous: Unfortunately, this is a question many people ask me. You have a lot to do, especially to put pressure on your government to change its position. You can also boycott, which is a very effective weapon that hurts. We, the Palestinian population, are not looking for humanitarian aid or money but rather political support to stop the war machine and the massacres – you can do that by putting pressure on governments.
Clothilde Mraffko: Israelis have many channels of information, including newspapers and television channels. The Israeli press is free. But it is, for the most part, in line with the country's war-mongering spirit. The civilian victims in Gaza are not questioned and the international community is seen as endangering Israel by calling for a ceasefire. The Israeli army's rhetoric, according to which Hamas is using Gazans as human shields, justifies the way their war is being waged. For example, recently, on television and in newspapers, journalists have multiplied their analyses to demonstrate there is no famine in Gaza – in contradiction with the findings of the United Nations and humanitarian organizations on the ground, which are unanimous.
Israel experienced October 7 as an existential threat, and this is reflected in the press, with the exception of Haaretz. But this newspaper is only aimed at a small fringe of the Israeli population. Israelis, also, are preparing for a war with Lebanon in their editorials, and in recent days have been focused on the Iranian threat. Among young people, part of the population has been to Gaza or knows mobilized reservists, so they also see this war through a prism.
Jammous: For Gaza City and the north of the Gaza Strip, it's unfortunately a famine. People can't find anything to eat, causing children to die. Humanitarian aid is almost non-existent. In the south, some humanitarian aid is arriving but it's not enough: 80 trucks for 1.5 million people.
Jammous: I think that was the plan from the beginning, but Egypt's position and the resilience of the Palestinian population, who don't want another Nakba, has undermined Israel's plan.
Mraffko: The Palestinian Authority has been unpopular for years. It did not cease security cooperation with Israel after October 7, further discrediting its authority in the eyes of Palestinians. Mahmoud Abbas has limited power in the West Bank, anyway. Israel has complete security and administrative control over 60% of the territory, and even in areas under Palestinian control, the Israeli army carries out regular raids. It has no power in Gaza or Jerusalem – illegally annexed by Israel. A Palestinian interlocutor told me as long as four years ago that the Palestinian Authority is seen as the Arabic-speaking version of the occupation.
Jammous: Palestinians are suffering from bombings and massacres committed by the Israeli army. Of course, people are angry with Hamas, but no more than with Israel, because they know that the army makes no distinction between those who are with Hamas and those who are not. This is an unprecedented massacre. Children and women are being killed. It's as if your brother had hit your neighbor and the neighbor retaliated by wiping out your whole family. You blame your brother.
Maffko: On the Israeli side, the count by Agence France-Presse, based on official Israeli data, is 1,170 people killed on October 7, mostly civilians. 34 hostages were also killed, in addition to 256 soldiers having died while fighting since October 27 and the start of Israel's ground offensive in Gaza.
In terms of Gaza, the Palestinian Ministry of Health counts over 33,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza, including 13,850 children. The UN relies on these figures, which are transmitted by the hospitals, meaning that those who did not go to the hospitals are not counted.
It is important to note that the Israelis also rely on figures from the Palestinian Ministry of Health in their military analysis of the situation, as explained by journalist Yuval Abraham in his latest article in +972 Magazine.