جريدة الأهرام الجديد الكندية 
مقالات مشابهة
Medhat Oweida, Editor-in-Chief
Since the seventh of October until now, and until the end of the Gaza war, the world has lived in a horrifying nightmare.
A feeling of sadness and mixed emotions with tears for the death of innocent civilians.
So, the scenes of mothers, children, and men we see make anyone with a heart feel for them, mourn, and cry for their sake.
If we dream that life in Gaza will return to what it was before October 7th, then a question lingers within me: Why did we start the war
And why did all the Arab nations sing and dance and celebrate on the 7th of October, and we cracked jokes, including the 6th of October
A Gazan woman asked her sons to bring her a Jewish male and female captive and other jokes and festivities, despite these being human beings as well, with souls and civilians, not soldiers.
I write my article while I watch on Al-Hadath channel that the number of martyrs in Gaza has now reached 9061, most of them children and women!!
So, what did Hamas gain from the October 7th operation?
What did the Palestinians achieve? What did the Arabs gain
Why are we, who danced and celebrated on the 7th of October, the ones demanding an end to the war now?
Is war a game that we start when we want and stop when we want?
What is the benefit that came to us from the October 7th operation, other than tarnishing our image in front of the whole world, which saw on screens how Hamas killed 1400 people in one day, most of them civilians, and kidnapped nearly 242, as of the latest update found
Perhaps Hamas thought that Israel would negotiate with it about the hostages, and they would hand over the hostages in exchange for all those in Israeli prisons, and the matter would end there.
This is a naive and foolish thought.
It seems that Israel knew the goal, so the Israeli leadership considered the hostages as victims of the October 7th events, and let’s consider the number of victims as 1600 instead of 1400.
The Israeli war machine spun mercilessly, killing and destroying, and the innocent paid the price while Hamas leaders live safely in tunnels, and their children live outside of Gaza, and the innocent, the weak, the women, the children, and the elderly die.
Homes where people spend their entire lives building are destroyed, and the infrastructure and roads are destroyed, and the whole of Gaza Strip is destroyed.
And for those who ask why America is silent and not demanding to stop the war, they should look back at the Fallujah battle in Iraq in 2004. Israel has not yet reached the level that America reached in Fallujah.
But I’ll confide in you a secret: ever since I tried to recall what happened in Fallujah in 2004, I’ve been terrified that Gaza’s fate in 2003 will be like Fallujah in 2004.
Hamas made a big mistake on October 7th when it attacked Israel first. When it killed civilians second, and the third mistake was kidnapping civilians as hostages and returning them to Gaza, which angered the world and made the global public opinion sympathize with Israel and give it the right to defend itself.
Leave aside the Arab media that is biased; we live in the West and meet people from all over the world.
A common Canadian on the street, if they start a conversation about the war and don’t immediately condemn what Hamas did, they won’t be willing to talk to you and end the conversation right away.
All Western governments are under significant pressure from their public opinion, which sees Hamas as a terrorist organization, and governments must follow their people.
Yes, there are protests all over the world by Arab communities, Western leftists, and war opponents in general.
These people are protesting not in support of Hamas but in defence of the innocent.
It’s easy to start a military operation, and it’s easy to kill a large number of people anywhere in the world.
But it’s reasonable to expect reactions and have the ability to secure your people.
Let’s look at Hamas from a perspective beyond the current debate in our Arab world, whether it’s resistance or a terrorist movement.
Let’s look at it as a government that governs the Gaza Strip responsible for the 2.3 million people.
Did the Gaza government provide food supplies for its people before the war, and does it have enough food to last for months or years if the war continues
Does the Gaza government have an air defence system capable of protecting its people from airstrikes, or is it fighting in the open sky
Is the Gaza government capable of developing its offensive capabilities after October 7th, or will it enter the tunnels and let the people die?
Does the Gaza government have the financial capacity to rebuild what was destroyed after the war, or will it wait for international aid
Is the Gaza government capable of fighting a military ranked eighteenth in the world, whether on land, sea, or air?
If you try to answer these questions rationally, you will find that there is no clear answer. So why did you start the war?
There are two countries benefiting from the war: the first is Iran, as this war allowed it to have an essential role in the Middle East, which will be taken into consideration in its negotiations and its many problems with the West.
Second is Russia, which benefited even more than Iran, as the world forgot about Ukraine and its war.
The West stopped supplying weapons to Ukraine, and no one mentions the Ukrainian war at all.
In the end, I pray for every mother, father, wife, child, and all the victims and their families and loved ones and friends.
I hope the war ends quickly and that peace spreads throughout the world.
There may be a glimmer of hope born from the darkness of the tunnel we are living in.
I hope that the war becomes an opportunity for the whole world to stand for comprehensive and just peace, ending with a two-state solution, and the Gaza war in 2023 being the last of wars.
