The desperate cry of a people calling out for help

They feel as though the wider world has
forgotten about them. They live in what has been described as the
world’s biggest open-air prison camp, 1.8 million of them crammed into a tiny
strip of just 140 square miles, and they want the world to remember that they
exist – and that they are finding it almost impossible to breathe. For 11 years now, they have been blocked into
an area which is smaller than County Louth by fences, bullets, and occasional
bombs. Travel is an impossible dream for most of
them, a life-saving hospital visit can become a logistical nightmare, and even
the fishermen risk being murdered if they dare to venture just a few miles
offshore. Gaza is a humanitarian catastrophe in the
making and yet when the local people protest, as they have done in their
thousands over the past three weeks, they are demonised, dehumanised, and
gunned down. Shot at by snipers located behind a
fortified fence, murdered, or hospitalised, for daring just to protest, even if
they are unarmed. …