You might be thinking about resolutions and turning over new leaves in 2024, but tens of thousands of people in Gaza are still thinking of survival as the Israeli government’s bombardment of Palestine enters its fourth month. As of Dec. 28, the Palestinian Health Ministry reported that 21,100 have been killed in Gaza, with more than 55,000 more injured.
In his Christmas day address, Pope Francis even called children dying in wars the “little Jesuses of today,” adding that Israeli strikes there were reaping an “appalling harvest” of innocent civilians. Still, the BBC reported on Christmas that “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel will intensify its fight against Hamas in the coming days.”
What’s more, is that at least 7,000 people have been reported missing in Gaza, including just under 5,000 women and children; as Al-Jazeera points out, the missing are believed to be trapped under bombed buildings, which have fallen in the wake of the Israeli government’s push to “eliminate Hamas” which claimed responsibility for an Oct. 7 attack that killed around 1,200 people.
To remind Tampa Bay that the war is not over, hundreds of pro-Palestinian voices took to the streets of downtown Tampa—which was celebrating the holiday boat parade—to wave a different kind of red and green in the air, plus call for a full and immediate ceasefire and end to U.S. aid to Netanyahu’s assault on Gaza.
