Welcome to Gaza

Filling the gap in coverage of the Israel - Hamas War

By Timothy P Holmberg

(For context, I wrote this after attending an antisemitism rally. I wrote it because the Jewish people I know, and have known, have a deep sense of humanity. And here in San Diego, while they face hate and possible violence, they also have a large well of support to help push that hate back. A wellspring of empathy for the wounds and trauma they endured on October 7th and beyond. And media that are not shy to tell their stories and connect viewers/readers with the traumas and hate they face.

The Palestinians I know have very little of any of that, and are enduring ongoing wounds that deepen daily. They are much less able to feel the warmth of our community to comfort their pain or even an ear to hear their stories. The Arab Israeli conflict is both complex and simple. To truly understand it requires openness, empathy and patience to listen carefully. Why should we do this? We certainly have problems aplenty here, so why not keep our gaze here?

In part, because it is our bombs that are raining down on Gaza, while our missile interceptors are defending Israel. Because we are heading into a holiday that should remind us that peace is everyone’s enterprise, and needless suffering never remains isolated. To ignore it is at our own peril, and diminishes our own spirit.

Shalom, Salam and good tidings . . )

There are many things lacking in media coverage of the Israel - Hamas War. They range from omission to outright slant (towards one side or the other). An essential component of fair, balanced coverage, is context. While some context in coverage is harder to achieve (i.e. direct, on the ground coverage inside Gaza), some is readily available, and could help us immeasurably to understand exactly what is happening inside Gaza. All without having to set a reporter anywhere near the hostilities. That gap is one part of a larger picture of mass failures within mass media.

We already have granular detail of the atrocities and terror committed against Israelis, but very little of the Palestinians in Gaza (thanks in large part to a sympathetic media and the pressure of news producers, among other factors).

Below is an experiment in context (from the comfort of my couch) to demonstrate just one way in which, I feel, the media has failed (miserably) in their duty to fairly and fully inform the public. I encourage other writers to take what is spelled out below and contextualize it to your own local geography and demography.

So, let’s start with a physical reference.

Since I live in San Diego, I am using this as my reference comparison (all news is local, so let’s localize it):

• San Diego County is 4,526 square miles

• The City of San Diego is 327.42 square miles

• The Gaza Strip is 140.9 square miles

• The relative populations are:

• San Diego County 3.26 million

• San Diego City 1.38 million

• Gaza Strip 2.3 million

The city of San Diego is about twice the physical size of the Gaza Strip, but with just around half of the population found in the Gaza Strip. To better reference this with locals, the length of the Gaza Strip is about 25 miles, roughly the distance from the northern end of La Jolla to the Mexican border. The width varies from 3.7 miles at the north (say coastal La Jolla to the 5 freeway), to 7.5 miles in the south (say Imperial Beach to western Bonita).

So, a relative swath of land would look like San Diego’s coastal communities, widening out at the south around National City/Chula Vista and south to the Mexican border. That would be the entire Gaza Strip.

To help understand this further, let’s look at the population density difference. Into the area outlined above, you would need to stuff just under twice the total population of the entire city. San Diego has a population density of 4,311/square mile (2018). Gaza has 14,000/square mile. So, basically that entire swath of San Diego outlined above, crammed full of more housing than developers could ever dream of (except Gaza has (had) way more affordable housing than we could ever hope for).

Now that we have some context, let’s go to the next step. For those that live in San Diego, imagine if we were all told from Downtown up to La Jolla to evacuate south of National City with 24 hours notice (hospitals included). Oh, with 1/4 of the cars (since most fuel is gone), and many portions of the Interstate 5 impassable. With bombs flying. With no food, water or electricity. No telephone/internet. No access to medications or dialysis.

Now that we’ve set the scene, add to this that Mexico has closed the border (build that wall!) and won’t let us escape south. We are told to move from one overcrowded camp with four toilets per 100,000 people to another, bombs flying, and no safe place. The smell of death everywhere, mixed with the smell of raw sewage and trash. No fresh water, no electricity, and infrequent phone/internet. Little to no access to medical care, or medicines. With 200+ deaths a day, and three times that in wounded. For week after week, with little to no sleep.

Even that does not really give context, since Gaza has been blockaded for 17 years. Most of us live somewhere far enough from our relatives that we can visit them if we want, but have a valid excuse not to. In Gaza, some people reaching adulthood have never seen the outside world other than on a phone or computer screen. Their entire life experience has been in an area much smaller than the City of San Diego. Their immediate family and extended family all grouped together like a village.

Now imagine 16,000 San Diegans killed, and 42,000 wounded. For further context, the US has the highest rate of annual gun deaths per capita among industrialized nations. Total deaths in the US were 48,830, or 14.6 per 100,000 (2021). Granted, the US is not at war (or is it?). So, over a period of two months, a space no bigger than half that of San Diego has seen over a third of the deaths our entire nation of 330 million people sees in an entire year. At the current rate of deaths, the Gaza Strip will reach US annual gun deaths by sometime in February (or sooner if humanitarian conditions do not improve). Put another way, if the US had the same annual per capita death rate as the Gaza Strip is enduring now, we would go from 14.6 per 100,000 to 4,174 per 100,000. That figure right there gives a genuine sense of the human toll of the ongoing trauma in Gaza.

Now, let’s localize another aspect. Out of 36 hospitals in Gaza, only 18 remain functioning according to the WHO. Here in San Diego, we have 14 hospitals in the greater metro area, most with far greater capacities than those in Gaza. Now, imagine we closed half of them. During, say, an ongoing natural disaster that lasted two months and created mass casualties. Somewhat like what happened in LA during COVID, when hospitals were swamped. Except we have to also include that our local hospitals are completely cut off from food, electricity, clean water, medicines and are inundated by legions seeking shelter. And, the hospitals we have are being regularly hit.

As of my writing, footage has come out of Gaza showing the remains of babies decomposed in their ICU beds after the damaged hospital was forced to evacuate by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). The babies could not be moved, and promised ambulances never came.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/08/middleeast/babies-al-nasr-gaza-hospital-what-we-know-intl/index.html

How would we respond to 10,400 women and children dead in San Diego (metro) in the space of two months? Babies and other patients left to die in hospitals? What would we feel towards those dropping bombs on us? Denying us food, water, electricity, medicine or any safe place to take shelter. How would we react to sharing a toilet with 100,000 other people? Every day, for two months? Fighting for food? Wood? A blanket? A shower? Communication?

How does any of this make Israel safer?

(Please consider writing to your local and national leaders to tell them you support an immediate cease fire. Feel free to include a link to this article.)