Over the course of the Gaza war, I’ve occasionally quoted a linguistics scholar in Gaza, Mohammed Alshannat, who is pretty much the opposite of Hamas.
In his writings before the war, Alshannat admired Western democracy, condemned suicide bombings and yearned for Arabs and Jews to live in peace and harmony. With the cease-fire, he is now trying to recover the bodies of relatives and bury them.
“Our beloved Gaza is gone,” he texted in English, adding that the survivors envy the dead: “They don’t have to see it.”
I understand this exhausted man’s heartbreak, after months of hunger and homelessness and seeing his son injured. The cease-fire is welcome, but there’s no clear path forward and not much to celebrate.
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