Almost a year ago the Source intrepidly published The Winds of Gaza — Our Moral Hurricane (Open Forum: 08/21/2025*). To the world’s shame, those violent, murderous gales continue unabated, driven by an unconscionable moral erosion. It is only fitting that we persist attempting to grasp the unleashed horror, feel the anguish, listen to the howling of a people crying out to their human family to intervene and end the nightmare.
Impossible as it is for statistical data to capture the human suffering of any humanitarian crisis, even a brief examination of the raw data from the extensive United Nations reports referenced below provides a widow into the magnitude of this murderous campaign waged upon the Palestinian people. An entire population insidiously labeled an enemy which must be vanquished because of the lethal threat they pose to the state of Israel, to whom the U.S. supplies all the money and all the bombs needed to destroy them.
Know the Enemy
In any conflict it’s important to know the enemy; a task Israel has made violently treacherous in Gaza. At least 209 Palestinian journalists and media workers have been killed in the Gaza Strip since the start of the war in October 2023, according to verified counts by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)*. Alongside the high death toll, Israel explicitly prohibits foreign and independent international journalists from entering Gaza, except through its border checkpoints. Foreign news organizations must rely entirely on local Palestinian correspondents who face displacement, starvation, and constant physical danger. Any international reporter permitted into Gaza is strictly constrained to brief military press tours, controlled by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and prohibited from any independent interviews with local Palestinians. In the end, all final broadcast footage of any foreign correspondent must pass through military censors.
Demographics
The current estimated surviving population of the Gaza Strip (approximately the size of St. Croix) is 2.13 million people, having declined by 254,000 due to mass casualties, mass starvation, forced displacement and a severe drop in the birth rate amidst deteriorating living conditions. Over half of the total population (of our enemy) is under 20 years old, 50% of which are children under the age of 15.
Housing and Shelter
Approximately 81% of all physical structures and 92% of the total housing stock in the Gaza Strip have been damaged or completely destroyed, according to the Joint UN, World Bank, and European Union data from the Gaza Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment (RDNA)*. More than 371,000 individual housing units have been ruined or compromised, forcing over 60% of the population into total homelessness. Entire urban communities have been completely levelled to the ground. Heavy machinery has flattened remaining rubble to build military roads and security corridors. The destruction has generated an unprecedented 68 million metric tons of debris, less than 0.5% of which has been cleared.
Today over 1.5 million Palestinians are restricted to living in temporary, makeshift, or severely overcrowded communal shelters. Severe over-crowding forces multiple families to share single tents or small spaces. Tens of thousands of households reside in heavily compromised structures. Overcrowded school classrooms, hospitals, community centers, warehouses, all lack basic living infrastructure. At least 5,000 households are estimated to be entirely unsheltered, sleeping directly outdoors without any overhead cover.
Food
An estimated 77% of the population faces high levels of acute food insecurity. Food aid relies on continuous, tightly regulated incoming trucks with the World Food Program feeding approximately 1.6 million people every single month, providing hot meals, fresh bread, and standardized food parcels.
Food distribution operates under a highly complex system governed by international logistic frameworks, transit through strict Israeli military inspection points, capping intended daily entry at 600 trucks, with actual flow down to a fraction of that target. Due to severe water and fuel blockades, distribution lists rely heavily on dry or canned goods (pasta, lentils, flour, tahini) highly problematic because families lack clean water and cooking oil necessary to prepare them. A total breakdown of civil public order means that convoys are frequently intercepted by starving crowds before reaching secure storage warehouses, disrupting planned, equitable distribution schedules.
Water and Electricity
The near-total lack of electrical power severely paralyses local water processing, forcing over 90% of the population to rely on severely contaminated or unsafe water sources. The primary power grid remains entirely dark due to the destruction of transmission lines and a total block on high-voltage repairs. Vital facilities — such as hospitals and water pumps — rely strictly on local fuel-powered generators. Constant shortages of engine lubricants, spare parts, and diesel frequently freeze these backup networks. The World Health Organization recommends a minimum of 100 litres of water per person daily for survival. In Gaza average access has plummeted to 1.5 to 3 liters per person per day, for all drinking, cooking, and hygiene needs.
Schools
Approximately 93% of all school buildings in Gaza require total reconstruction or major structural repairs. Surviving schools have been converted into packed collective emergency shelters or ad-hoc medical points. The UN Education Cluster operates over 110 tent-based Temporary Learning Spaces. These utilize “school-in-a-carton” models, recreational kits, and radio instruction to reach roughly half of Gaza’s school-age children. Higher education is entirely frozen; Gaza’s key medical and academic institutions, including those attached to the Islamic University of Gaza and Al-Azhar University, have been reduced to rubble.
Medical Facilities
Only half of Gaza’s 38 hospitals are partially open, alongside roughly 48% to 58% of primary healthcare centers. Zero hospitals are operating at full capacity. Shortages of essential medicines hover around 50%. Vital life-saving gear, such as ultrasound machines, ventilators, incubators, and ECG paper — is heavily delayed or blocked under “dual-use” import restrictions. Hospitals are regularly forced to postpone critical surgeries and close emergency units due to a total lack of generator fuel.
Fatalities and Casualties
As of June 2026, the Gaza Ministry of Health reports 73,035 Palestinians killed and 173,368 injured since October 2023, with children making up roughly 44% of the war’s casualties, while women account for 26%. The UN Office for Coordination of Human Affairs (UN OCHA) reports that at least 593 humanitarian workers have been killed in Gaza since the outbreak of the war. A June 2026 UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry report concluded that Palestinian children have been directly targeted by sniper fire and drones, citing an “unparalleled” rate of over 20,000 children killed.
A Non-existent Ceasefire
Despite a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas that came into effect on Oct. 10, 2025 (the third pause since the war began) hostilities did not cease but rather they were reduced. The killing and injuring of Palestinians, did not stop. According to the June 29 Briefing to the UN Security Council, “Israeli airstrikes and military operations have continued across Gaza, resulting in further fatalities and bringing the total killed since the ceasefire to over 1,000, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. Israeli forces continue to expand the scope of their territorial control in Gaza, and the extension of areas requiring coordination for humanitarian operations. Israel has said that it currently controls approximately 70% of the Gaza Strip. This encroachment of areas under Israeli control is reducing the space available to civilians. Palestinians in Gaza are concentrated in increasingly limited areas, living amid insecurity and violence.”*
Who is the Enemy?
“Every child, every baby in Gaza is an enemy. The enemy is not Hamas… Every child in Gaza is the enemy… We need to conquer Gaza and colonize it and not leave a single Gazan child there. There is no other victory.” — Moshe Feiglin, politician and former Likud member of the Israeli Knesset, in an interview with Israel’s Channel 14 on May 20, 2025. The Netanyahu Likud government has yet to issue a public condemnation of Moshe Feiglin’s statements.
“I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed. We are fighting human animals, and we will act accordingly.” Operational execution orders of Yoav Gallant, Israeli Minister of Defense on Oct. 9, 2023, speaking to IDF Southern Command. Israel newspaper, Haaretz, Oct. 9, 2023
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Minister of Defense, Yoav Gallant, have been indicted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including starvation as a method of warfare, murder, and persecution. Arrest warrants for both men were issued on Nov. 21, 2024.
Isn’t it Time?
Even a glimpse into the vile darkness of the Gaza abyss makes one want to turn and run. Tragically, that urge to flee, driven by feelings of impotency and fear, then gaslit by an extremely well-funded, well-organized campaign of “pseudo anti-semitism” has allowed the evil to grow and overshadow the entire globe, silencing our voices which must be lifted and joined together.
Isn’t it time to set aside the politics? Isn’t it time to close the books filled with pontifical pronouncements? Isn’t it time to walk away from those harboring contempt? Isn’t it time to replace the demagogues who perpetuate this mass murder? Isn’t it time to close our ears to the vengeful railings of the self-righteous? Isn’t it time to listen to the screams? Of mothers holding their lifeless child? Of children crushed inside their demolished homes? Of fathers left without families they couldn’t protect? Isn’t it time to stop pretending who we are when we turn our back on this human catastrophe? Isn’t it time to stand up? Isn’t it time to embrace the morality that once guided us to what we knew was right? Isn’t it time to grab hold of the goodness that dwells inside us? Isn’t it time to weep at what humanity has allowed to happen? Isn’t it time to heal? Isn’t it time to let love conquer hate? Isn’t it time to find our soul buried within our frail and flawed frames?
“Listen to the wind, it talks. Listen to the silence, it speaks. Listen to your heart, it knows.” — Native American proverb
— John Sullivan is a retired international lawyer living on St. Croix, a U.S. Marine Corps Veteran (1964-67) and Returned U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer
Sources:
“The Winds of Gaza – Our Moral Hurricane”
https://stcroixsource.com/2025/08/21/open-forum-the-winds-of-gaza-our-moral-hurricane/
Report: Gaza Strip Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment – European Union, United Nations and World Bank
https://www.un.org/unispal/document/report-gaza-strip-rapid-damage-20apr26/
“The Question of Palestine” Briefing to the Security Council on the Middle East, 29 June 2026”
https://www.un.org/unispal/document/coi-report-23jun26/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
UNRWA Situation Report # 228 on the Humanitarian Crisis in the Gaza Strip and the Occupied West Bank including East Jerusalem, Wednesday, July 1, 2026
https://www.unrwa.org/resources/reports/unrwa-situation-report-228-humanitarian-crisis-gaza-strip-and-occupied-west-bank?__cf_chl_f_tk=qyCG7RzXDmgxb5hbkWkEcis1fd4Z_6vGVIbuGvZgBYA-1783373078-1.0.1.1-fDdBl3oEpumqlR0Mg.rzKDSdfVw3..B0fNrd4olq0yw
OCHA Gaza Humanitarian Response — Situation Report No. 66 06 Feb 2026
https://www.un.org/unispal/document/ocha-gaza-humanitarian-response-situation-report-no-66/
Committee to Protect Journalists “Israel – War Attacks on Journalists across the Region since October 7, 2023”
https://cpj.org/issue/israel-gaza-war/
