By John Q. Hosedrinker 
An Israeli strike in Deir Al Balah, Gaza, resulted in the deaths of 15 people, including women and children, who were gathered outside a health center. The Israeli military stated it was targeting a Hamas militant involved in the October 7 attacks, while also acknowledging reports of injuries and stating the incident is under review. Medical staff and aid organizations, including Project HOPE, reported the clinic’s location had been shared with the Israeli military. Despite a partial lifting of the blockade, access to aid and medicine remains limited, with health officials reporting widespread suffering in Gaza.
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Children queuing at Gaza health center killed in Israeli strike, medics say. This, sadly, feels like a recurring nightmare. It’s a headline that’s been echoing across my awareness, a story that seems to repeat itself with horrifying consistency. Innocents, children, slaughtered. It’s a brutal reality that’s hard to process, and the weight of it is heavy.
The immediate reaction, and I think a common one, is a deep sense of frustration. The “oops, our bad” response, often attributed to the IDF, rings hollow when the pattern is so tragically clear. We’re left asking, how many times? How many innocent lives must be lost before this changes? The very thought of it is sickening.
What’s someone supposed to do with this constant wave of dread and disgust? It’s hard to find a way to process the information, the constant reminders of a conflict where children pay the ultimate price. Then you consider the potential repercussions, the future. Bombing a child, a person’s whole world, and expecting no retaliation feels unrealistic. It’s creating a cycle of hate and anger that may take generations to unwind.
It’s reaching a point where the labels, the justifications, lose their meaning. Even for those who may have supported the initial response to the October 7th attack, the scale and frequency of these tragedies demands a reevaluation. The idea that a country with such advanced intelligence can’t avoid killing children while targeting Hamas feels absurd. It’s easy to see how a two-year-old seeking medical care could be mistaken for something else, right? It’s hard to imagine how someone is not desensitized by now.
And the retraction, the slow erasure of the story that often follows, feels like an insult. Buried deep within the news cycle, while the ‘useful idiots’ of the internet rage. It is standard operating procedure. It can all be forgotten in a few days.
The focus, for me, needs to be on the children, on the humanitarian crisis, and the urgent need for a lasting peace. The hostages, a priority. Hamas, the aggressor, bears an enormous responsibility. But it cannot be the only perspective.
And the narrative, so often, becomes distorted by the competing claims. There are claims that Hamas uses civilians as human shields, a clear violation of international law. Military operations conducted while hiding behind civilians is a war crime. But also the use of air quotes by reporters when describing the actions of the IDF. The media sometimes seems more focused on the “us vs. them” than on the core issue of human suffering.
You see horrific footage. Children lying motionless. Screams. Blood. The reports come from medics, from what some would call the Gaza Ministry of Health, which, of course, has its own biases. But it’s hard to ignore the images. They cut deep. There is video proof, so many people trying to discredit any account that goes against a predetermined narrative. This has to stop.
The pro-life party’s silence is a constant question. The United Nations needs to become involved.
The response, as you might expect, is a jumble of arguments. Some argue that Hamas is to blame. Hamas, they say, could end this all immediately by releasing the hostages and surrendering. Others point out the history of the conflict. The blockade. The founding of Hamas. All important context, of course.
Then there are the accusations that the IDF is deliberately targeting civilians. The reports from Israeli newspapers, that soldiers are ordered to shoot at unarmed Gazans waiting for aid. These accusations are very difficult to take in.
One aspect of this that is particularly disheartening is the constant need to question the sources. Even when there is video evidence, there is a constant stream of people trying to undermine the validity of the information.
The cycle of violence is a deeply rooted problem. There are those that see the conflict as a direct response to the actions of Hamas. They see this retaliation for the rape and pillaging Hamas has done. But this is complicated by the idea of the creation of generations of hatred.
And finally, there’s the idea of aid convoys. The fact that international aid convoys, with permission, were bombed, it is just another layer of complication in the conflict.