We feel the cold coming here in the Catskills. We know that all of our sense of security rests on being prepared for that reality. It also happens on occasion in these parts that the power goes out. Most of us have had the experience of extreme weather events where the power is gone for days, and in these times we appreciate how our very sanity is tied to these amenities, which we otherwise take for granted.

When we are comfortable and secure in our homes, we become sensitive to when others, through natural disasters and accidents, are cut off from the essentials of life. Our society has a rescue impulse built into our DNA. Help must be sent. Miners must be rescued from the mine collapse. Search parties go out for lost hikers. Especially when children are imperiled, the urge to save from harm comes to us at a gut level.

Why has this fundamental moral imperative now failed us? It is past time to claim that one doesn’t know or to spend time arguing about what to call what is happening to the people of Gaza. It has now been three years since the commencement of the systematic destruction of the infrastructure of life for the Palestinian people by the State of Israel.

This is three years of the mass bombings (1) of power utilities, sanitation infrastructure, water plants and wells, hospitals, schools, bakeries ad infinitum. Eighty-four percent of Gazans, 1.76 million people, are living in displacement camps—tents, collapsing structures, exposed conditions. (2)

“Overall, about 82 percent of structures in Gaza, roughly 200,000 buildings, have been damaged, and about two-thirds of those have been destroyed,” according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA. (3)

These unimaginable living conditions are then compounded by daily massacres, lethal surveillance and the constant, random taking of life (4) by the IOF, which can only be called terrorism by any standard. Something that we in the West draw a hard red line against.

We don’t even have to wonder what the intentions of the highest levels of the Israeli government are, as they have been clearly stated as making life so miserable for the native Palestinians that they will choose to leave. Finance minister Smotrich even admonishes western countries to take the displaced as refugees, so they will cease to be “a thorn in our [Israel’s] side.” (5)

And all of this terror and deprivation is being inflicted on children. Why are not our better selves stepping forward? 

Could it be because we have been subjected to a process of dehumanization? It is not the subjects of dehumanization who go through the process; it is the general public, it is us, who have been lied to in systematic ways. We are made to think the victims of this genocide somehow deserve what they’re getting. We all have that vindictive impulse as well, which can be played upon. All that is needed is some fabricated story of atrocity that you can smear these people with. Then the casual news reader starts to dismiss the suffering of this group, not be sad when their leader is killed, as all stories are told with good guys and bad guys. And our mainstream media are very adept at planting cues to make you think someone is a bad guy, who in reality might not be bad at all.

If we can see through these lies and propaganda, can we then focus on the reality of the current situation? These people of Gaza, defenseless civilians, old people and infants, women and families, are facing the harshest conditions humans can be asked to endure. Think of people shipwrecked on some barren rock. We know they’re there. We have to get help to them.

The people of Gaza need immediate adequate shelter. There is simply no excuse for allowing people to face oncoming grueling winter conditions in tents that are already failing after years of continuous weathering.

The question is, does public opinion have foundational authority in our republic? If enough people see the problem and call it unacceptable, can they force authorities, government and others, to allow immediate humanitarian aid, not interdicted by Israel, who have sworn their destruction, but in a meaningful way that represents a true rescue and freedom for these fellow human beings to rebuild their country?

(1)  www.theguardian.com/world/2026/oct/01/new-google-maps-images-reveal-massive-scale-of-devastation-in-gaza

(2)  daysofpalestine.ps/gazas-shelter-crisis-forces-families-into-collapsing-buildings-torn-tents/

(3)  www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/9/29/satellite-images-show-gaza-in-ruins-three-years-into-israels-genocidal-war

(4)  news.antiwar.com/2026/09/27/israeli-strikes-in-gaza-kill-at-least-eight-palestinians-over-three-days-as-relentless-attacks-continue/

(5) news.antiwar.com/2026/09/28/smotrich-says-the-key-to-forcing-palestinians-out-of-gaza-is-to-take-away-their-hope/

Doug Rogers lives in Long Eddy, NY.