Google Nakba.
For many people, the thing that comes to mind first upon hearing the date October 7 is Hamasās attack on Israel in 2023, which resulted in 1,139 Israeli deaths and about 240 hostages. But what does it mean that the subsequent attacks by Israel on Gaza, that are incomparable in force and military power, that have continued for three years and counting, donāt come to mind first? That the ensuing ongoing genocide in Palestine is considered secondary?Ā
a look back in time
October 7, 2023 is not the day Palestinian suffering began, nor the origin of the āconflictā (re: genocide) ā May of 1948 is. A little history for you. The Institute for Middle Eastern Understanding writes, āThe Nakba (ācatostropheā in Arabic) refers to the violent expulsion of approximately three quarters of all Palestinians from their homes and homeland by Zionist militias and the new Israeli army during the state of Israelās establishment (1947-49).ā May 15th is the annual day of commemoration of the Nakba for Palestinians worldwide. According to the Institute for Palestine Studies, āthis catastrophe resulted in the dispossession of an estimated 750,000 refugees from historic Palestine, and the uprooting of two-thirds of the Palestinian Arab population and their society in the process of the creation of the state of Israel.āĀ
In 1947, the UN āagainst the will of the majority Indigenous Palestine Arab populationā¦gave 56% of the land to the proposed Jewish stateā¦The Palestinian Arab state was to be created on just 42% of Palestine, even though Muslim and Christian Palestinians made up a large majority of the population and were indigenous to all of the landā (Institute for Middle Eastern Understanding). For nearly a century now, Zionist Israel has been oppressing Palestinians in their own country. Palestinians are considered and treated like second-class citizens, owing to the very laws that make up the settler colonialist Apartheid state of Israel, and the thoughts and beliefs of its racist, Zionist government.
the suffering of the present
Since October 2023, Israel has bombed Gaza brutally and relentlessly, targeting hospitals, places of worship, and schools ā justifying all of it by insisting Hamas was sequestered under every location, yet plainly not caring about the countless war crimes they were racking up. Perhaps Israel isnāt aware, but blowing up protected places like hospitals is forbidden by the Geneva Convention. But Israel does not seem to care about playing war by the rules. Which makes sense, when you realize itās so obviously not a war at all, but a genocide with a capital G.
On year three of the genocide, more than 74,000 Palestinians have been killed, at least 21,000 of them children. Unfortunately, this death toll doesnāt even count the thousands missing or buried under rubble, unfound and unable to be identified and returned to their families. More than 175,000 Palestinians have been wounded, with roughly 24% suffering life-long injuries, āa quarter of them childrenā. Since the āceasefireā was reached on October 10, 2025, Israel has violated it consistently, with Al Jazeera citing only 36 days in the past 361 (as of October 7, 2026) of no reported bombings.
Palestinians are still being killed. Since the October 2025 āceasefireā, Israel has murdered more than a thousand people. Palestinian lives are still being shattered every day, brutality and occupation forming a devastating normal. Despite their genocide being so explicitly documented, so laughably available for any person in the world to witness via that marvelous little technology called the Internet, their suffering is still denied. Their right to their land, to peaceful living, to not be bombed every single day of their lives, is incessantly undermined.
who decides whose pain matters more?
October 7, 2023 should not be hailed as the only day of violence worth commemorating when discussing this āconflictā (genocide). Palestinians in Palestine have been undergoing October 7ths for decades. Where is the outrage for them? Why is their trauma not counted? It is extremely important to think about why it is that the media and institutions and society as a whole focus so much on an attack of resistance ā a resistance born under decades of oppression ā over the constant and decades-old attacks of the state oppressor. For those with brains, itās clear as day why.
From the river to the sea. Viva Palestina!