TEHRAN - Today marks one year since Hamas attacked southern Israel during which about 1,140 were killed and about 250 were taken prisoner. Since that day Israel has been relentlessly dropping bombs on the Gaza Strip.

There was just a one-week truce -- from Nov. 24 to Nov. 30 -- in which Hamas released 105 captives and Israel freed 240 Palestinian prisoners.

The attack provided a pretext for Israel to commit unspeakable crimes, which have been described as war crimes and crimes against humanity by The Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC). These cruelties have been committed against the Gazan civilians who had no role in the Oct. 7 attack.

No civilian in any part of the coastal enclave has been safe since Oct. 7 last year. While they have been fleeing from one place to another the Israeli fighter jets have been tracking them down to kill them. They have been targeted in their homes, schools, churches, mosques, and hospitals. Israel has created a hell for them. It has been punishing them collectively.

The Gazans have been facing an Armageddon. Even the most professional writers cannot truly describe the tragedy that the civilians have been facing all through this one-year-long war that is still raging. In its relentless attacks with American-supplied fighter jets and 1000- and 2000-pound bombs, Israel has even killed 39 prisoners captured on Oct. 7.

By late April 2024, it was estimated that Israel had dropped over 70,000 tons of bombs over Gaza, surpassing the bombing of Dresden, Hamburg, and London combined during World War II.

The scenes of small children weeping on the corpses of their mothers; mothers mourning on dead bodies of their children; dead children on the hands of fathers; hungry children collecting spilled flour from the sandy ground; children drinking water from puddles, people being shot dead while trying to get food for their hungry families; ambulances being attacked while carrying the wounded; and so many other heart-rendering scenes cannot be erased from the memory of the people in the world.

A serious question is how much cruelty should be done for the Oct. 7 attack, which successive Israeli rulers are truly responsible for as they have failed to heal this bleeding wound after the passage of 76 years.

Humanity is being sacrificed in Gaza and the world has somehow become numb to the tragedies of the people there. So far, about 38 people have been killed for every person killed in the Oct. 7 attack, and thousands of Palestinians are still unaccounted for. They are buried under rubles. Add to this figure those who have been injured and maimed for life. 

The Israeli extremists’ thirst for shedding more blood has not yet been quenched. The opponents of the barbaric war have also been shamefully labeled as anti-Semites.

Moreover, resignations, self-immolations, attempts by some American citizens to put themselves on fire, and widespread anti-war protests intended to put pressure on Washington to stop shipping arms to Israel have been ignored by the White House. Unfortunately, the Israeli genocidal campaign has spread to Lebanon as well.