with 1.5 million people, the Gaza Strip represents one of the most densely populated areas on earth—and one of the most volatile. Following years of tension, Israel began its bombardment of the Gaza Strip on December 27th, 2008 lasting until January 18th, 2009. This war killed over 1,400 Palestinians, the majority of whom were civilians. On the Israeli side, 13 were killed, three of whom were civilians as well as four Israeli soldiers in two separate cases of friendly fire.

With unfortunate civilian casualties on both sides, the only difference aside from the numbers, Day explains, is that, while Israelis could evacuate the border, innocent Palestinians in Gaza had no where to go. Following the war, all borders have remained closed by the Israeli government, except for the Rafah crossing, controlled by Egypt. Both the Israelis and Egyptians have allowed only minimal aid and limited supplies into the Gaza Strip.

Studying at the American University in Cairo (AUC), Day heard through the grapevine about a coalition of women students from AUC and from Gazan Universities, who were organizing an aid and advocacy trip to the Gaza Strip through the United Nations. Thus, at the end of her semester in Cairo, five months after the war, Day and Wisconsin Senior, Jesse Ayala, went with thirty-five other students, journalists, professors, and activists to the Gaza Strip—the first student delegation to enter Gaza since the beginning of the Second Intifada. In her own words, Day shares her experience:

There are many stories that I need to share about my experience in Gaza. The destruction, the misery, the humiliation—it’s really unbelievable to see war up close, and something that haunts you long after you’ve left the scene. Now returning to the United States and watching the coverage of the Israeli-Hamas war crimes investigations, I feel the most important insight that I can share with Americans is the size of the Gaza Strip. It took twenty-five minutes to drive from the Egyptian border to Gaza’s northern border with Israel. Across, it took maybe 5-10 minutes depending on traffic and roadblocks. The Strip is a tiny area with 1.5 million people packed tightly into it—for a little perspective, it’s twice the size of Madison with over seven-times its population—and I emphasize this point in order to confront some of the misleading information about Israel’s War on Hamas. 

Since the break of the war, media coverage consistently emphasized the precautionary measures that Israel was taking to prevent civilian casualties. They cited telephone calls made to civilian households in Hamas-areas, the leaflets dropped from airplanes encouraging evacuation, and the use of precision weaponry in all attacks. Now understanding the geography of this area, these claims of precaution are not only misleading, but are, more accurately, simply insulting.

Hamas rockets entered the Strip from its southern border with Egypt and fired into Israel from the north, and thus, Israel rightly targeted these two areas. The attack on Gaza continued, however, from the Mediterranean coast—the entirety of Gaza’s coastal property is blown to pieces. Furthermore, with Israeli ground forces and air strikes coming in from the north and the east of the Gaza Strip, the only safe place to which any civilian could evacuate—one would reasonably assume since all international borders were closed—would be the core of the Strip: Gaza City.

Gaza City, the most densely populated center of the Strip, however, was not only the first place targeted by Israeli strikes, but it was also the site in which Israel used White Phosphorus, a chemical weapon that won’t stop burning your body tissue unless you surgically cut out the entire area of contact, hopefully before it reaches a person’s organs. Under international humanitarian law, it is entirely illegal to use chemical weapons in a civilian setting; the release of these gaseous clouds in this urban area can hardly be framed as a “commitment to the use of precision weaponry.”

This bombardment resulted in the destruction of hospitals, universities, mosques, UN and other international aid organizations’ facilities, all civilian government agencies from the police station to the Department of Education, and a countless number of civilian businesses and homes—the “collateral damage” is immeasurable.

We toured the entire strip—from the rubble of businesses in the north, to the danger of the illegal tunnels in the south—and received detailed reports on Israeli military maneuvers by the United Nations. The tiny size of the area and the immense density of its population are the two points that I want to make very clear to Americans, most of whom will never travel to this region of the world, particularly to Palestine. There was no safe place in Gaza during the bombardment. That cannot be emphasized enough. And thus, I’d like to make it clear that, due to Israel’s gross disregard for safety of Palestinian civilians, this campaign cannot be called “a War on Hamas;” it was a massacre of Gazans.

I strongly encourage students to read more about the Gaza War and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. I’d love to speak with anyone about my experiences, especially to anyone that disagrees with me. Lastly, I whole-heartedly support the call for independent third-party investigations into the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by both the Israelis and Hamas.

BY RACHEL COHEN