Two scorpions in a bottle ...

An injured woman and her child after an Israeli bombing near their house in the Gaza Strip.

Credit...Samar Abu Elouf for The New York Times

Tragic says it all as occupation and dominance over a people's existence costs, something Israel has done to Palestine beginning in 1948 when 700,000 Palestinians were driven out of their land with the end result of hatred emerging from said eviction of a different kind. Truman blew it in not insisting on a one state solution where Jews and Palestinians had to learn to live with one another whether they liked it or not instead of proposing a two state "solution" existing as two scorpions residing in a tiny bottle where peace is but an illusion while extremest groups hold sway like Hamas and far right Jews working hand in hand with Bibi, Israel's version of Agent Orange writ large.

As long as the US plays a partial judge in this disaster, the tragedy of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict will continue unabated while civilians of both entities suffer. One can only hope this catastrophie doesn't metastasize into something truly existential, a notion most disquieting to comtemplate without question.

The bomb exploded a few hundred feet from where I was sitting with my wife, Safa, and my three children, Ali, Karam and Adam. Ali, 13, screamed; Karam, 10, buried his face in my chest; and Adam, 5, burst into tears.

We were in the outdoor area at the Rafah crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt on Tuesday morning. I had been lucky enough to obtain permits for my wife and kids to cross into Egypt so they could wait out the terrifying violence raining down on Gaza in safety. But before their names were called, Israel bombed the crossing, at that point the only way in or out of the strip.

We quickly ushered the kids into the crossing’s hall, but a policeman started shouting for everyone to evacuate immediately; the crossing was being closed.

We were just one family, experiencing one terrifying close call. More than two million Palestinians are trapped inside Gaza, about half under the age of 18, as Israel pounds us in retaliation for Hamas’s surprise attack on Saturday, with the United States promising “surging” military support.

Endgame ...

No electricity means no internet or connection to the outside world. Raw sewage is seeping into Gaza’s streets; waste treatment facilities require electricity. The water supply has been cut. Driving south on Monday, I passed five United Nations schools-turned-shelters, so jampacked with displaced people that families spilled out into the yards. Dread grows inside me, as I know the worst is yet to come.

The Warsaw Ghetto comes to mind here does it not?

Jewish police at a barricaded entrance to the Warsaw ghetto. Poland, February 1941.

“History never repeats itself, but it does often rhyme.” - Mark Twain

Addendum ... 

A man reacts outside a burning collapsed building following
Israeli bombardment in Gaza City on October 11.

The United Nations and several humanitarian groups
have sharply criticized Israel’s evacuation order.

“After days of airstrikes, the Israeli Defense Forces have ordered the Palestinians in Gaza City and its surroundings to move to the south of the territory,” UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said Friday, ahead of a Security Council meeting about the conflict.

“Moving more than one million people across a densely populated warzone to a place with no food, water, or accommodation, when the entire territory is under siege, is extremely dangerous – and in some cases, simply not possible,” he said.

Graphic: Lou Robinson and Rachel Wilson, CNN

This will not end well.