the destruction of homes in Gaza reminds me of what happened to my city, Homs

This text accompanies an episode of The Dialog Weekly podcast that includes an interview with the creator, Ammar Azzouz.

The Israeli bombardment of Gaza following the Hamas assault on southern Israel on October 7 has compelled tons of of hundreds of Palestinians out of their properties. At the least 43% of all housing items within the Gaza Strip have been both destroyed or broken for the reason that begin of the hostilities, in accordance with the Ministry of Public Works and Housing in Gaza.

Israel says that 1,400 folks have been killed within the Hamas assault on Israel and greater than 220 taken hostage. In the meantime, in accordance with the well being authorities in Hamas-run Gaza, greater than 6,500 folks have been killed in Israeli air strikes and greater than 17,400 injured.

There’s a fashionable time period for what’s taking place in Gaza. Domicide refers back to the deliberate destruction of residence, or the killing of the town or residence. It comes from the Latin phrase domus which suggests residence and cide, which is deliberate killing.

However, residence right here doesn’t solely imply the bodily, tangible constructed surroundings of individuals’s properties and properties, it additionally refers to folks’s sense of belonging and identification. We’re seeing in lots of conflicts and wars the world over that alongside the destruction of structure, folks’s sense of dignity and belonging can be being focused.

There’s a hyperlink between genocide and domicide: genocide refers back to the killing of individuals and domicide to the erasure of their presence and their materials tradition. In 2022, a UN knowledgeable on housing argued that domicide ought to be recognised as a global crime.

When individuals are repeatedly displaced from their properties, generally for many years, or perhaps a lifetime, there’s a way of grief and sorrow that their historical past is being erased.

The destruction of Homs

My residence metropolis of Homs, Syria, which I give attention to in my analysis, has been utterly remodeled for the reason that 2011 rebellion in opposition to the federal government of Bashar al Assad.

Over 50% of the neighbourhoods have been closely destroyed, and over 1 / 4 partially destroyed. Throughout the nation, greater than 12 million Syrians have been displaced from their properties. Of those, 6.8 million individuals are displaced contained in the nation, and 5.4 million folks stay as refugees in neighbouring international locations and past.

Domicidal campaigns like this additionally work to erase proof {that a} group really existed in a selected place and that it had a historical past and tradition there. That is an try to jot down folks out of historical past via destroying their properties and heritage in a approach that’s systematic and deliberate. In Homs, for instance, complete neighbourhoods that opposed the Assad regime have been focused and razed to the bottom. In different cities, akin to Damascus and Hama, complete neighbourhoods have been worn out via new land and property legal guidelines which designate these neighbourhoods as “casual”.

Hearken to Ammar Azzouz discuss his analysis on The Dialog Weekly podcast.

Domicide in Gaza

There isn’t a want to match Homs and Gaza, as every place has its personal context and battle. However I’ve been following the information repeatedly for the reason that Hamas assault on Israel, and I can’t cease wanting on the updates in regards to the heavy Israeli bombing. The dimensions of destruction, the extent of mass displacement is simply so heartbreaking. Gaza has been described as an open jail and folks in that open jail have been pushed away from their properties.

Israel says it has the correct to defend itself, and is concentrating on Hamas positions, however the scale to which abnormal folks’s properties, hospitals and “protected areas” have been hit means what’s taking place in Gaza is completely domicidal. Folks dwelling within the north of the Gaza Strip have been informed by Israeli authorities to maneuver to the south of the territory to the supposed “protected areas”, however the southern areas proceed to be bombed too. The bombardment is killing civilians, killing their on a regular basis lives and inflicting the mass destruction of neighbourhoods. As we’ve seen in movies, complete buildings have been levelled.

Israeli-British historian Avi Shlaim, an emeritus fellow on the College of Oxford, who was born in Baghdad, and is taken into account certainly one of Israel’s crucial “new historians”, referred to as Israel’s actions “state-sponsored terrorism”. Raz Segal, an Israeli historian, wrote: “Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza is sort of specific, open, and unashamed.” Others argue vehemently in opposition to any ethical equivalence with the Hamas assaults.

Disaster for Palestinians

It’s not the primary time that Palestinians in Gaza have had their properties destroyed. Lots of the Palestinians who stay in Gaza are individuals who have been displaced earlier than. For this reason many teachers, activists, journalists and even Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan, name for context, for situating the Palestinian battle inside a historical past of struggling, dispossession and compelled displacement for the reason that Nakba (disaster) in 1948.

When a million individuals are ordered to depart their properties it’s necessary to know that these folks have attachment to their locations, to their neighbourhoods, to their streets. The affect of displacement and lack of residence can stay with folks for his or her lifetime.

In my interviews with folks from the town of Homs, I’ve heard many individuals say that even when they’re nonetheless dwelling in Homs, they really feel like strangers in their very own metropolis, or they really feel exiled inside their very own metropolis. For folks such because the Palestinian diaspora or the Iraqi diaspora or the Syrian diaspora who’re unable to return to their residence international locations, that struggling and ache and trauma of displacement continues.

I think about folks have completely different mechanisms to deal with these traumatic occasions, however that’s why it’s so necessary to have reminiscence tasks the place folks not less than can mirror on what occurred to heal and grieve, even when, sadly, many are unable to return and a few spend their lifetime in exile.

After researching conflicts, wars, dictatorships and occupations for a number of years, I all the time say that the ache of individuals begin as a headline within the information media, and turns right into a footnote in historical past. Allow us to resist that, allow us to bear in mind the life of each human being and maintain the battle for a free and simply world for everybody.