I wrote the following letter to the Bath Chronicle about the ongoing crisis in Gaza:
We have seen escalating violence against innocent civilians in Gaza every day on the news. What is shown on the main channels is, of course, largely sanitised, and anyone who uses Twitter will have seen the constant stream of photos of dead children, bombed schools, bullet-riddled ambulances and destroyed neighbourhoods.
As I write this on the 1st of August, 1,400 people in Gaza have been killed, the vast majority of whom were entirely innocent civilians. Sixty-one Israeli soldiers have also died. Any death is a tragedy, but you simply cannot compare a small number of deaths in an attacking military force and innocent civilians who have nowhere to go, or indeed are killed in UN shelters.
Today an Israeli soldier has been captured. The Israeli government has said its response will be ‘crushing’. I dread to think how many more innocent people will die.
In the meantime, our government has barely spoken out against this carnage. Our MP has said nothing. We should be demanding that they speak up for innocents and condemn the Israeli action in the strongest possible terms.
Dominic Tristram, Green Party Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Bath