Spreading the balm of love over war wounds

By Captain Mahmood Al Mahmood 

The scenes of wailing families carrying biers of their beloved dead, blank-eyed and traumatised children and mothers struggling to safeguard their families in classrooms-turned-refugee shelters are invading our living rooms daily as we follow the latest Israeli-Palistian war.

In the old days, there were strict rules about how to conduct warfare – civilians were to be protected and hospitals and schools as well as community electricity and water supply lines were to be safeguarded. War was for the soldiers, a professional if ugly undertaking where the best side were victors.

In the Israeli-Pal - istian war, these lines of wartime chivalry have sadly been blurred long ago.

Today, a humanitarian crisis grips the Gaza Strip where hospitals are being damaged, children’s studies interrupted and class - rooms converted into rudimentary shelter for thousands of families.

Many hundreds of Palestinians working in Israel who were summarily dismissed from their jobs found their return home blocked because of security restrictions.

Even urgent aid is not reaching those in need.

It is a conflict that is many years old and one that will not be resolved tomorrow.

Since that is the case, we should at least try and protect the most vulnerable – the old and infirm, the children and women.

Our children represent our future.

If they are exposed to the brutal conditions of war and robbed of education, we will have citizens and community leaders in the future who cannot rule or live in compassion.

The old and the sick are universally regarded as people to be protected while our women are accorded the highest status in the Holy Qu’ran.

We cannot defile the sacred promise we have made to these people.

As politicians and world leaders fight to show support, our wise King Hamad has called for peace and calm and directed the Royal Humanitarian Foundation to do all it can to support charity work for Palestinians. In such circumstances, what the world needs is warriors of peace.

Men and women who will bring relief and humane perspectives to a bitter fight and spread the balm of love over the wounds of war.