Thread by @TomZandman

If you’re reading this, know that it really happened.

I don’t know where and when you’re reading this. I’m writing from my home in Jaffa, Israel; the date is April 9, 2025, and the time is 13:00. >>

For years and years, we’ve said that “we need to flatten Gaza.” Well, Gaza is flat now. But not because we needed to, but because we wanted to. We wanted to flatten Gaza, and we did it. We did it to the sound of roaring applause. >>

The land filled with victorious cheers for every home collapsed and every family erased.

We say we did it because of the October 7, 2023 massacre, to rescue the hostages taken on that day, or to make sure that a similar massacre will never happen again. >>

I don’t know which story will prevail as the accepted explanation for the destruction of Gaza in the future, but these are lies. We did it because we wanted to.

We annihilated an entire region. >>

At this point in time, I do not yet know what will become of its more than two million inhabitants. We’ve already killed fifty thousand at least, probably more. As for the living, I know their present is as bad as human existence can get, and their future is cast in shadow. >>

There is no future in Gaza. It cannot sustain life in its current condition, and any rehabilitation will take many years and enormous investment. >>

Where things stand, we are blocking any offer to rebuild, any third party willing to take the Gaza Strip under its wing, as we continue the campaign of death and ruin. >>

There is no past in Gaza. It used to have life, it used to have civilization, but we annihilated every remnant of it. Universities, museums, mosques, graveyards. We didn’t need to destroy them, but we wanted to. We wanted to erase any sign that life ever existed there. >>

The countries of the Western world supported the annihilation or stood by. The United States funded and armed it. In Israel, all state institutions did their part. The academy, the press, the courts, the culture— everyone supported and legitimized it.>>

We all wanted to. Resistance from within was marginal and negligible, and we condemned those who resisted as traitors. The police banned any expression of resistance to the annihilation, and the public supported this silencing. >>

The annihilation of Gaza became the national project, and we carried it out diligently and joyfully. Those who took an active part were lauded as heroes. >>

We knew what we were doing. We knew about the indescribable suffering we were causing. We knew about the crimes we were committing in real time. We knew, and declared for all the world to hear, that this was what justice looked like, this was the face of morality. >>

I don’t know what I could have done differently. If there was anything I could have done to stop it, I didn’t know what it was. >>

I wanted to resist, but didn’t know how. Writing this is useless, except for bearing witness to what happened and expressing my helplessness in the face of it all.

This is how it happened.

Tom Zandman, an Israeli citizen