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Gaza Has Been Hit Hard, But What Has Changed?
[Telegraph-UK] Tim Butcher - I knew Gaza well, so after the cease-fire I was able to see for myself. It was clear that bombing targets had been selected and then hit, often several times, with precision munitions. Buildings nearby had been damaged but, in most cases, I saw the primary target had borne the brunt. For the most part, I was struck by how cosmetically unchanged Gaza appeared to be. It has been a tatty, poorly-maintained mess for decades and the presence of fresh bombsites did not make any great difference. The same can be said for the mindset of many of Gaza's residents. So steeped is the Gazan mindset in the narrative of victimhood that there was no internally-focused groundswell of anger at what had happened. For 60 years Palestinians in Gaza have dwelled on victimhood, a supplicant people grown dependent on foreign aid and reliant on the role Israel plays as the scapegoat for all ills. What many Gazans find most amazing is the ratio of Israeli war dead to Palestinian. For each of the 13 Israelis (three civilians and ten soldiers) who died during the Gaza operation, more than a hundred Palestinians died.