A Day for Gaza
JVL Introduction
The US magazine, The Nation, suspended all other activity for a day, devoting its website only to materials about Gaza, produced by people from Gaza.
Its reasons are given in its 6th February Newsletter, reposted below.
In the opening words of its lead story “A Day for Gaza”:
“Gaza has been suspended in a bloody limbo for months. Despite the much-hyped ceasefire between Israel and Hamas—declared on October 10, 2025—peace has not arrived in the Gaza Strip. The bombings have continued, killing at least 509 people; hunger persists; aid trickles in rather than flows; and Israel remains in control of nearly 60 percent of the terrain. Hundreds of thousands of people continue to live in threadbare tents. Meanwhile, US promises of a “technocratic governance” mask a colonial project bestowed on a people with no say.”
We encourage you to follow the links to its special articles.
RK
A Day for Gaza
On Tuesday, we suspended all normal coverage for the day. Instead, we devoted our website entirely to one subject: Gaza. That meant publishing only pieces by people in or from the Gaza Strip.
As Rayan El Amine, Lizzy Ratner, and I wrote on Tuesday, we decided to do “A Day for Gaza” for a few reasons: to highlight the ongoing crisis that the people of Gaza are facing at the hands of Israel and its allies; to recommit ourselves to covering this critical issue and to giving Palestinians the opportunity to tell their own stories; and to offer an invitation and a challenge to other members of the media, who seem to have all but forgotten about this ongoing tragedy. Coverage of Gaza has plummeted in the months since the so-called “ceasefire” was declared in October, even as Israel’s genocidal ambitions have not wavered. We were determined to make a statement about our own resolve not to look away and to press our fellow journalists to do the same.
But none of that is as important as the pieces themselves. There’s Nation writer Mohammed R. Mhawish’s piercing analysis of the hollowness of the ceasefire; Asmaa Dwaima’s devastating elegy to her late sister; Deema Hattab’s loving reconstruction of the many cultural landmarks that have been lost to the genocide; and Ali Skaik’s beautiful, heartbreaking conversation with the denizens of a single block in Gaza City, just to name a few. The rest of the pieces range just as widely—from literary criticism to dreams to photography to personal testimony.
It’s no small thing for a news organization, in the midst of a seemingly endless constellation of crises both at home and abroad, to pause its operations for a day in support of a cause. That is why I am proud to work for The Nation. I hope you spend some time with all the pieces from “A Day for Gaza” this weekend and follow the brilliant writers, artists, and thinkers featured in the package. And I hope that you, too, will keep your eyes on Gaza.
Jack Mirkinson
Senior Editor, The Nation
Thanks JVL for enabling a UK audience to read this thought-provoking set of articles from the USA’s “The Nation”.
The Palestinians’ struggle for an end to ethnic cleansing, land theft and the most heinous crimes against its people has already lasted 100 years. It’s exhausting and agonising. But counter-intuitively, I feel the sheer hell the Israeli government brought down on Gaza and on the West Bank since 8th Oct 2023 have speeded up the destruction of Israel’s ability to do future harm to the Palestinians, Middle East and world.
If the USA state survives Trump and co, the Israeli government and Israelis have lost the all important support of America and Americans. A younger generation of Americans coming into positions of influence are now indifferent or hostile to Israel. The autocrat Arab states have made direct links with the USA and the West generally without needing to frame their diplomacy within the context of the USA-Israel relationships. Western countries that normally trail along in America’s wake are having to rethink their policies after Trump’s attacks on NATO, tariff wars, etc. Their refusal to join Trump’s appalling “Board of Peace” is one of its “first fruits”.
The merciless attacks on the Palestinians’ lives, property, heritage, human and statehood rights and governance continue – we can only hope they manage to hold on.
I still think they’ll win this long war. Their chances of doing so will improve when the rest of the world ends the impunity of Israel’s government and of criminal Israelis to prosecutions for war crimes.