The 51-Day War: Ruin and Resistance in Gaza, by Max Blumenthal (Verso, £14.99)

THE ISRAELI military onslaught on Gaza in 2014 was a crime against humanity. A widespread, systematic and prolonged assault, it killed more than 2,100 people and wounded over 10,500. 

Shamefully, it also marked a continuation of Israel’s relentless, almost ritualistic, violent collective punishment of Gazans. 

Max Blumenthal’s book is at times a jarring account of the massacre of innocent people. He does not shrink from documenting the obscenity of the Israeli attack, interviewing survivors and graphically cataloguing many of the atrocities which took place across 51 days of intense violence that left no-one in Gaza unscathed. 

The two-day barrage that obliterated most of Shejaiya and killed over 120 of its residents, the hour-long artillery bombardment that eradicated Beit Hanoun, the destruction of Rafah — with the murder of 121 of its civilians and the systematic execution of Hebrew-speaking Palestinians — are among the horrific examples of countless shocking Israeli military actions.

This invaluable book also highlights incidents and events that seemingly escaped the mainstream narrative of the conflict, including the Hamas-Islamic Jihad pre-invasion peace proposals for a 10-year truce with Israel and a request for international troops at borders, seaports and airports that were rejected by US Secretary of State John Kerry and Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi. 

Similarly unreported was the intense hand-to-hand fighting that followed the invasion of Shejaiya, when the Israeli forces suffered reverses. 

Israel’s Operation Protective Edge was not a war of armed force against armed force. Where that happened Israel was beaten, but aerial bombardment and the resultant civilian massacre did not bring it success either. 

Despite pitiful official international support for Gaza, the most closely surveilled and intensely controlled area on earth, there were no signs of submission from the population there. After 51 days of military onslaught there were even victory parades that celebrated its steadfastness. 

As Blumenthal concludes, Israel cannot ensure its long-term security until its neighbours are also able to live with freedom and dignity. The majority of Gazans are under 18 years old, growing up with little experience of anything more than the abject misery of military occupation, cyclical aerial bombardment and uninterrupted siege. 

A sense of global abandonment might have consumed Gaza but it also ignited the flames of rage and spreading radicalisation. This ghetto of children can perhaps be excused for setting the stage of the next conflict almost as soon as the curtains had closed on the last.