Day 73 Monday 31 August 2026 Cooloongup, WA by Brett Murrell

ONE HUMANITY

For those who think what is happening in Gaza is OK. And the West Bank?

Here is an image of the destruction in Gaza.

UNOSAT satellite damage assessment map of the Gaza Strip showing damage density in red across Gaza City, Jabalya and Beit Lahiya, with a headline count of 163,778 damaged buildings. — UNOSAT Gaza Strip Comprehensive Damage Assessment, imagery of 6 September 2024, published 27 September 2024. © UNITAR / UN Satellite Centre (UNOSAT) — unosat.org/products/3984.

Southern section of the same UNOSAT map covering Khan Yunis, Rafah and Deir Al-Balah, with an inset showing individual buildings marked destroyed or severely damaged. — The southern governorates on the same assessment, with the building-by-building inset. © UNITAR / UNOSAT.

Note: that map is from September 2024. It is confronting, it is far away, it is not our business.

I have to disagree. We are one humanity, and when the morality is lost we need to speak up. The destruction and the killing on both sides must not be tolerated. It must be called out, and it must be prevented from occurring.

We are human beings, all of us. The children, the women, the men, the families all seek the same things — peace, love, harmony, community, stability, respect. It does not matter what your skin colour is, what you believe, or what culture you come from.

There are always better ways. Solutions can be found without the destruction, the war and the killing.

Be the light. Lead by example. Don’t fall to hating and killing another group of people. We must find other ways to solve the problems.

What the record shows now

The map above is two years old, so it is worth saying plainly what has happened since.

That September 2024 assessment counted 163,778 damaged buildings — about 66 per cent of all structures in the Gaza Strip — and an estimated 227,591 damaged housing units.

By UNOSAT’s assessment of imagery taken on 11 October 2025, approximately 81 per cent of all structures in the Gaza Strip were damaged: 198,273 affected structures, of which 123,464 were destroyed outright, and an estimated 320,622 damaged housing units. The destroyed count had risen 18 per cent in three months.

In August 2026 the UN reported that about 82 per cent of structures — roughly 200,000 buildings — are damaged, two thirds of them destroyed, and that the number of destroyed structures has risen by around nine per cent since the ceasefire was declared in October 2025. The destruction did not stop when the shooting mostly did.

And the West Bank, which gets a fraction of the attention. OCHA has documented an average of about six settler attacks a day during 2026 causing casualties, property damage or both — the highest rate in its records. Human Rights Watch reported in August 2026 that settler attacks have fully or partially displaced 107 Palestinian communities since January 2023. Roughly 3,800 Palestinians have been displaced this year by settler violence, demolitions and evictions; in January alone it was 694, including an entire herding community in the Jordan Valley.

Who decides

It must be said: it is our leaders who are making these decisions, and it is the people who have the power to ensure the leaders and their decisions return to morality — return to negotiation, to fair solutions, to peace.

Get active. Speak up. Get political. You might just make a difference.

The party’s position on this, issue by issue, is set out here: Israel and Palestine — The Party Position.

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