The Israeli army destroyed over 80 per cent of the Gaza Strip, according to official Palestinian and UN organisations estimates. [Getty]
Recently, the Sultanate of Oman reportedly sent a massive shipment of Nintendo Switch consoles to the besieged Gaza Strip featuring the latest edition of Minecraft with customised Omani sword-clad warriors “to defend Gazans”.
Speaking to The New Arab, the Palestinian sources said that the shipment included enough Minecraft credits for Palestinians that “would help them rebuild Gaza” on the gaming platform.
“Yet, the shipment has not arrived in Gaza, and we do not know if the Israeli army will allow it to enter Gaza,” a Gaza-based source said, adding that “it is essential for our young people and children to resort to such games to get tackle their psychological pressure and think about the structure of Gaza after the war.”
Palestinians in Gaza previously used Minecraft in 2017 to design public places in Gaza after the various Israeli wars destroyed thousands of residential houses and civilian infrastructure, noted Ahmed Ghalib, a structural engineer in Gaza.
“Because of the 17-year Israeli blockade, we were forced to invest in everything around us, including games, to create our world in the big-prison coastal enclave […] we have succeeded in overcoming most of the Israeli obstacles to rebuild our territory with the minimum means we had,” he said to TNA.
But now, he explains, the situation has completely changed as the Israeli army destroyed over 80 per cent of the Gaza Strip, according to official Palestinian and UN organisations estimates.
“So, it is unsuitable for us to receive such a game in Gaza. To rebuild Gaza, we need hundreds of engineers and designers who would help us to redesign the coastal enclave once again, as the Israeli army has also changed the geography of Gaza after destroying all the features of our territory,” Ghada Zourob, a Palestinian engineer in Rafah, remarked to TNA.
“Unfortunately, it seems that the Arabs, including Omanis, were not satisfied with the silence and failure towards the Israeli massacres taking place in Gaza, but they want to invest in our blood by financing such a shipment that will not benefit us in Gaza, it is only a waste of time and effort and distracts the attention of our children and teenagers from our painful reality,” she added.
“For more than 14 months, we have been asking the Arabs to support us and pressure Israel to stop the war, but today they claim that they are helping us to rebuild Gaza, which was completely destroyed, through electronic games and paying money for them. Do they not know that people are dying of hunger, cold and oppression in Gaza? Will these games save them?” she questioned.
Since 7 October 2023, the Israeli army has been launching a genocidal war on Gaza under the pretext of responding to an unprecedented attack that was carried out by the Hamas-led Palestinian militants. The Israeli army has killed more than 45,000 Palestinians and wounded more than 107,000 others, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
