Two years ago, Hamas carried out a spree of stomach-churning atrocities against mostly Israeli civilians that left the entire world rightly sickened and enraged at the terrorist group, and with enormous reserves of sympathy for Israel. Out of the infinite options available to it, Israel chose to respond by doing exactly what Hamas had just done to earn the world’s disgust, only on a far larger scale, and in many cases — torturing doctors to death, sniping kids in the head and testicles, and burning hospital patients alive, to name a few — committing atrocities even Hamas itself had not carried out.

This is the grisly paradox of the war in Gaza. The crimes of October 7 — killing families and children, kidnapping, sexual violence — were so heinous and beyond the pale, they somehow justified being repeated and inflicted endlessly on a different group of innocent people, week after week for the next two years.

Two years in, those who have been witnessing and documenting the daily horrors in Gaza have run out of words to adequately describe them. It may be easiest just to read what Israeli soldiers themselves have said about the war they’ve been fighting the past twenty-four months: