-Editorial-

In January 2023, Kayhan-London, in collaboration with the Center for Peace Communications, a U.S.-based consultancy working with analysts from various countries, published 25 short videos based on conversations held with dozens of people who live in Gaza. Each person voiced a simple desire to live and work in peace, as anyone might, even as we know their destiny is to have become the playthings of terror groups like Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, with their unending agenda of violence, repression and war.

But beyond this local reality, we also know that the strings are being pulled by the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The conversations were moving, but also offered glimmers of hope for an end to this miserable plight. They presented another picture of "the Palestinians" so readily spoken of in the Middle East and beyond, by politicians and on the news.

In the case of Gaza, foreign correspondents may remain and work there as long as they do not question its terrorist rulers. Public awareness of the state of a people that yearns for a quiet life under a government without terrorists will firstly help isolate all those political currents, notably Islamists and leftists, that effectively defend acts of terror against both Palestinians and Israelis, and force sympathetic currents that are unable or unwilling to see the aspirations of ordinary Palestinians.

Once and for all, we must remember to always make a distinction between violent rulers and the people in their grip. It's true of Gaza as it is of Iran, where there is a gaping difference between everyday people and the clerical regime in power.