To those who come

The truth is that we saw it.

We saw that and the other things, because at that time we saw everything and they saw us, although it was difficult to distinguish the real images and those created by artificial intelligence.

It was logical: it was difficult to distinguish reality from fiction, if reality was sometimes expressed as if it were the script of a series.

But the truth is that we saw it.

We saw Hamas's atrocious attack on Israel and its kidnappings.

And we saw that, to these attacks, the State of Israel responded with a virulence to which the former prosecutor of the International Criminal Court fit the definition of genocide.

We saw this debate about the name of things, although there were already words to describe it.

Slaughter, for example.

We saw that Israel told Palestinian civilians to leave their homes and crowd together without resources, without light or hardly any food, at the edge of Rafah, from where they could not leave.

And when they were there, with the gates of Egypt closed and militarized, Israel would announce an attack that would spread fear among civilians who had no escape.

We saw the numbers of dead children, of murdered children, and of the wounded treated in bombed hospitals.

We saw the story of the five-year-old girl shot to death along with the rest of her family, along with the health workers who went in search of her, after her parents had put the children in the car following the recommendations of the Government of Israel.

We saw the image of a family stuffed into the remains of a car carrying on the roof everything they had left: with their lives on their backs.

We saw that the voices that cried out against the excess of a modern State were placed under suspicion, whether they were António Guterres or Josep Borrell.

We saw that the rescue of two of those kidnapped by Hamas, in an operation in which at least 67 Gazans died, according to the authorities controlled by Hamas, Prime Minister Netanyahu called it a perfect operation.

Perfect was the word he used.

We saw all that, plus the other wars that we ignored.

Because seeing everything didn't mean wanting to look at it.

Because everything is not possible.

If you - who read us from the future - judge what the generations that preceded you - us - consented to, at least know that we saw it.

That judgment is easy from a distance, just as it would be easy for us to fall into that temptation when faced with the massacres of the past, to wonder how they were allowed or how they could happen.

Let them know, because they will surely know it in the lives that you live, that these questions will also haunt you and your consciences, because technologies and people change, but, in reality, nothing is completely new.

The answer will not be easy, if you find it.

But look, at least look.

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