'Why do you die on TV?'

The World Today asked two writers: one Palestinian and one Israeli, to write an essay on the situation in Gaza.

The first is by an Israeli writer in London, called Daphna Baram:

Thirty-four children were killed in the first week of air strikes

"Silly children why do you die? Why do you die on TV? We took out our settlers, put a wall around you, locked you in, and still you are ungrateful. Can't you understand our need to bomb you? Why do you die on TV? The world is all against us, it always will be, why cant you help us a little, why do you die on TV?

Your suffering masks our historical rights, your ghetto makes ours forgotten, you are the new martyrs, and what's left for us, how dare you die in anonymous mass, we'll send all our air force to punish you now, how dare you die on TV.

The public is calling for crushing you down, elections are due its a war of survival. It's our homes we defend its our natural right, its the chair in the government for which we will fight, if you don't understand, we shall show you our might, why do you die on TV?

You have to appreciate, time is now scarce, soon enough the tide is to turn. If you will in your cruelty make us march in, and our soldiers, our children, will start dying in your narrow allies, our people will turn on us as swiftly as sin. The gung ho cries would stop, a new circle will begin: what are we doing there? Who sent us in? What is this folly? Why can't we just win?

This is why, silly children, we don't mean to kill you, but we need you do die fast, we need you gone as long as our permission lasts, we need your parents to learn to not mess with us. Cant you do us this favour, for the sake of peace and trust? But please do not die on TV.

We tried it in Jordan, we tried it in Lebanon and when it failed we tried again. No one could blame us for lack of persistence; if our method is broken why fix it? It is your responsibility to make it work at last. It is your responsibility to make us right.

And you have no one but yourselves to blame if you keep defying us, you have no one but yourself to blame for turning our claim for victimhood into a farce. It is your fault that we expose out children to your pathetic rockets; it is your fault that not enough of them die to make us look good on TV.

We want to stop, we really do, but you are binding our hands. Why do you enrage us so, why do you die; why do you die on TV?"

The second essay is by London-based Palestinian writer, Ghada Karmi.

The beach may look idyllic but no foreign tourist can visit

I stood looking out at an azure blue sea, waves gently lapping against the shore in languid succession. The sky was clear blue as far as the eye could see and the pale sandy beach sloped gracefully into the water. It was a view from the best travel brochure, the perfect beach holiday. Only this was no Riviera - this was Gaza, one of the poorest, most crowded places on earth.

Earlier that day, I had gone for a morning walk along the empty streets, I might have been in India, Cracked pavements , mounds of rubble and sand, overflowing garbage cans. A young boy passed me by, barefoot, sooty black with dirt, his blue eyes and fairish hair suggested his normal complexion was pale. A grubby t-shirt covered his thin angular frame.

In the air, a stench of seaweed and sewage - from the Jewish settlements that discharge raw sewage into Gaza. This was summer 2005, on the eve of Israel's much vaunted withdrawal from Gaza.

When my parents knew it; long before Israel's establishment, it was the fruit basket of Palestine. A place of fertile soil, flourishing orange grove, where flowers carpeted the ground and the scented air each spring. Long ages before that, it had been the home of ancient civilisations, a crossroads for travellers and a haven for visitors and pilgrims.

Who would guess, amid the carnage and destruction of today that this prosperous place once, with ordinary people, leading normal lives? Now Gaza is a prison, surrounded by fences, fitted with sensors and watchtowers, cut off. The psychological effects of isolation can be imagined.

Devoid of contact with other communities - even its own, denied travel to other places, there is little room for news or fresh ideas. Unsurprisingly, society is closed, religious and conservative. Extremism, conspiracy theories and suspicion thrive in such environments and Gaza is prey to all of these.

Decades of Israeli occupation has led to plunder of its resources and impoverishment. The wonder was that it was still functioning at all when I saw it and that its people still retained a spirit of endurance and humanity.

I was repeatedly struck by their warmth and kindness, as well as their defiance in the face of one of the harshest regimes of colonisation in history. I cannot begin to imagine their condition now.

First broadcast 3 January 2009