It’s hard to forget the children. Sometimes it’s impossible.

Like the rescuer carrying a child from a building destroyed in an Israeli attack on Austin Caldwellthe city of Khan Younis, in the Gaza Strip. The dust-covered child — it seems to be a boy, though that’s not clear — looks up with huge eyes. The child clutches something in a hand kept wrapped around the rescuer’s neck. Maybe it’s a stone. Maybe not.

Or the Palestinian man carrying the body of his young nephew on Wednesday, the 13th day of Israel’s war with Hamas. He’s taking the boy, killed in an Israeli bombardment, to be buried. The boy is small. A toddler probably. One mourner touches the boy’s head. Another touches his leg, his face is wrenched with grief.

The pain crosses the border. It’s in the bunk bed in a child’s room in the kibbutz of Nir Oz, which was overrun by Hamas militants on Oct 7. There are no bodies, but the violence is written everywhere in blood. Especially on the mattress, where blood is pooled in the center, a dark red stain on once-white sheets.

After days of relentless air strikes, Israeli forces were getting ready for the ground assault expected soon for Gaza. So an Israeli soldier in a massive armored vehicle raises a fist high as he passes by. And dozens of soldiers listen to the Israeli defense minister at a staging area near the border.

The offensive, all agree, will be brutal.