There are still dire headlines coming out of Gaza. Body bags are gone, 96% of children feel their death is imminent, worst civilian massacre in history, everyone is starving. Last week, a “symbol of suffering in Gaza” was killed, along with her young grandchildren, by “the most evil army on earth.” A year after the murder of poet and teacher Refaat Alalil, his posthumous essay, “If I must die/May it bring hope,” was published.
Still, hope is scant. The death toll was over 45,000, two-thirds of them women and children, many of whom were (incredibly, nevertheless) shot in the head and chest by Israeli snipers. Also killed were at least 1,000 medical workers, 200 journalists, hundreds of teachers and writers, and national torchbearers. Healthcare and housing have been destroyed, and Israel’s brutal blockade leaves most Gazans without electricity or water, starving or at least going hungry, nearly 107,000 injured or disabled, and countless dead. remains rotting under the rubble. Almost a year after international jurists declared that Israel was committing genocide – ungodly news that set an indifferent world in thunderous silence – Amnesty International says it’s true. We just published a meticulously detailed 300-page report confirming that. He added: “Every month Israel has treated Palestinians in Gaza as a subhuman group, unworthy of human rights and dignity.”
Despite persistent and perverse and insane claims that it is trying hard not to kill civilians, since October 8, 2023, Israel will continue to treat its trapped and traumatized population. The war is “by all standards a ‘war’ against civilians, a war of depopulation,” and is unprecedented in this century. According to the monitoring agency Air Wars. The Air Wars report said that in its first month, civilian casualties were “incomparable to any air operation in the 21st century,” with thousands of civilians, children and entire families in their homes. The killing rate was found to be three to seven times higher than in any previously recorded war. In the midst of mass genocide, 96% of children reportedly feel their death is imminent, in “one of the most terrifying places in the world for children.” And Palestinian journalist Hossam Sabath brought sickening news from the devastated north of Gaza that there was “a shortage of body bags to bury the dead.”
In the face of Israel’s “massive crimes against humanity,” the Biden administration, despite widespread outrage, is despicably still sending money and arms to Israel — a record $17.9 billion to date. , another $20 billion killing machine was approved in August. Even more shameful: Despite the fact that the international Doctors Without Borders regularly mourns and celebrates its fallen colleagues – with the implicit reminder that “no place in Gaza is safe” – -And even though a few American doctors are volunteering to speak out for Gaza, American medical institutions remain. In most cases, there is deliberate silence about the bloodshed. The prestigious New England Journal of Medicine has finally apologized for its years of silence about the Nazi Holocaust in its new “Recognizing Historical Injustices in Medicine” series, but it doesn’t include a single article about the devastation in Gaza. is not published. Nor does it mention the words genocide, blockade, and occupation.
As pro-Zionist repression spreads to the art world, including loss of funding, canceled exhibitions, and “sensitivity screening” of Islamic artists, Palestinian groups in Palestine and the United States are accusing Biden’s State Department of violating internal human rights laws. Filed the first lawsuit against the other party. The lawsuit circumvents the decades-old Leahy Act, which prohibits U.S. military aid to forces “certainly involved” in war crimes, and despite Israel’s “overwhelming record of gross human rights violations.” has accused the country of continuing to finance genocide. Alleging that the agency adopted “arbitrary and capricious” standards and arguing that “the rules were different for Israel,” the lawsuit argues that the state adopted a “see no evil, hear no evil, tell no evil” approach and that Israel accused of ignoring countless crimes. As a final piece of evidence, the lawsuit, supported by several former State Department officials, points out that Israeli troops have never been deemed ineligible for aid.
It turns out that American complicity doesn’t end there. Two journalists writing for Drop Site News expose a “ghost squad” of snipers who allegedly killed more than 100 people inside the Gaza Strip and “neutralized” “terrorists” 1.26 km away Although he boasted that he had set a long-distance record, the US duty-free organization Friends of Paratrooper Sniper Unit 202” is part of a broader Israeli fundraising effort that includes the $100 million annual IDF Friends, which has raised more than $300,000 to purchase vests, silencers, stands, and “for the overall welfare of the soldiers,” among others. “Thanks to your support, we are able to provide my son and his elite sniper unit with a state-of-the-art sniper unit that will give them an advantage against Hamas, and will help them join the fight,” said the mother of a member from Illinois. (and) helped me to return home.” Safely. ” The unit posted three grainy videos of civilian executions, along with a message of gratitude: “If they ever meet the 202nd Battalion, they will regret ever being born.”
Justice Khalid Naban gave a moving tribute to his 3-year-old granddaughter Reem, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike last year, calling her “the soul of my soul.” Nabhan was killed in another airstrike on Monday. photos from family
Of course, many Gazans already do so. Hossam Shabat, a rare survivor of a journalist in northern Gaza, has recorded in harrowing detail the hours-long “death march” during which he was expelled en masse from Beit Lahia under intense shelling and gunfire. Mr. Shabat, who witnessed countless colleagues being killed in front of his eyes and was evacuated more than 20 times, was covered in dust and crying in panic as fighter jets roared overhead. It tells the story of the children who fell into this situation. When some begged for water, the Israeli soldiers who surrounded them laughed and instead mockingly poured water on the ground. As soldiers detained fathers in the crowd, the children screamed in fear and clung to Israeli tanks that threatened to take them away. A 16-year-old girl and her sister, the only survivors of a recent airstrike that killed 70 people, walked until the younger sister was beaten to the ground, bleeding. When no help came, the girl left her there. “I was screaming, but no one heard me.”
Aid workers have also recorded their suffering. Thousands of tiny orphans left to fend for themselves, children plagued by nightmares, exhausted and emaciated adults reflecting “decades of mental health catastrophe (trauma)” ‘s ghost is “waiting numbly” What will happen next? “Even though people are suffering, they are waiting with a small amount of hope,” says one person. “We die slowly.” Among the many sorrows and fears, some losses are especially poignant. On Monday, an Israeli airstrike on the Nuseyrat refugee camp killed Khalid Nabanhan. A “righteous” 54-year-old grandfather was murdered 14 months after he was photographed tearfully kissing his beloved granddaughter Reem goodbye, covered in blood, and became a “symbol of Gaza’s suffering”. , 3, calls her “the soul of my soul.” Reem was killed in a separate attack in Nuseyrat, in which his younger brother Tarek, 5, was also killed. All three were killed by what Omar Suleiman called “the most evil army on earth.”
After his grandson’s death, Naban, known as “Abu Dia”, became a “one-man relief agency.” Despite his suffering, he spent the year “spreading hope” to the hungry, hurting, and traumatized. He gathered tents, toys, food, and clothing. He helped rescuers and medical workers care for injured Gazans, especially children. He fed stray cats, played with his surviving grandchildren, cared for his elderly mother, and worked as a laborer whenever he could. Son Diaa: “He fasted to make sure we had enough food.” Daughter Maysa, mother of Reem and Tarek, said she consoled herself every day after their deaths. He said it was his father. “He was everything to us. “He kept this family together…Even when the bombs were falling, he made us feel safe.” Seeking Solace , many people who were deeply saddened by Navan’s death prayed that he and Reem would be reunited in the realm of evil spirits. This so-called humanity will no longer reach them. ”
Last week, on the anniversary of another heartbreaking death, we collected the poetry and prose of Refaat Alalir, the esteemed teacher, author, and mentor who passed away in “surgical surgery” on December 6 last year at the age of 46. “If I Must Die” was released posthumously. “The airstrike only hit his sister’s apartment, where she had taken shelter with her family. The explosion also killed his brother, his brother’s son, his sister, and her three children. Proceeds from the book of reportage, essays, poetry, and interviews will be donated to the surviving families. The book, published by Books, is “an oral history that reads like an epic,” a “poetry of testimony” as “evidence of what happened,” and a story told by “a man.” A terrifying chronicle of the occupation told in “detailed, human terms.” Among the “texts born of fire”, they are often written in English to reach a wider audience. The book was compiled by student and colleague Youssef Al-Jamal, who calls Alalil “a giant of the Palestinian story.”
Born in the Shujaiyah district, which has a history of violent resistance to occupation, Aralil grew up surrounded by stories of violence and his grandmother’s Nakba tribe. When he was in first grade, he was hit in the head by a stone thrown by an Israeli soldier while “smiling ear to ear.” Four years later, he was shot with a rubber bullet for throwing a rock. Over time, he saw relatives killed or seriously injured. Educated nationally and internationally, he taught literature at the Islamic University of Gaza and often mentored young writers. After Israel’s brutal response to the peaceful March of Return, he became a kind of “ethnic historian”, editing and contributing to the anthologies Gaza Right Back and Gaza Unsilenced. He also helped launch We Are Not Numbers, which documents the collective struggle of Gazans against deprivation. He always believed in the power of storytelling. “As a Palestinian, I grew up watching the stories. It’s selfish and dangerous to keep them to yourself.”
He taught his students Edward Said, Virginia Woolf, and The Merchant of Venice. When he revisited Robinson Crusoe, he was struck by how similar Friday’s story was to the story of the Palestinians, told by “self-styled colonists (masters) who assumed ownership of land that did not belong to them.” , fought for the people’s right to speak. their own experiences and histories. Boldly imagining a free Palestine, he was “appallingly farsighted” and saw genocide unfold, children starve and Gaza become an “extermination camp”. / To tell my story…bring hope / Let it be a story” – went around the world, especially after Shimmer was killed along with her husband and baby. Dropsite has been working to promote Rifaat’s book as a “small measure of justice” and to “fly like a kite (and) keep hope for a better world alive.” “When will this end?” Mr. Alalil asked as he watched Gaza being destroyed. “How many Palestinian deaths are enough?” Still, he wrote, “we have no choice but to fight back and tell her story. For Palestine.”
A Gazan man kisses his son goodbye after he was killed in an Israeli attack. SOPA (via Getty Images)
