As I write this (2)
Israel has murdered 3,457 Palestinian children in three weeks.
7,912 people total—at least—with 1,650 missing.
Over 20,000 wounded.
1.4 million displaced.
I don’t have it in me to write eloquently about this, or even adequately. So this will once more be in the form of notes I worry are getting lost. As written here:
Despite this staggering mass slaughter of Arabs, despite the clear heinous crime against humanity that is the mass starvation and deprivation of water, food and electricity to 2.3 million trapped people—1.1 million of whom are under the age of 18—for three weeks, and despite the documented use of illegal chemical warfare, Western governments still haven’t called for so much as a ceasefire.
Numerous reports indicate that the death toll on October 7th of 1,400 Israelis was due in part to the Israeli army indiscriminately murdering its own people. One survivor from kibbutz Be’eri described how she was treated humanely by Hamas soldiers, until the Israeli Armed Forces arrived and “eliminated everyone, including the hostages.” Israeli tanks shelled their own settlements in order to kill the insurgents without any regard whatsoever for the settlers.
I wrote this in my previous post, but it bears repeating, as the messaging around the “rescue” of hostages has been increasing in an ever-more desperate attempt to justify the genocide of innocent, trapped people—Hamas offered a full prisoner exchange several days ago. Israel refused, and continues to refuse. This has nothing to do with rescuing hostages. In the Mondoweiss article I linked to above, and elsewhere, this is attributed to the “Hannibal Doctrine”, but that describes a pre-meditated callousness I find difficult to credit; the actions of desperate soldiers insufficiently concerned with saving lives also fits the bill.
Netanyahu is facing mounting pressure and criticism from the families of hostages who say their government has barely been in contact with them, and hasn’t informed them of how their operations are taking into consideration the well-being of their loved ones. Last week, Netanyahu claimed to have spoken to the families, but this was proven to be a lie, as Haaretz reports here. When he finally did meet with them, a man linked to Netanyahu breached the meeting, claiming to be a relative of a hostage and praising the PM. The man’s wife was outside organising a counter-protest against the families of the hostages, hurling abuse at them. This story is so hideously absurd that despite the fact it was reported in Haaretz, I did not believe it. I asked Israeli journalist Mairev Zonszein on Twitter to verify if it was true and she did. I do not know how this man remains in power, truly, I don’t.
In my first list, I linked to a thread by Yehuda Shaul detailing the genocidal rhetoric coming from Israeli officials and media. That list has grown enough to require its own additional thread — this was before Netanyahu’s now widely circulated speech today wherein he explicitly references genocide, comparing Palestinians to Amalekites in the Bible, a people who were exterminated. This comes on top of numerous claims that again label all Palestinians in Gaza “animals”, “the children of darkness”, “beasts”, and condemn every last person there.
Zionists in Israel mobbed a university with Arab-Israeli students, chanting “Death to Arabs”. There have been many instances of rallies in Israel chanting this despicable line, which makes it all the more horrifyingly ironic that Zionists have successfully gotten mainstream Western media to condemn the rally cry “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” on the absurd rationalisation that it is a subversive code for “destroy Israel”. If calls for freedom equal your destruction, in your own mind, then you have condemned yourself more fully than anyone else ever could, and yet still, here we are, mired in a near-constant abuse of language and meaning by so-called journalists genuflecting to the genocidal.
An Israeli airstrike hit Jenin, in the occupied West Bank killing at least four people and wounding five. The West Bank is not run by Hamas, and yet over 100 Palestinians have been murdered there in the past three weeks, and 200 more over the course of the year. Everywhere, Palestinian communities are being forced off their land by violent Israeli settlers.
52,000 pregnant women and over 30,000 babies under six months of age are currently drinking brackish or contaminated water in Gaza, according to an internal U.S. State Department document's assessment. Pure unadulterated racist hysteria was whipped up by the as-yet-still-unsubstantiated claim that Hamas beheaded 40 babies in Israel, and yet now that Israel has slaughtered over 3,500 Palestinian kids, Western governments and media remain entirely unmoved; the 30,000 babies drinking poisoned water reported on here by Haaretz will not stir them further. The dehumanisation of Arabs is total.
I don’t know how to live in a country that cannot bring itself to vote on a UN motion calling for an immediate ceasefire and for international law to be upheld regarding the protection of civilian lives. I don’t know how to live in a place that can hate Arabs this much. How do I raise my son here knowing this government would happily see him dead, starved, and bombed were he over there instead of here?
In theory*, I am doing an online poetry reading fundraising for Medical Aid for Palestinians tomorrow morning. Morning for me, anyway (6am), late for the UK.
I am aware that aid is blocked from entering Gaza at the moment. I am aware that this is, in the moment, not doing much. I am also aware that people all over the world are facing dire consequences for speaking up about Palestine, and that in the face of this suppression, in the face of continual smears about the overwhelmingly massive protests against Israel’s onslaught, in the face of Israel’s attempts to silence Gaza and Palestinians everywhere, it is important to speak up, and to that end, I do think the attention this fundraiser has received, the 1000 or so people who have signed up to listen and the £20,000 raised so far, is better than nothing. I am also aware that this nightmare cannot continue indefinitely, and as soon as the bombs stop falling, people will turn away from the devastation and that is when Palestinians will need us the most. Will need all the aid they can possible get.
Maybe I’m fooling myself, I don’t know. I hope this is meaningful, anyway. I will keep doing everything I can to cut through the noise, the ugly apathy, the dehumanising, the racist, the war-mongering and mass murdering. I will keep doing everything I can, regardless.
*I say “in theory” because I am absolutely exhausted, and I’m struggling to envision how I’m going to get up at 6am, and because I have a baby so I know that I will be up but I’ll also be busy getting him and us ready… we’ll see, inshaAllah.
Salaam,
Omar