لينا

THIS JUST HAPPENED

(around 7.25pm, Nov 23, Palestine time)

please please PLEASE do not stop speaking just because of a temporary ceasefire. please. some of you will have holidays but please take a few minutes out of your day to voice out. and if you can, perhaps do not celebrate and instead protest and keep emailing reps and posting about a complete ceasefire. please.

while some of us will be breathing a sigh of relief over the temporary ceasefire, people will STILL be dying. people ARE still dying. up until the very last minute. they’ve intensified their attacked. there is no “pause” for them.

please. your festivals come every year but these people… these children… once they’re gone, they’re gone. there will be no next year for them.

please keep speaking up. we’re not done yet. please.

HERE’S HOW YOU CAN HELP

m’not sure about donations still because the ceasefire doesn’t mean money will get to gaza right away BUT!!! care for gaza, the e-sims, hirbawi, and palaction are all donations you can make even with a blockade.

other than that, please sign all the petitions, join the campaigns and contact your reps using the various options provided. AND PLEASE remember to boycott companies listed by BDS

Ahed Tamimi is a Palestinian activist from the village of Nabi Saleh, who's known for slapping an IOF soldier at the age of 16, becoming a symbol of resistance for Palestinians. These videos of her went viral when people thought she was an Ukrainian girl standing up to Russian soldiers, and stopped talking about it when they found out she's Palestinian.

You can read about Ahed's life in "They called me a lioness: a Palestinian girl's fight for freedom" or watch documentaries and interviews.

i wish i wasn't writing this.

i wish i didn't have to caveat this whole statement with "by the way, i strongly condemn the killing of innocent civilians in any circumstance whatsoever" because i am a muslim and obviously every muslim voice represents all 1.8 billion of us, right? but your faves can go on instagram and loudly proclaim there is no two sides to this - i stand with the apartheid state bombing and starving children! with no consequences whatsoever. right.

i wish i didn't have to filter every bit of information i saw because of rampant lies and misinformation boosted across social media, especially when it shrouds the actual atrocities happening. it's still unconfirmed whether 40 babies were murdered by hamas militants - if true, it is an awful, awful act done by the lowest of the low. but as we speak, 447 children have been confirmed to be killed - murdered - in gaza just in the last few days.

i wish i didn't see videos of those murders. i wish i could wipe away the horrific wailing of a father as he clawed his daughter's lifeless body out of rubble, falling to his knees as he cried for her to wake. i wish i didn't see mothers clutching small, bloodied bundles in their hands, screaming and screaming and screaming. i wish i could forget that i have been seeing iterations of these videos coming out of palestine from 2021, 2014, 2009, 2006 - oh, basically anytime israel decided to launch an offensive on gaza.

i wish children didn't make up 47% of gaza's 2 million population, of which 4 out of 5 were living with PTSD and depression as per a report from last year (aka before this latest shitstorm started), because living in an open air prison under constant threat of bombing really helps make those childhood memories extra special. i wish these children were considered as human as those across the border, their lives as important and meaningful.

i wish that literal war crimes were not taking place in gaza right now. this includes the war crimes by hamas of taking innocent hostages - hamas, may i remind the reader, is a palestinian terrorist organisation but not all palestinians are hamas - and also the war crimes of the israeli government by literally ordering a siege of gaza with "no electricity, no food, and no fuel." this is to ensure that the children who aren't already dead are well on their way, i guess.

i wish we weren't watching an ethnic cleansing literally taking place in front of our eyes.

i wish i didn't feel so helpless. i wish i could console my friends who are on the daily losing multitudes of relatives, and who now have no way of finding out who else they've lost until the electricity comes back on. i wish my words didn't feel so hollow.

i wish i could wave a palestinian flag in solidarity but i may get arrested for it here, in the uk, so better not.

If it was just about Hamas, why shut off water electricity and food that would harm the civilians the most?

If it was just about Hamas, why use white phosphorus and engage in chemical warfare?

If it was just about Hamas, why lie about babies being decapitated and produce AI generated images to try to prove that?

Israel has dropped over 600 bombs on Gaza over the past few days. A region where half the population is under the age of 18. This is unconscionable. We are witnessing a genocide.

6,000

From the hills above Belfast: Free Palestine