Killing Fields in Rafah, Palestine.
It never stops. Netanyahu keeps bringing his genocide war to a new level of disgust and cruelty ever since October 7. Netanyahu’s “operation” on Rafah has nothing to do with self defense. 67 to 100 people were killed in the last 24 hours — it’s hard to know exactly, because many are still under the rubble.
It is numbers on top of numbers. Now we are at over 28 thousand Palestinians killed, 12 thousand of them, children. Eighty percent of homes and buildings in Gaza have been demolished.
The goal of Netanyahu is not to bring back the hostages. He wants to kill as many Palestinians as he can. And destroy as much of Gaza as he can.
Netanyahu continues to treat the Palestinian people like cattle. He pushes them and pushes them. Even when he says, “You can have safe passage to this other part of Palestine, right before we destroy the place you are in right now,” he does not hold his word.
In October, when the Palestinians were told by IDF to flee northern Gaza, they were given a four-hour window to drive on the main corridor out of Gaza City. It was supposed to be safe. It was not. The IDF shot at cars fleeing Gaza City from helicopters, during this “safe” window. Palestinians died while fleeing. Some people turned around and went back home, not knowing which was safer — to flee or to stay put.
This has been the issue all along in this war.
There is no safe place in Gaza.
1.4 million of Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians now are living in Rafah, the southern-most area of Gaza. Rafah’s population has increased six times above what it was on October 7.
Where are they supposed to go? European Union foreign policy chief, Joseph Borrell, who called out the US (and others, like the UK) — saying that instead of admonishing Israel to be careful about killing civilians in Rafah, they should stop supplying arms to Israel — he said, in regards to where the people of Rafah can go now, “where can they go to? — the moon?”
One Palestinian teenager who was interviewed said he has had to move 9 times since October 7.
Nine times! How is a person to think?
I have thought about this numerous times in the last four months — what would I do, if I suddenly had to leave my home? People have had to pack up in despair and rush out of their houses and apartment, leaving pictures, moments, articles of their lives that we all take for granted, resting peacefully in closets and drawers, on walls of homes.
Many of these homes get crushed. The majority.
When Palestinians have to feel abruptly, they usually have no means of carrying their belongings, other than carrying everything themselves. If they have a car, there is no fuel. Maybe they can rent a donkey cart. But mostly, they walk. I have seen dozens of photos of people carrying matresses, pushing the elderly in strollers, and walking with bundles of burdens weighing them down, juggling containers and clothes and blankets.
And what would I do if my family died? I got a teeny teeny taste of what gut-wrenching loss would feel like two hours tonight when my cat went missing. I had let her outside all afternoon. She usually comes home by 6:30.
By 7:30 PM it was cold and dark, and she had not come home yet. 2 hours later, she was still missing. 9:30 PM. This was not like her. Had something happened to her? Had she been hit by a car? Snatched by a coyote? I was getting ready to hop on my bike and search for her. Fear crept into my heart. I wondered, how would I survive without Bella? My whole body was on alert, my mind began to go numb, thinking of my future without her. And then I realized, check the garage! Maybe she snuck out there when I was bringing things in from the garage.
I opened up the door to the garage. She chirped. My cat chirps — she’s one of those. She bounded inside. I picked up her fluffy, chilled body. I rubbed her cold ears. I told her she saved my life. That she was my favorite person.
My point is, how do the people in Palestine persist, without their favorite people?
Gaza, I am sorry to much has been taken.
You had the Nakba in 1948. This is a second Nakba. You’ve had 75 years of occupation by assholes.
I was there myself, in Palestine, in 2006. The West Bank. I stayed with a family. I saw with my own eyes, felt with my own body, the disgrace it is to be Palestinian a land that was stolen and is now occupied. They say Israel left in 2005. Bullshit. I was there for two weeks. I witnessed illegal Israeli settlements gobbling up Palestinian land. Was blocked/stalled at checkpoints. There is no freedom of movement. Talked to Palestinian families who had olive trees on their own land destroyed by the IDF. Olive trees are like children. Israel is mean. They hit where it hurts.
In Gaza now, food and water and food are scare. Children are drinking out of mud puddles. Palestinians in the north are eating grass. People are walking 3 kilometers a day to get water — bringing it back in a bucket.
”Gazans now make up 80 percent of all people facing famine or catastrophic hunger worldwide,” according to UN on January 16, 2024. “
The report went on to say that Israel is “destroying Gaza’s food system and weaponizing food.”
Israel’s war is not a war on Hamas. It is on the Palestinian people themselves.
The world leaders who could actually make a change — they stand by. Huge gratitude and respect to the countries who are taking action: South Africa! And 8 days ago, Nicaragua filed an application with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to join South Africa in its genocide case against Israel. Indonesia and Slovenia showed their support in the case against Israel at the ICJ by testifying on Israel’s control of and policies in Gaza.
But those Western leaders who could really make a change right now? They do nothing. Feeble words. Complicit.
Even with all that, and even with this on-going slaughter, Palestine will be free. I read an expression, “They tried to destroy Palestine. But the world became Palestine.”
Yes it did.
Many people are waking up.
And if you haven’t, now is the time. I read a sign held by a protestor: “If you ever wondered what you would have done during the holocaust, it is what you are doing right now.”
I admit, there are many ways I waste my time. At the same time, I try to use my time well, when I can, to fight for Palestine.
I was at a city council meeting in Bend, Oregon on Wednesday February 7, with our group, Central Oregon for a Free Palestine, asking the Mayor and Council members to pass a resolution saying that the city of Bend calls for a ceasefire in Palestine. We made some progress.
Chicago is the biggest city in the US who has passed a resolution calling for an immediate and enduring ceasefire in Israel’s war. Rodriguez Sanchez, Human Relations committee chair, noted “the Chicago area has the biggest population of Palestinians in the U.S., and that Chicago has the fifth-largest Jewish population in the world.”
“As the minutes pass, more and more people are being killed and displaced. We, as elected officials, have the power to save lives by uplifting a demand that is now shared by many and to be on the right side of history,” she said.
— from the Chicago Sun
Here are the four of the books I am reading right now.
Two of them, on audible:
This first one I bought, because I KNEW there was something about the United States and Israel that was driving the U.S. to continue to back Israel acting without impunity.
And The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine, because I wanted to hear a Palestinian story, going deep back in time. I knew about the Nakba in 1948. I wanted to know more.
Also, the author of this book, Rashid Khalidi, Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University, gives a great summarizy of the Israel/Palestine history in this 45 min interview with Novara Senior Editor Ash Sarkar. My new friend Yohan, Jewish American, who I stand in solidarity with when I protest and call for a ceasefire in Palestine on the peace corner in downtown Bend, Oregon on Saturdays from noon to two, told me it is the best account he has heard yet of Palestinian and Israeli history, this concise.
The Other books I have are:
I am reading this book to hear from an Israeli’s perspective, what life was like, growing up in Israel. How Israel came to be. What are it’s strengths and faults. How did Zionist settlers in 1897 interact with the indigenous people of Palestine? How has that evolved?
Ari is a stunning writer. He covers history in a way that pulls you in. You feel like you are right there with his great grandfather, one of the first Zionists to colonize Palestine, when he arrives with his wife and nine children. And when Ari is 34 years old, with his firstborn on the way, and is sent to serve in the IDF at Gaza Beach Detention Center, you can hear the screams from the prisoners that he says haunted him, just like the prisoners who lived in concentration camps in Nazi Germany (his comparison).
I am also reading this graphic novel by journalist Joe Sacco, Palestine.
It covers the two years he spent in Palestine, 1991 to 1992. It shows me that the tyranny of the state of Israel on the Palestinian people was harsh, reckless, and destructive back then, as it is now.
This cruelty has been going on since at least the Nakba in 1948. Please google that term, if you are unfamiliar.
Joe interveiws Palestinians. It is uncommon for a young Palestinian man to have NOT spent time in Israeli prison at some point in his youth. It is common for the IDF to burst into Palestinian’s homes at midnight — pull the men and boys from bed — accuse them of engaging in suspicious activity, imprisoning them without any evidence.
One Palestinian father was in a detention center for 19 days. Three days in a row they stuck him in a cell that’s called a “coffin,” a cell that is so narrow, one must stand on their feet, with no room to rotate shoulders or bend forward. He stood for endless hours in his own urine and excrement.
Other times, he is in a cell, tied to a chair, a metal rod against his back, a urine-smelling burlap sack over his head. When he breaths, the sack sticks to his nostrils, impeding flow of air. He cannot tip his head back to breath better. He goes mad. Hallucinates. No food for days. Water once a day, if that.
He thinks his daughter has died.
He hallucinates more. His wife has died. His son.
19 days later, he is released. His daughter, wife, and son are alive. He will never be the same. No charges. Traumatized beyond . . . Beyond what? What are the words for this?
There aren’t.
But these are words I have written to Gaza over the last few months. Too scared to post, because they aren’t perfect.
What’s perfect got to do with love?
Dear Gaza, I yearn for the killing to stop. Many people in the world are on your side, but you don’t feel it. JOE AND KAMALA OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, stand by. They say whimpy things, at the most. Two weeks ago, Kamala, at COP28, said, “Israel can and must do better.”
Oh, really? What if you told Israel you no longer had their back? What if you stopped the flow of U.S. money to the IDF?
Gaza, my heart breaks that the U.S. and Israel have destroyed so much of your world. Over eighty percent of the buildings and homes and aparments have been bombed. Neighborhoods wiped out. Human parts found among the ruins. Bodies dead. Bodies alive. Crushed. Limbs lost. Eyes missing. faces disfigured. Even the animals.
Palestine, you consume me constantly. I pause in grocery stores. Or on forest paths. My eyes well up. I lean against a wall. Or tree. To suddenly cry. This is may be prompted by seeing a child. Or thinking of an Instagram post I saw earlier in the day. Like this one.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C0cE5jzJjWD/
Or seeing a child run to their mom or dad — skipping, carefree. And I think, “Why did they make it? And she did not?”
The first Palestinian death that really broke my heart was Reem. I saw this post November 6, 2023. I will never be the same. I am glad I will never be the same.
I saw a video of Reem’s grandfather, saying goodbye to her before she was wrapped in plastic bag on a table. Before a white sheet was wrapped around her. I read the words, “soul of my soul.” I saw the grandfather rock the child’s motionless body. He opened her eyelid to look into her eye for the last time. Later, I learned, he was wishing she was just sleeping. He then kissed her eye.
Fist time I saw this, I broke into tears. My body shook. I lay on the floor. I was inconsolable for an hour. Grief, anger, despair, confusion, ratcheted my body. How do you suppose the people in Gaza feel, enduring this for 70 days? (now it is 130 days as of February 13).
My friend Salam, who lives in the U.S, and is Palestinian — she has lost SIXTY MEMBERS OF HER FAMILY DURING THIS GENOCIDE! In Gaza.
She lives in New Orleans. She lived in Gaza between the ages of 15 and 17. Her mother is Palestinian. Her dad is black. I asked her why she went to Palestine at the age of 15. She said because she was too much for her mom to handle as a teenager, so her mom sent her there for her relatives to help her out. Salam came back to the U.S. because she was persecuted so harshly by the IDF in her day-to-day, she could not handle it.
We became friends because of this war. I noticed her posting on Instagram. She had spirit. Truth. Swag. I reached out to her. We started texting. We now communicate daily by phone or text.
She is a joy. One time, we were talking on the phone, and after we hung up, she texted me that the call had lasted 33 minutes and 33 seconds. Sent me a screen shot of the time. “Angel number,” she said.
That was the night I was talking to her while looking at the moon, stalling before my workout at Planet Fitness. We were sending pictures of the moon and the sky to each other, while on the phone. We agreed we were made from the same cloth, both of us sensitive to beauty. It pierces us.
This is what is left of her family’s home in Gaza:
By the way, the new name for the IDF, if you are out of the loop, is IOF.
ISRAELI OFFENSIVE FORCES
Salam is raising funds to help displaced families in Gaza. She is selling stickers, T-shirts, and hats. The money raised goes directly to Gazans. She is creating a non-profit. She is paying for all the labor and material out of her own pocket. She is 27 years old and she is on fire. She knows history better than anyone I know.
There are some cool things that have come out of this war. Friendships. Finding my people. Moments with people who care.
The day I wept over Reem? I was supposed to have lunch with my niece that day. She came over, and my face was puffy. I burst into tears. I said, “Frankie, I don’t think I can go to lunch with you.”
She said, “Don’t worry. Tell me all about it.” We sat on the couch.
I told her my heart broke over this grandfather losing the “soul of his soul.” For no reason.
I told her that my cat and her — Frankie — were the soul of my soul. I never had kids of my own. But Frankie feels like my own. And my cat — the light that I feel whenever I see Frankie or my cat — or even thought of them — this is the light that carries me in life.
This light is the same light that was snuffed from the grandfather’s life forever.
I told Frankie I was SICK OF the world treating people like some lives are disposable. I told her I wanted to go to Gaza with Doctors Without Borders. And fight. For the remaining lives in Gaza. Be in solidarity with them. Witness the loss/trauma. Help them heal, rebuild. Be at risk. Bear some of the brunt of it with them. Embody that all lives have the same value.
I told Frankie that in downtown Bend Oregon, 3 days from now, there would be a protest calling for an IMMEDIATE CEASEFIRE IN GAZA. It would be the first one I would attend. She did not hesitate. She said, I will help you make signs.
And we did.
I went to the protest. I found my people. I have been fighting ever since. Connecting with others. Praying. Donating. I appplied to Doctors Without Borders.
If you want to learn more about Reem and her grandfather when she was alive, and what happened the night she died, you can watch this:
