Occupation, curfew, settlements, closed military zone, administrative detention, siege, preventive strike, terrorist infrastructure, transfer. Their WAR destroys language. Speaks genocide with the words of a quiet technician.
Occupation means that you cannot trust the OPEN SKY, or any open street near to the gates of snipers tower. It means that you cannot trust the future or have faith that the past will always be there.
Occupation means you live out your life under military rule, and the constant threat of death, a quick death from a snipers bullet or a rocket attack from an M16.
A crushing, suffocating death, a slow bleeding death in an ambulance stopped for hours at a checkpoint. A dark death, at a torture table in an Israeli prison: just a random arbitrary death.
A cold calculated death: from a curable disease. A thousand small deaths while you watch your family dying around you.
Occupation means that every day you die, and the world watches in silence. As if your death was nothing, as if you were a stone falling in the earth, water falling over water.
And if you face all of this death and indifference and keep your humanity, and your love and your dignity and YOU refuse to surrender to their terror, then you know something of the courage that is Palestine.
Suheir Hammad
Deir Yassin Remembered
Early in the morning of April 9, 1948, commandos of the Irgun (headed by Menachem Begin) and the Stern Gang attacked Deir Yassin, a village with about 750 Palestinian residents.
The village lay outside of the area to be assigned by the United Nations to the Jewish State; it had a peaceful reputation. But it was located on high ground in the corridor between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Deir Yassin was slated for occupation under Plan Dalet and the mainstream Jewish defense force, the Haganah, authorized the irregular terrorist forces of the Irgun and the Stern Gang to perform the takeover.
In all over 100 men, women, and children were systematically murdered. Fifty-three orphaned children were literally dumped along the wall of the Old City, where they were found by Miss Hind Husseini and brought behind the American Colony Hotel to her home, which was to become the Dar El-Tifl El-Arabi orphanage.
Part of the struggle for self-determination by Palestinians has been to tell the truth about Palestinians as victims of Zionism. For too long their history has been denied,
and this denial has only served to further oppress and deliberately dehumanize Palestinians in Israel, inside the occupied territories, and outside in their diaspora.
Some progress has been made. Westerners now realize that Palestinians, as a people, do exist. And they have come to acknowledge that during the creation of the state of Israel, thousands of Palestinians were killed and over 700,000 were driven or frightened from their homes and lands on which they had lived for centuries.
#Jenin #Palestine #IsraeliWarCrimes
In April, 2002 that tragedy of the Thirties has been repeated but this time on the hand of the Israeli army in a way more brutal and inhuman. Jenin like the other Palestinian cities occupied in 1976 had witnessed all kinds of the Israeli inhuman occupational procedures and practiced all kinds of resistance to repulse that occupation. When the Palestinian National Authority was established after Oslo agreement, Jenin looked forward a better future within a Palestinian independent state. But because of the Israeli procrastinations Palestinians revolted declaring the second Intifada. Jenin has been a fortress of steadiness in front of the Israeli aggressions. Israel described it as the fort of the Palestinian terrorism, thus relentless attacks were committed against it using all the kinds of the strategic weapons.
“I would like to become a doctor. If Israel attacks again, I’d like to be able to take care of the injured people. We all hope the borders will open soon. We would like to be able to go outside of Gaza, to play with the kids of the foreigners, and see how they live.”
- Amal Samouni, 11 years old. A Palestinian child who lost 29 members of her family during the Gaza Massacre
“We are not numbers. We are stories. We are feelings. We are Iman Hijjo sitting in her mother’s arms and breastfeeding when the bomb tore her small innocent smile apart. We are Mohammed Al-Durra hiding behind his Dad’s arms bleeding, while his very Dad screams tearfully: The boy died by a bullet. We are the Al-Samouni family that was given a promise to survive if only if they moved inside a tiny room. The next day, the entire family was erased. We are the steps of millions of refugees who were forced to leave their homeland to be displaced till their very last day in life. We are not invented numbers, Sir.”
This is Jamila Al-Habash. On January 4, 2009, Jamila (14) and her younger siblings and cousins were playing on the rooftop of their family home when an unmanned Israeli drone aircraft fired a missile at the children, killing her sister, Shaza (10) and her cousin Isra (11) immediately. As a result of injuries sustained during the attack, Jamila lost both her legs above the knee. Her mother, Hala recounts:
“The first thing I saw was Jamila without her legs, it was like she had been butchered, cut like meat. Her left leg was thrown about 100 metres, we gave it to the ambulance later…. Isra, I saw her brain. Then I saw Shaza, she was cut through her hip to her stomach. Her leg was gone, she was dead. I am a teacher, I take care of the health of the children if they are hurt. I did the same with Jamila, I told her not to worry, that I would take her to hospital, that I would get an ambulance.”
Jamila Al-Habash is the epitome of Palestinian resilience. She is my hero.
I will never forget the tears in my father’s eyes as he was watching the news during the Israeli attack on Gaza.
In memory…
We will never forgive nor forget.
Ola Tamimi, the sister of Mustafa Tamimi (may he rest in peace)
The anguish and heartbreak in this photo speak volumes.
Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji’un (إِنَّا لِلّهِ وَإِنَّـا إِلَيْهِ رَاجِعونَ)
This is the Israel EVERYONE should know about.
September 18th marks the memory of the massacre of around 3,500 old men, women, and children at the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila in Lebanon. Just like the world insists on remembering 9/11, it must also NEVER forget what happened at Sabra and Shatila!
Bullets or Burgers
33 million bullets are manufactured worldwide every day. That’s 14 billion a year. Every one of them is built with one purpose. To kill. 14 billion killers.
33 million is also roughly the amount of burgers McDonalds sell daily. Just a thought.
As an aside, I just did a rough calculation to see how many cows would need to be turned into hamburgers every year to supply McDonalds. It worked out at 40,150,000 cows. It would be more if you use scrawny cows.
Still Lovin’ It?
Israel’s true colours.
