okay so i have abandoned any notion that i can get any of my own work done this week in beirut. my mind is stuck on gaza and really don’t want it to be otherwise. i leave the apartment to go to the coffeeshop when rania’s electricity cuts every day for a few hours and i run into friends, who i want to see. i want to commiserate, to catch up, to share ideas about resistance. but my friends in palestine, who are not allowed to come here, want things. specifically i promised dear areej that i would get her various oral history projects on an nakba from refugee camps here–oral, video, written–and also the village history books from where palestinians fled in 1948. they want to do similar projects in her camp. today i went to meet with a friend who has most of these materials at his center, al jana center for the popular arts. while i was there he invited his staff to come in and talk to me about what it is like in palestine right now. they wanted to know my observations about the situation. while i was happy to oblige, it is upsetting that i, a foreigner, can come to lebanon and talk about palestine while my friends are not allowed to come here. while my friends here are not allowed to go there. at the same time i am grateful that lebanon has consistently maintained its policy of anti-normalization with the zionist entity.
while we were discussing the situation my friend asked if any statements from political prisoners in israeli terrorist jails have been released. i told him not that i know of. and we talked about this–about the fact that this idea of calling for one nation, of unifying palestinians is not really what we need now. what is needed, he said, is “one resistance.” a unified resistance. and i couldn’t agree more.
it got me thinking: after 9/11 when george w. bush said “you’re with us or you’re with the terrorists” i was horrified. i was horrified by this simplistic logic. i was horrified about the consequences of this statement. and i still am. but in palestine i have a different point of view. i think this: either you are with the resistance–all resistance–or you’re against the resistance.
this is what it has come to. this is how i feel.
we must support the palestinians in gaza. we must honor the 971 martyrs and the 4,418 injured. the 80,000 palestinians made refugees, yet again. 25,000 of them are seeking refuge in unrwa schools, the very sites which have been targeted by israeli terrorists when filled with refugees and internally displaced people (idps).
here are some of the newest martyrs from israeli terrorist bombings in gaza:
The Israeli offensive against the Gaza Strip is still ongoing and on Tuesday, the eighteenth day of the offensive, the Israeli army killed 47 Palestinians, and wounded dozens of residents in several parts of the Gaza Strip. Medical sources in Gaza reported that the army killed 971 Palestinians, including hundreds of women and children, and wounded at least 4418 in the ongoing offensive.
Seven Palestinians were killed in a series of Israeli air strikes that targeted civilians areas in the Jabalia refugee camp on Tuesday evening. At least 40 residents were injured in these attacks.
In Khan Younis, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, nine Palestinians, including a 75-year old man, were killed when the army shelled a three-story home. Seven members of the family of the slain elderly man were wounded; three of them are children.
The man was identified as Khalid Hamdan Al Najjar, 70, the mother of his grandchildren was also wounded along with with a 45-tear old woman.
In Al Karama and Amer areas in Jablia, Israeli soldiers killed 13 fighters during clashes that took place as the soldiers were advancing into Jabalia.
Also, medics found the body of Moqbil Al Jarabee’, 92, who was killed in the northern part of the Gaza Strip on the first day of the offensive. Medics could not reach the area during the extensive Israeli shelling. When the medics located the decomposed body, the found a while flag in his palm.
Also, soldiers fired a missile at Al Sundaiyya area, north of Gaza City, and killed a fighter identified as Hisham Al Saqqa, 21.
Eight Palestinians were killed during clashes with Israeli troops invading Tal Al Hawa area in Gaza. Several residents were injured.
The army also killed Yahia Jamil Ayyad, 30, and Ashraf Hamdi Ayyad, 23, as they were trying to reach their home in Al Zeitoun neighborhood in Gaza City. Both were civilians and not fighters. Also in Al Zeitoun, the army killed a fighter identified as Mohamamd Harzallah, 23. Harzallah was killed by a missile fired by the Israeli Air Force.
Medical sources in Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza reported that two civilians died of earlier wounds sustained in the ongoing offensive. They was identified as Hasan Eshtewy, 68, who was seriously wounded in Al Zeitoun neighborhood, and Mamdouh Waleed Sh-Heibir, 18.
Furthermore, an Egyptian hospital declared that resident Naji Ramzi Meet, 21, from Al Boreij, died of wounds sustained on January 6 when the army shelled a home in the Al Boreij refugee camp.
other martyrs from today include:
Meanwhile 13 armed Palestinian fighters were killed in heavy fighting with invading Israeli forces in southwestern Jabaliya, north of Gaza City. They were identified by medical officials as: Hassan Muhammad Abu Zamar, 22, Muhammad Khalil Ibrahim Abu Leila, 20, Nael Mahmoud Ali, 25, Ibrahim Ismael Dababesh, 22, Usama Ahmad Al-Absy, 24, Hamad Hassan Al-Barawi, 25, Kamel Jamil As-Sarhi, 22, Yousef Muhammad Ash-Sharbasy, 27, Yousef Ummar Labad, 23, Khaled Sa’dy Al-Abed, 22, As’ad Sa’dy Ahmad, 24, Ali At-Tanany, 26, and Ahmad Kamal Ad-Dalo, 27.
In fighting in the Tel Al-Hawwa neighborhood, Israeli forces killed eight Palestinian fighters: Muhammad Nader Abu Sha’ban, 17, Fathi Yousef Al-Mazny, 18, Hatem Dib Abu Daf, 23, Bilal Muhammad Deibeh, 19, Ala Munther Abdel Shafe’y, 37, Mahmoud Ahmad Juha, 19, Saed Muhammad Hassan, 21, Muhammad Hazem Abu Labad, 20.
In the Az-Zaitoun neighborhood opened fire at two locals from the Ayyad family while they were on their way home and they are Yehyah Jamil Ayyad 30 years-old and Ashraf Hamdi Ayyad, 23.
Israeli forces shelled the eastern section of the Zaytoun neighborhood killing a fighter named Muhammad Maher Muhammad Ali, 23.
Further east and closer to the city center resistance factions clashed with invading Israeli ground troops. The troops were accompanied with tank and air fire, which resulted in the death of two Al-Qassam fighters in the Az-Zaytoun neighborhood. The Brigades identified the dead as Ahmad Abu Gazar and Muhammad Al-Hawar.
Later, in Khuza’a 75 year-old Khalil Hamdan Ahmad An-Najjar were killed in an airstrike that hit a three-story house. Seven others were injured.
Rohiyeh Ahmad Suleiman, 45, was also killed while fleeing from the area.
here are some of the stories of the wounded, the survivors from a hospital in gaza:
the stories of the people who are suffering from wounds and burns due to white phosphorous and other illegal weapons israeli terrorists are testing out on palestinians are harrowing to read. one witness stated, “’We could hear their bodies burning.'” there are others, including dr. yousef abu ar-reesh documenting what they are seeing:
“Most of them were skin burns, lacerations and deep wounds. A lot of them came in choking, unable to breathe,” he explains.
He explained that as far as he can tell the Israeli army is using two kinds of bombs, “The first causes severe skin burns and leads to death, as with 41-year-old Hanan Al-Najjar here, and others.”
“The second kind leads to suffocation, congestion, the inability to breathe.”
Dr Ar-Reesh said that he cannot confirm that the bombs are white phosphorus, since there are no specialized laboratories in Gaza. The eyewitness reports and the type of injuries he has seen in the hospital, however, worry him.
“What is certain” he said, “is that the Israeli government is using a new kind of bomb and explosives that Palestinian medics have never even heard of.”
“Not even the Arab medical teams who just arrived can give us any support,” he says.
The doctor pointed out that the wounds and burns are “terrible and horrific.”
“And they can lead to death, as with Hanan Al-Najjar, who burned to death when a shell directly hit her body.”
When asked if Israel is deliberately using weapons that are illegal under international law for use against civilians, Dr Ar-Reesh chooses his words carefully: “I can’t rule that out.”
interestingly, marc garlasco from human rights watch, who like journalists, united nations workers, and other independent witnesses who are banned from reporting on or investigating anything in gaza has identified the white phosphorous from a distance. speaking with jackie rowland on al jazeera he says there is “no question” that this is what they are using:
perhaps this is one of the many reasons that medical students have organized to stand in solidarity with the palestinian people in gaza in their petition:
We cannot sit idly in silence as this violent assault on a civilian population kills and maims hundreds of people. The principles we accepted upon entering the medical profession compel us to speak out in the face of these gross violations of basic decency and respect for human life. We implore the international community to shoulder its responsibility to the people of Gaza. We are embarrassed at US complicity and regret that many of the weapons fired come from our own country.
As members of the medical profession, we call for an immediate cessation of hostilities, the immediate and comprehensive provision of humanitarian aid, and recognition of the neutrality guaranteed to medical providers by international law. Israel has only now approved limited humanitarian corridors, but this is insufficient and has proven ineffective. We stand united in opposing the health and human rights disaster inflicted upon the citizens of Gaza. As we hope for a return to civility, dialogue, compromise, and resolution, our hearts go out to all of the victims of this tragedy. The violence must stop.
various psychological professionals are speaking about the heightened trauma experienced by palestinians in gaza, particularly the children. and just to ensure even more trauma–psychological and medial–israeli terrorists targeted medical clinics today too:
Israeli warplanes have attacked two fully equipped medical clinics in Gaza, causing hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage, the Christian organisations which fund them reported yesterday. The Catholic relief group Caritas said its clinic in the al-Meghazi area of Gaza had been “completely destroyed” by a missile on Friday, and that 20 nearby homes had been damaged. Because local families had already fled their homes, no one was hurt, Caritas said, but equipment worth $10,000 (£6,700) was lost.
Twenty-fours later, another clinic funded by Christian Aid was also demolished in an air strike; it followed a telephone warning to the building’s owners to leave within 15 minutes. Janet Symes, Christian Aid’s head of Middle East Region, said the clinic had “standing room” only for mothers bringing their children for check-ups when she visited it last year. She added: “Now the whole clinic lies in ruins.”
interesting. does this sound like a hamas target? does this help you to see that israeli terrorists target palestinians in general. period. end of discussion. perhaps this is why israeli terrorists who kidnapped palestinians were perplexed when they found out the palestinians they kidnapped were not hamas:
israeli terrorists see all palestinians as hamas–and frankly all palestinians should be behind hamas 100% right now with respect to resistance. this while people like benjamin netanyahu are calling this a “just war.” and while tzipi livni is saying things like this war is good for “moderate palestinians.” is this not a clear example of colonial divide and rule schemes? and israeli terrorists are showing their true colors in ways that have never been more clear as with a new call for genocide by one of its leaders:
“We must continue to fight Hamas just like the United States did with the Japanese in World War II,” Lieberman added.
According to reports in Israeli media, he said the US nuclear strikes had rendered an “occupation of the country … unnecessary.”
Avigdor Lieberman, a member of parliament and the chairman of the Israel Beiteinu party, was speaking at at Bar-Ilan University.
does this not sound like hitler’s final solution? did you notice he was speaking at an israeli university? is this not further evidence that israeli universities are complicit in the massacre and genocide of palestinians? why we must have an academic boycott of the zionist entity? is it any wonder that the united nations general assembly president father miguel d’escoto brockman today called what israeli terrorists are doing in gaza a GENOCIDE???:
The president of the UN General Assembly has condemned Israel’s killings of Palestinians in its Gaza offensive as “genocide”.
In an interview with Al Jazeera on Tuesday, Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann also said he never believed that the UN Security Council would be able to stop the violence in Gaza and that Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, had practically told the UN to “mind their own business” by continuing the offensive.
“The number of victims in Gaza is increasing by the day… The situation is untenable. It’s genocide,” d’Escoto said at the UN in New York.
this is why there are increasing demands for war crimes tribunals, though how that moves forward when so many people are brainwashed or bribed vis-a-vis israeli lobbies and media propaganda, i don’t know. this is why israeli terrorists also see part of their “battle” as fighting the united nations. but really i don’t know why it matters either way: the zionist entity is a rogue state. it does not abide by international law, the united nations, or any other body. it does what it wants and unlike any other country, except for its partner in war crimes, the united states, it never gets punished for its massive violations.
these are reasons why we need to demand boycott, divestment, and sanctions even more. to show the world that those of us marching in the streets in the millions from mexico to senegal to kenya to malaysia to england to france to the united states to jordan to egypt to lebanon that palestinian lives matter. academics should be at the forefront of this movement. the blog open anthropology identifies several axioms and deconstructs them in ways that help us to dismantle the israeli terrorist propaganda and also that help us to argue more coherently for the boycott:
What the Israeli state implicitly assumes, to the extent that it takes its own propositions seriously, is that Palestinian life matters less, is of less value, and the only way it can be of less value is if one sees Palestinians as less human. Israeli identity is thus assumed to be better, more deserving of rights and privileges, with an exclusive emphasis on Israeli suffering.
Meanwhile, the humanity of the Palestinians is denied, and it is in this context of its creation that the Israeli state expects its “right” to exist to be accepted? Of course all anthropologists should be feeling their stomachs turn, that is, if they see their discipline as being anything like a science in service of humanity.
and solidarity is building:
there is now a sikh solidarity movement with palestinians.
there are new petitions and initiatives that are available. stop the war/end the violence now has a petition to sign for the u.s., canada, and the u.k.
there is much you can do to act, to create, to resist, to stand in solidarity with palestinians in gaza. but whatever you do it is crucial that you stand in support of its resistance. to uphold the right of the people’s resistance. meanwhile, i hope that there is a call from the prisoners very soon to state in a unified way that palestinian political prisoners stand together as one in support of this resistance as should the people in 1948 and the west bank as well.
body on the line 