March 9, 2024
International Women’s Day Celebration

24-03-09 Africaide
Hosted by AFRICaide and 4W

Christ Presbyterian Church
944 E. Gorham Street
Madison
10:30 am – 4:00 pm

For more than a decade, the AFRICaide organization has been bringing together women and girls from all backgrounds to celebrate International Women’s Day here in Madison. 2024 marks the 10th year of the collaboration between AFRICaide and 4W (Women & Wellbeing in Wisconsin & the World) Initiative to partner to host the event, which features morning engagement sessions, hands-on activities, lunch and networking, and music and movement. Attendees will have the opportunity to participate in discussions with community members engaged in improving conditions for women locally, nationally, and internationally.

Both MRSCP and Palestine Partners will be participating in the All-Day Global Marketplace, and lunch will be provided by a group of fantastic Cameroonian caterers. Dr. Linda Vakunta will deliver the keynote address and organizers will present six trailblazer awards that acknowledge the achievements that women have made from the Madison area to the global sphere. The afternoon portion of the program will be live-streamed online.

Optional donations benefit AFRICaide programs

More information at Madison365

“What I Witnessed in Gaza Is a Holocaust,” Part 1

Palestinian Writer Susan Abulhawa



MARCH 06, 2024


GUESTS

We speak with Palestinian novelist, poet and activist Susan Abulhawa, who is in Cairo and just returned from two weeks in Gaza. “What’s happening to people isn’t just this death and dismemberment and hunger. It is a total denigration of their personhood, of their whole society,” says Abulhawa. “What I witnessed personally in Rafah and some of the middle areas is incomprehensible, and I will call it a holocaust — and I don’t use that word lightly. But it is absolutely that.”

Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

More

A U.N. convoy of food trucks trying to bring 200 tons of food into northern Gaza was turned back by the Israeli military today. A convoy of 14 trucks waited for three hours at the Wadi Gaza checkpoint in central Gaza before it was turned away by the Israeli military and later stopped by a large crowd of desperate people who, quote, “looted the food,” according to the World Food Programme. This comes as Israeli forces have repeatedly opened fire on Palestinians seeking to get aid in northern Gaza, killing at least 119 people in the most deadly attack February 29th.

Hunger has reached catastrophic levels in Gaza. The Palestinian Health Ministry said today the death toll from malnutrition and dehydration has risen to 18, adding, quote, “The famine is deepening and will claim thousands of lives if the aggression is not halted and humanitarian and medical aid is not immediately brought in,” unquote. Children, pregnant women, those with chronic illnesses are most vulnerable.

Meanwhile, the Israeli bombardment continues, with shelling and airstrikes today in cities across the Gaza Strip, including in Rafah, Khan Younis, Deir al-Balah and elsewhere. At least 30,700 Palestinians have been killed, over 72,000 wounded in Gaza over the past five months. Nearly the entire population has been displaced from their homes.

For more, we go to Cairo, Egypt, where we’re joined by Susan Abulhawa, a Palestinian novelist, poet and activist, author of several books, best known for her debut novel, Mornings in Jenin, an international best-seller translated into 32 languages, considered a classic in Palestinian literature. She’s the founder and co-director of Playgrounds for Palestine, a children’s organization, and the executive director of Palestine Writes Literature Festival. She just returned from Gaza after spending two weeks there, is now in Cairo.

Susan, welcome to Democracy Now! If you can talk about what you saw? You have written, “Some are eating stray cats and dogs, which are themselves starving and sometimes feeding on human remains that litter streets where Israeli snipers picked off people who dared to venture within the sight of their scopes. The old and weak have already died of hunger and thirst.” Describe your trip.

SUSAN ABULHAWA: So, that part of the essay is in the northern region, where nobody really is allowed to go. Trying to venture into the north is a suicide mission. There are tanks and snipers positioned, and anyone trying to get there is basically killed. As you just mentioned, aid trucks are not getting in, either. They are intentionally stopped. And it’s an intentional starvation, basically. I was primarily in the south, in Rafah. I was able to go to Khan Younis and to Nuseirat and a few other places in the middle region, but that became increasingly more dangerous.

I want to say that the reality on the ground is infinitely worse than the worst videos and photos that we’re seeing in the West. There is a — you know, beyond people being buried alive en masse in their homes, their bodies being shredded to pieces, these kinds of videos and images that people are seeing — beyond that, there is this daily massive degradation of life. It is a total denigration of a whole society, that was once high-functioning and proud and has basically been reduced to the most primal of ambitions, you know, being able to get enough water for the day or flour to bake bread. And this is even in Rafah.

And the people in Rafah will tell you that they feel privileged because they’re not starving to death, while their families in the north, the ones that they can reach, because Israel has basically cut off 99% of communication — what remains are basically communications by people who have, you know, set up some ingenious ways to keep internet in the north. But most people in the north have no idea what’s happening. As a matter of fact, at one point — I’m sure you all know Bisan Owda, who is on Facebook. She explained to me she often goes up to the border between Khan Younis and the middle area in the north where you can’t go beyond, and she explained to me that an aid truck, that sort of pushed its way through but was eventually fired on, had — people came up and ran up, thinking that the war was over and people were returning to the north. So, most people in the north are in total darkness and hunger and really have no way of communicating, no way of figuring out where to get food.

And, you know, what we’re hearing on the ground is surreal. It’s dystopic. What I witnessed personally in Rafah and in some of the middle areas is incomprehensible. And I will call it a holocaust — and I don’t use that word lightly. But it is absolutely that.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Susan Abulhawa, I want —

SUSAN ABULHAWA: The stories I heard from people are — sorry, go ahead.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Yeah, no, Susan, I wanted to ask you — you write in your article, “At some point, the indignity of filth is inescapable. At some point, you just wait for death, even as you also wait for a ceasefire. But people don’t know what they will do after a ceasefire.” Could you talk about that, even if there is a ceasefire —

SUSAN ABULHAWA: Yeah.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: — the level of destruction that the people face now in terms of being able to rebuild their country?

SUSAN ABULHAWA: I mean, that’s how much people have been reduced. I mean, the ceiling of their hope at this point is for the bombs to stop. And, you know, everybody wants to go back. They talk about pitching a tent on their homes and figuring things out. But a lot of people are trying to leave. There is a brain drain, basically. Those who can afford it, those who can raise the money, those who are able to get jobs elsewhere, who have professional skills, are trying to leave. They have children. All the schools have been destroyed. College students have nowhere to go.

You know, what’s happening to people isn’t just this death and dismemberment and hunger. It’s a total denigration of their personhood, of their whole society. There are no universities left. Israel intentionally bombed schools and blew them up, presumably to ensure that rebuilding could not take place, that reestablishing a society cannot take place without the infrastructure of education, of healthcare, and, basically, foundational structures for buildings.

AMY GOODMAN: Susan, I wanted to follow up on what you said about a holocaust. And you also used the term “genocide.” And you say, “Genocide isn’t just mass murder. It is intentional erasure.” Can you take that from there?

SUSAN ABULHAWA: Exactly. I mean, one of the — like I said, one of the things that Israel has been keen to do in Gaza is to erase remnants of people’s lives. So you have, on an individual level, homes, complete with memories and photos and all the things of living. And I’m sure you know Palestinians typically live in multigenerational homes. We’re not a mobile society. And so, these homes have several generations of the same family completely wiped out. On a societal level, you have — Israel has targeted places of worship — mosques, ancient churches, ancient mosques. They have targeted the museums, cultural centers, any place that — libraries. Any place that has records of people’s lives, has remnants and traces of their roots in the land, have been intentionally wiped away.

You know, it’s really frustrating for us to read Western media talk about, you know, Israel is targeting Hamas and whatnot. They’re not. This has always — and when you’re on the ground, you understand this has always been about displacing Palestinians, taking their place and wiping them off the map. That has been Israel’s stated goal, I mean, even in this instance and before, in 1948. It has always been their aim, to destroy us, remove us, kill us and take our place. And that’s what’s happening now in Gaza. It’s what happened in 1948, in 1967. And every new Nakba, every new escalation, is greater than the one before. And here we now arrive at a moment of genocide and holocaust, because the world has allowed Israel to act with such barbarity with impunity.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Yeah, I wanted to ask you also — you mentioned the world reaction. More people have died in Gaza in less than five months than have — civilians — than have died in Ukraine in over two years, in the war in Ukraine, and Ukraine has 40 times the population of Gaza. I’m wondering your sense of the failure of the — especially of the Western nations, of Europe and the United States, to act?

SUSAN ABULHAWA: The Western world has lost any semblance of moral authority, if they ever had any. Or, you know, I think that maybe there was an illusion of moral authority previously, but I think — you know, what we have always known is that we are dealing with genocidal colonizers. But I think that is more apparent to the rest of the world at this hour. And I think what’s also happening is that Americans are coming to understand, increasingly, though not nearly enough, that they’re being lied to.

AMY GOODMAN: And we’re going to take up that issue in Part 2 of our discussion, which we’ll post at democracynow.org. Susan Abulhawa, Palestinian novelist, thanks so much.

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

“Language Is Inadequate” to Describe the Horror, Part 2

Back from Gaza, Palestinian Writer Susan Abulhawa



MARCH 06, 2024

Palestinian novelist, poet and activist Susan Abulhawa joins us for Part 2 of her interview from Cairo after two weeks in Gaza. She discusses the impact of “unlimited weaponry” supplied by the United States for Israel to bomb and starve civilians there. “Language is really inadequate and insufficient to capture the enormity of this moment,” says Abulhawa. “What I’ve seen is really a fraction of the totality of this horror.” She is the founder and co-director of Playgrounds for Palestine, a children’s organization, and the executive director of Palestine Writes Literature Festival.

Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González, as we continue with our conversation about what’s happening in Gaza.

More

The World Food Programme has accused the Israeli military of blocking the agency from delivering crucial aid needed to avert a famine in northern Gaza. Health officials there say at least 18 children have died from starvation in recent days. The Biden administration is defending its decision to keep sending arms to Israel even though it’s blocking aid deliveries. National security communications adviser John Kirby was questioned at the White House on Tuesday by journalist Andrew Feinberg, a correspondent for the British newspaper The Independent.

ANDREW FEINBERG: What is preventing the president from communicating to the Israeli government that if they don’t allow aid, we will not continue supplying weapons? Why is that not a fair trade: no aid, no bombs?

JOHN KIRBY: Because the president still believes that it’s important for Israel to have what it needs to defend itself against a still viable Hamas threat. Maybe some people have forgotten what happened on the 7th of October, but President Biden has not.

AMY GOODMAN: For more, we’re joined by Susan Abulhawa, Palestinian novelist, poet, activist, author of several books, best known for her debut novel, Mornings in Jenin, an international best-seller translated into 32 languages, considered a classic in Palestinian literature. She’s founder and co-director of Playgrounds for Palestine, a children’s organization, and the executive director of Palestine Writes Literature Festival, just out of Gaza Tuesday after spending two weeks there. And she’s joining us for Part 2 of our conversation from Cairo, Egypt.

Susan, as you listen to this, you’re not in the United States right now. That’s the conversation that just took place. The question: Why is the U.S. providing Israel with weapons as it blocks food aid to a starving population? Continue to describe what you’re seeing on the ground and what you feel that people outside are not seeing, and, particularly because the U.S. is facilitating this, and you usually live here, how the American people understand what’s taking place, and should understand.

SUSAN ABULHAWA: I think the absurdity of the United States trying to airdrop — or, rather, it’s a theater, to airdropping a handful of boxes of aid to people who are starving because a key American ally, to whom we have been providing unlimited weaponry and financial aid, is actually doing the starving and doing the bombing, I hope will become, or if it’s not already, apparent to the American people.

I mean, I think, you know, hearing that clip, people still talking about Israel defending itself is — it’s difficult for any sane person to, or any person with a conscience or, you know — to understand how this language is still being spoken in public discourse. Gaza is a principally defenseless civilian population in the most densely populated place in the world. They have been imprisoned in what is tantamount to a concentration camp for over — for nearly 20 years. They have been occupied. They have been bombed repeatedly by the most powerful military in the region. And we’re still talking about this nuclear power defending itself from civilians. How do they — how is this even spoken with a straight face is beyond me.

Now, this absurdity is apparent to most people in the Global South, who have been victims of Western colonialism. But for some reason, it still seems to be an effective claim among Western societies, although less so particularly with younger generations who are more sophisticated when it comes to acquisition of information. Despite the pervasive censorship from social media platforms, people are still able to get some information from the ground, and, you know — and then we see acts, selfless acts and extreme acts, like what Aaron Bushnell did.

And, you know, I, frankly, don’t pay much attention to what I feel is political theater, when it comes to official spokespeople and electoral politics. I’m more interested in where change actually is cultivated and where it comes from, which is from the bottom up. I’m interested in the protests that still happen on college campuses despite the doxxing, despite the targeting of students and faculty alike. I’m interested in people who continue to pour into the streets all over the world into capitals by the hundreds of thousands. I’m interested in people in the movements to boycott Israel. I think this is where my focus is. This is where my interest is. Nothing is going to come from a ruling elite, that seems, frankly, hell-bent on accomplishing this genocide with — and at the same time trying to pay lip service to assuage public opinion that is increasingly oppositional.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Susan, I wanted to ask you — you’ve been co-director of Playgrounds for Palestine, a children’s organization. If you can talk about that group, why you founded it? And also, if you could talk about the — it must be incomprehensible, the level of trauma that the children in Palestine have been going through over the last five months, and the need that they will have for counseling and for repair of their psyches after this conflict is over.

SUSAN ABULHAWA: So, Playgrounds for Palestine, actually, while I was there, I facilitated a lot of children’s activities as a kind of psychological first aid for children. The trauma is immeasurable, frankly, not just for children, but for everybody.

I spoke with a lot of women, in particular, who were recovering in a hospital or were there — or, you know, being with their children who were recovering. The stories they told me are just — are out of like a Hollywood horror film. I mean, there are — I have photos of the backs of men where Israeli soldiers carved pictures, smiley faces, Stars of David, etc., in their skin. These women narrated stories to me of, you know, Israeli soldiers laying them — laying hundreds of women on the ground and then taking their guns with the laser and laughing, and then wherever the laser landed, they shoot.

I spoke with a woman whose 3-year-old daughter had both of her legs shattered, and she was in the hospital recovering. It was an intentional — she was intentionally shot by a soldier. And this happened to her daughter after they killed her son, shot him through the head, in what she described as tank fire toying with them for about 30 minutes before they finally delivered the final blow that took her son.

People being forced to walk from hospitals, severe injuries, people being forced to walk for hours to get to safety. Children and people, you know, who were fleeing their homes, trying to get to the south, having to walk with their hands up, with their IDs, and if anybody dares to look down or pick anything up, they’re picked off. They’re literally shot by snipers.

The scenes that they narrated to me — I spoke with a little girl who was about 8 years old, whose face was badly burned, but her injuries were the least in the whole family. The entire family had third-degree burns all over their bodies. And what she explained to me, again, you know, I don’t know how a child survives that.

I spent time in a hospital, in a maternity ward, where there were newborns who had either — who were unknown or who were known but whose family was just absent and no longer there, or nobody knows what happened to them. These newborns are spending 24/7, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, in incubators without any human touch, really, except when they come to feed them, because the nurses and the doctors are so exhausted and so overworked. People are being discharged from hospitals with wounds and going into tents where they don’t have running water and proper hygiene, and they’re getting horrible infections and dying from sepsis.

You know, life on the beach, you know, the beach is where Palestinians used to go for fun, to love, to be with family. And it’s torture now, because a lot of tents are pitched in the sand, and the sand is in everything. People’s skin is scorched. I mean, children walk around with cracked cheeks from the sun and sand. The sand gets in every bite of food.

The food that does come in, into Rafah, is primarily canned food. And most of it — and I think you hinted at this earlier, and I’ve seen it and tasted it myself — it is stuff that has clearly been sitting on shelves for decades. And all you can taste, really, is the rancidity, metallic taste of the can.

You know, this is — people schedule their days, they plan their days around trying to get to a single shared bathroom that’s shared by hundreds of other families. They try to do their best with hygiene, but it’s impossible. And when you have — when people succumb to living in filth, people — you know, I think maybe people in the West sort of have this impulse thought that most Black and Brown people sort of live like this. So it’s a little humiliating to have to explain that we don’t actually live in filth. And it’s degrading, beyond anything you can imagine, to be forced to live like this months on end, to have no way to protect your children, no way to give them hope, no way to calm their fears.

You know, there’s no privacy in the tents, because, you know, there’s not enough tents for families. So families are actually separated, with, you know, dozens of women in one tent and dozens in another. So spouses cannot even hold each other at night when they need that care the most. It’s these details that are traumatizing en masse for children, for parents, for elderly.

People don’t have medicines. People are dying from lack of insulin, which, by the way, Israel has banned from coming into Gaza. And they’re dying from diarrhea, because they’re drinking polluted water, and Israel has also banned water treatment, water filtration systems, even handheld ones, simple personal water filtration systems that, you know, Americans use when they go camping.

The degradation is total, Amy. And on top of that, they’re bombed, day in and out, even in Rafah. When I was there, there was not a single night that we didn’t hear bombs, and at least once was close enough that the building I was in shook, and we thought our building had actually been hit. But it was the one — it was one over from where I was. And there was another moment, too, when a tent by a hospital, where we had just been, was bombed. They bombed a tent. And it actually happened to be the tent that is adjacent to the tent that Bisan Owda was in. And they were sitting, eating. They were sitting on the ground eating, and shrapnel just came above their heads.

You know, this is a daily — this is a daily life, and everybody is expecting to die, expecting to lose the people they love. And they are. And I think, you know, there is something that I’ve noticed that happens. There’s a kind of detachment when people tell you what’s happening to them or what has happened. There’s a kind of numbing, that must be, I suppose, some kind of a defense mechanism. So, when they have a chance to breathe, I think these demons, this horror, this trauma is going to be another layer of catastrophe, generations just lost.

AMY GOODMAN: Susan Abulhawa, you talk about already Rafah is being bombed. Sunday, Ramadan begins. There are supposedly ceasefire talks going on, but the Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is continuing to threaten an all-out ground invasion of Rafah. What would this mean for the situation there?

SUSAN ABULHAWA: What you would expect, Amy. I mean, imagine — imagine them rolling in in a ground incursion where 1.4 million human beings are crammed into a tiny area — I think has been likened to the size of Heathrow Airport. When you walk out into the streets in Gaza, it’s crammed. I mean, it’s like being at a, you know, like — it’s the kind of crowd you would see at concerts in the United States. It’s 24/7. People have no place to walk barely. You know, to go from — if there’s a car and it’s driving a block, it will take you, I don’t know, 20 minutes to go a block, because a car has to contend with foot traffic, donkey traffic, horse traffic. It’s every — it’s just crammed. It’s completely crammed.

And another thing is that, you know, people — there are some apartments that might be available for rent, but people are terrified to rent apartments. They’d rather stay in a tent, because they don’t know — they’re worried — you know, it’s more probable that buildings are going to be bombed than tents, even though tents are being bombed, as well. But, you know, these are the choices that people are making.

Yeah, I don’t know — I don’t know how else to draw a picture for you, but it is a holocaust. It is unlike anything I have ever seen. I was in Jenin in 2002 when Israel committed a massacre there, and I thought that was the worst thing I had ever seen. This is infinitely worse than anything I’ve ever seen either personally or even in a Hollywood horror film.

Just walking, just when you — when you walk outside, you feel — like, first of all, there is one color. It’s gray. It’s just this miserable gray. And it’s painted on people’s faces, because they can’t wash themselves. They don’t have gasoline anymore, so they resort to one of two options. One is called solaar [phon.], which is, you know, a mixture of dirty gasoline. And the other is called searage [phon.], which is basically cooking oil. And searage is the cheapest of the two, and that’s what people who do have cars use. It creates this grotesque odor. It coats everything. It also — it’s being breathed in by people, and it’s a substance that sticks to the lungs. And so, there’s going to be, you know, in the future, massive lung disease from this searage. There’s this sort of constant haze of dust and rubble from the destruction that just doesn’t settle, and you breathe that in, as well. And you kind of — you walk through the street, and you feel the weight of the air is heavy. And I don’t know how else to describe it, but it’s hard to breathe. And I say that literally, and figuratively, as well. And then, you know, you go to the — you go to the ocean to get a little bit of a breeze, but the misery is also there.

AMY GOODMAN: You have said that it’s grassroots activism that most interests you, what people are doing on the ground to resist, whether around the world or here in the United States. And I wanted to ask you about the University of Pennsylvania President Elizabeth Magill, announced her resignation December following intense Republican-led backlash over questions regarding antisemitism and the contentious testimony before Congress. Major donors to UPenn had demanded Magill’s resignation since September, after she refused to cancel the Palestine Writes Literature Festival on campus. You’re the executive director of that festival. She was forced to resign. The UPenn Board of Trustees, who announced her resignation, then resigned himself. Can you talk about all of this controversy? And this had happened beginning before October 7th.

SUSAN ABULHAWA: Right. I mean, imagine that, that they were so up in arms about a literature festival. It was — frankly, it was such a beautiful moment of agency for us Palestinians. It was the first time that artists and writers from our diaspora, from every part of Palestine, from ’48, ’67, Gaza, Jerusalem, from the camps in Lebanon, from Jordan, other parts of the Arab world, from the United States — it was the first time we were able to gather in a single place since the Nakba. It was an exceedingly joyous moment for all of us. People cried. They had never seen anything like it. They had never experienced it.

There were — you know, we talked about everything, from tatreez to queer literature. We had interviews with writers and talking about their books. We had children’s programming. We had — we talked about food, culinary heritage. It was just — there was this amazing photography and art exhibit, photographs from our lives and of our ancestors in Palestine, going back to the beginnings of photography. It was just — it was a really incredible moment for all of us. And there was immense love within the walls of the building at UPenn.

But we also knew that outside there was extraordinary hate that had been directed at us for weeks prior. And during the festival, there was a billboard, a digital billboard, that was roaming campus, the campus, with photos of many of our speakers, myself included, you know, in these sort of demonic colors and calling us jihadis and Nazis and other defamatory words.

And then, after the festival, Marc Rowan, who was one of the trustees, and he was the most vocal of the trustees calling for Liz Magill’s resignation — he’s a billionaire. And from what I understand from journalists who write — who write, you know, business journalism, call him the Antichrist of the business world. But in any event, this man went on national television shows and wrote op-eds lying about the festival. I mean, at one point, he said that we called for the genocide of Jews. Now, we all knew that they had people recording inside. That’s not hard to — that’s not hard to expect. I mean, Malcolm X taught us that. And I even mentioned it in my opening speech. You know, I welcomed all the people coming to surveil us. But yet he has never produced anything resembling such a claim, because it’s a lie.

But, you know, they go on and they say this stuff, and nobody challenges them, and it becomes fact. And Marc Rowan even went so far as to try and tie the festival to October 7th. I mean, it’s disgusting. It’s disgusting, the way that — but this is Zionist propaganda. I mean, you know, we saw its continuation with the lie of the 40 beheaded babies and then, you know, this claim of mass rape, that’s thankfully getting dismantled by, you know, people who are paying attention. I mean, it’s just — it doesn’t stop, and it doesn’t get challenged, not really. I do have hope in this younger generation that’s questioning things. And they’re not buying the lies in the ways that older generations continue to do.

AMY GOODMAN: When you went into Gaza, you brought suitcases. Talk about what you brought in. And also you held a writing workshop, Susan. Can you talk about the stories that people told?

SUSAN ABULHAWA: I brought in a lot of things, ranging from medication to diapers, menstrual pads, just sanitary wipes, just body wipes, soap, shampoo, hearing aid batteries for the deaf community, that has been devastated by the lack of batteries, particularly children who are learning to communicate and who depend on a functioning hearing aid, and who are now regressing because of that. We brought in coffee. That was such a huge gift. I mean, people couldn’t — people haven’t had coffee in months. And it was like I just gave them, you know, a box of gold. You know, I brought in everything I could possibly bring, and I actually left Gaza with just the clothes on my back, because I gave everything away, because that is how deep the need is. People literally fled their homes with just what they were wearing. And even people who packed suitcases, they left them on the side of the road, because it got too heavy or because soldiers made them drop them.

You know, we talk so much about the physical needs, because it’s immense — you know, water, food, shelter. But there’s the psychological, the intellectual needs. I mean, we’re not just — you know, we’re not just, you know, these physical beings. People in Gaza want to reach their potential. I mean, you know, despite Israel’s best efforts to reduce Gaza to this point previously — I mean, they said it before. You know, the siege that’s currently in Gaza was about reducing Palestinians. And they talked about putting Palestinians on a diet, etc. But despite all of these restrictions, despite the bombings, Palestinians still figured out ways to build, to go to university, to learn, to establish businesses and jobs. And I think Israel hates that. I think they hate it. And I think that was — you know, that’s one of the things that is pushing this kind of — it’s part of this hatred. It’s part of this glee that the whole society seems to have at Palestinian suffering.

We held the writing workshop with a group of young people. All of them are creatives in one way or another. The stories they told are harrowing. And being in their presence, frankly, was humbling. And I said this in one of the articles. You know, you feel small in front of these people who have endured the unendurable, and who still managed to be generous and kind. I’m wearing this necklace and these pieces, these pieces of handmade jewelry, from people who insisted I take them, people who have nothing, who have lost everything, but who somehow keep their dignity and their generosity and their habits of hospitality. It’s extraordinarily humbling.

The writing workshop was a two-day event, was four hours each day. The first day was sort of working, doing writing exercises, talking about the craft. And the second day was when we developed the stories. And I was pleasantly surprised at the level of their writing. And I’m really looking forward to editing a collection, because I think the people of Gaza who have lived this moment should be the ones to narrate this moment. It shouldn’t be anybody else, not even other Palestinians like me. And my goal is to give them the tools that I have acquired in my life to narrate this moment for the rest of the world, and I’m looking forward to producing this book with them.

AMY GOODMAN: And finally, Susan, can you talk about the medical community, the health workers — I mean, you are a renowned novelist, but your background is also in medicine and science — and the effect of the bombardment of the hospitals, of the ambulances, on the medical workers, the doctors, the nurses, the medics themselves?

SUSAN ABULHAWA: They are bearing the brunt of a lot of what’s happening. Individually, I want to say also, a lot of the doctors and administrators themselves have been forced into tents. So, you know, nobody is — there are no bubbles for people to live in, except, you know, some of the NGOs who are able to secure safety and running water, etc., mostly for foreigners who come into Gaza as aid workers. But Gaza’s doctors and nurses, a lot of them haven’t been paid in months, but they still show up for work. They are exhausted. They are demoralized. Every single one of them has lost family members or friends and neighbors. The vast majority of them are displaced, and most of them have lost their homes. They are all bewildered in one way or another, trying to just function through this moment and praying for a ceasefire.

Even, you know, like I said, the ceasefire seems to be the ceiling of people’s ambitions at this moment. And it’s particularly acute now with Ramadan around the corner. The idea that Israel will still be bombing during Ramadan is — you know, I want to say “unimaginable,” but we already crossed that threshold a long time ago. Language really is inadequate and insufficient to capture the enormity of this moment. And I want to emphasize that what I’ve seen is really a fraction of the totality of this horror,

AMY GOODMAN: Susan Abulhawa, Palestinian novelist, poet, activist, author of a number of books, including her debut novel, Mornings in Jenin, an international best-seller translated into 32 languages, considered a classic in Palestinian literature. She’s founder and co-director of Playgrounds for Palestine, a children’s organization, and executive director of Palestine Writes Literature Festival. She just left Gaza after spending two weeks there, was speaking to us from Cairo, Egypt. To see Part 1 of our discussion, go to democracy now.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González. Thanks so much for joining us.

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Good Shepherd Collective Weekly Report

Image Good Shepherd Collective Weekly Report

Intro

Since October 7, Israel has killed at least 31,043 people in Gaza, wounding 76,666. The death toll is widely understood to be a massive underestimate, as thousands remain under the rubble or on streets, with family members unable to rescue or retrieve them. The state’s targeted destruction of entire Palestinian neighborhoods has killed 13,536 children, 8,900 women, and 8,607 men. Israeli attacks on hospitals, ambulances, and emergency responders have claimed the lives of 364 medical workers and 48 emergency personnel. To suppress Palestinians from narrating the Israeli genocide in Gaza, Israel has killed 132 journalists as well as many of their family members. Israel’s prolonged aggression against Palestinians in Gaza, the vast majority of whom are refugees from other parts of Palestine, is one of the deadliest in history.

Israel’s indigenous displacement and erasure is not contained to the Gaza Strip but also extends across the West Bank, Jerusalem, and the lands occupied since 1948. Since October 7, Israeli forces have increased violent incursions into Palestinian refugee camps across the West Bank, in particular, raiding communities, destroying essential infrastructure, carrying out mass arrest campaigns, and killing and injuring many Palestinians.

On March 2, Israeli forces fatally shot a 13-year-old Mohammad Khaled Zaid and injured another at the entrance to Al Jalazone refugee camp in Ramallah. Israeli troops left Mohammad to bleed for an hour before allowing emergency responders to reach him. That same day, 16-year-old Mohammad al-Deek was killed by Israeli forces during an incursion into Kafr Ni’ma village, Ramallah.

On March 4, Israeli forces killed a 16-year-old resident of Qalandiya refugee camp, Mustafa Abu Shalbak, and injured two others in the Al Amari refugee camp in Ramallah. The same day, Israeli forces murdered a 10-year-old Amr Muhammad Najjar in Burin, south of Nablus. He was shot in the head while with his father. It was reported that another Palestinian approached Amr after he was wounded and was also shot in the chest by Israeli forces.

Since October 7, 2023, Israeli forces have killed 412 Palestinians, including 106 children, across the West Bank alone. They have inflicted injuries on 4,623 Palestinians in the West Bank during this time, with 710 being children.

More

The Israeli authorities demolished 18 structures in the Jericho area on February 29, citing a lack of Israel-issued building permits. This action displaced seven people, including three children. The demolitions mainly affected residential buildings, external kitchens, bathrooms, agricultural structures, and solar panels. Since October 7, 2023, 599 individuals, including 285 children, have faced displacement in Area C and East Jerusalem due to such demolitions.

Additionally, on January 24, Israeli authorities punitively sealed a house in Beit Hanina, East Jerusalem, displacing four people. This house was linked to a Palestinian who had injured two soldiers in a shooting incident before being killed by Israeli forces. In total, 23 homes have been punitively demolished, and two sealed off since October 7, displacing 121 Palestinians, including 51 children. Punitive demolitions such as these amount to collective punishment, as demolishing homes impacts entire families.

OCHA has documented 607 attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians since October 7, 2023, resulting in murder, injury, property damage, or a combination. The vast majority of these attacks go unprosecuted. By allowing settler citizens, rather than the state, to use violence to displace Palestinians, the Israeli state creates a narrative of “a few bad apples” or “fringe extremists.” In reality, Israeli forces are very often present to protect settlers during violent attacks. Financed by the Israeli state and the US nonprofit system, Israeli settler violence has been the single most significant contributing factor in Palestinian displacement across the West Bank since October 7.

Between October 7, 2023, and January 21, 2024, Israeli state-sanctioned settler violence displaced some 198 Palestinian households, impacting 1,208 individuals, including 586 children.

The affected households come from at least 15 herding and Bedouin communities. A significant portion of these displacements, more than half, occurred on three specific dates: October 12th, 15th, and 28th, impacting seven communities and affecting a total of 1,539 people, including 756 children.

More

March 6, 2024
Madison! Tell Kamala Harris!

Madison! Join us at the Capitol Wednesday to send the following message to the Biden administration:

    • We demand an immediate, permanent ceasefire and resumption of all aid to Gaza.
    • Resume funding UNRWA.
    • Use the $14 billion to immediately rebuild the Gaza Strip.
    • Fund construction, not destruction.
    • Use the $14 billion for jobs and education, not occupation.
    • Fund infrastructure, not Israel’s war.

#FreePalestine #GazaGenocide #RafahUnderAttack #GenocideJoeBiden #UNRWA

March 3, 2024
A Reading of “The Aida Camp Alphabet”

A bilingual Arabic alphabet book, written &
illustrated by kids at the Aida Refugee Camp

Communication Madison
2645 Milwaukee Street
Madison
[Map]
10 am – 12:30 pm: Screen-printing and art making with local artist Lesley Ann Numbers. Donations will help a family leave Gaza.
1:00 – 2:00 pm: Read Palestine!

Join us for story time and activities about Palestine. Best for ages 5-9 but everyone is welcome. Learn some Arabic too! Sponsored by the “Read Palestine” project and MRSCP.

More Information

PCHR on the Flour Massacre

Full Statement

Biden Aid Airdrops to Gaza are Too Little Too Late

U.S. Must Change Course

 
This week, after witnessing the Flour Massacre in which over 100 Palestinians were killed at the site of a food aid shipment and over 750 more starving Palestinians were injured, the Biden Administration has announced its intention to conduct air drops of humanitarian aid to Gaza. This act is too little too late and an effort to evade holding Israel accountable to its duties before both U.S. and international law as a recipient of billions in taxpayer dollars.

This cosmetic change in the Biden Administration’s approach suggests that the President and U.S. government have lost complete control over any actions of the Israeli government. In the face of what experts have called the fastest-ever onset of famine since WWII—imposed by Israel on the Palestinian people in Gaza—the Biden administration’s actions show a crass dismissal of Palestinian suffering directly aided and abetted by both U.S. weapons and military aid. The administration must drastically change course as its current approach has indisputably failed while giving Israel license since October 7th to exact deadly collective punishment on the Palestinian people in Gaza—with full U.S. financial and political coverage.

More

The humanitarian catastrophe wrought by the Israeli campaign in Gaza is the disastrous next phase in Israel’s genocide. In addition to over 30,000 Palestinians killed by Israel including over 13,000 children, over 70% of homes have been destroyed, at least 10 children have died from hunger, and over a million Palestinian civilians face starvation and indefinite displacement. The Biden Administration pleading with Israel for the entry of limited humanitarian aid and a temporary ceasefire has failed. The United States provided cover for Israel through vetoes of a ceasefire at the UN Security Council even as most of our allies voted for ceasefire.

Israel has completely ignored the demands of the International Court of Justice which found genocide “plausible” in Gaza if Israel took no action to allow the free entry of humanitarian aid, to avoid continued killing of Palestinian civilians, and to prevent conditions “calculated to bring about [Palestinians’] physical destruction in whole or in part.” Alongside the U.S. federal court’s finding regarding genocide in Gaza, these acts implicate the United States as complicit in genocide. Dropping aid from the sky does not change this reality and indeed, Israel may still obstruct or bomb such aid given the precedent of the past few weeks.

The U.S. must cut military aid to Israel, thereby compelling an immediate and permanent ceasefire. Compel Israel to withdraw from Gaza. Recognize Palestinians’ full human and political rights, and pressure Israel and Egypt to immediately allow the full flow of humanitarian trucks into Gaza without restriction. This is the only strategy that can emerge from a commitment to doing what is right and humane—in addition to what is in the U.S.’s best interest for its standing before the world.

Political expediency and election prospects are only secondary considerations amidst an unmitigated genocide enabled by this administration. Speeches of sympathy with Palestinians are directly at odds with current policy. The Flour Massacre must compel the U.S. to reckon with Israel’s intent and our complicity: the Biden administration must act decisively to stop genocide.

Sincerely,
Dr. Osama Abu Irshaid
Executive Director

Americans for Justice in Palestine Action
6404 Seven Corners Place, Ste N
Falls Church, Virginia 22044
Question?
Email us at info@ajpaction.org
or call (703) 534-1904

March 2, 2024
Madinah Academy Ramadan Show

24-03-02 Ramadan Show

Reserve your tickets!

Over 1,000 protest at “Day of Action for Palestine” in Milwaukee

“Day of Action for Palestine” in Milwaukee March 2 (Photo by Omar Waheed)

More protests in Wisconsin calling for a ceasefire in the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict drew out the largest crowd yet in the state for a “Day of Action for Palestine” in Milwaukee March 2.

Over 1,000 people came out to the Islamic Society of Milwaukee, 4707 S. 13th St., to continue protesting for a ceasefire in Gaza organized by the Wisconsin Coalition for Justice in Palestine. The Day of Action for Palestine drew out the largest crowd yet for any ceasefire protest in Wisconsin, more than doubling Madison’s biggest protest in Dec. 2023.

“We have to stand for the people of Gaza because, unfortunately, most people, most governments around the world are not standing up for anyone, and they’re allowing a genocide to take place before their eyes,” said Othman Atta, executive director of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee. “So we are going to be the conscience of the world because we want a free Palestine.”

Othman Atta speaks at “Day of Action for Palestine” in Milwaukee
(Photo by Omar Waheed)

Atta drew attention to failures to prevent the ongoing massacre of Palestinians in Gaza. He parallels the current conflict to the Nakba in 1948 calling it “Nakba two.” During the Nakba of 1948, the estimated death toll of Palestinians was 15,000 over the course of multiple massacres.

The current conflict in Gaza, which has been ongoing since Oct. 7, 2023, has surpassed 30,000 deaths according to the Gaza Ministry of Health’s latest figure from Feb. 29.

The protest started with roughly 600 people at the Islamic Society of Milwaukee. When the march started down West Layton Avenue, more protesters steadily flocked to the group to make it over 1,000 strong.

“I think it’s reflective with how many people are asking for an end to this genocide,” said Janan Najeeb with the Wisconsin Coalition for Justice in Palestine. “Most normal people are not okay with genocide, especially when it’s involving women and children and I think that to just see the massive diversity of the people that are here shows that this is not a Palestinian issue. This is not a Muslim issue … this is a human issue.”

Protestors marched for a bit under a mile between the Islamic Society of Milwaukee and its community center at 815 W. Layton Ave. where Day of Action for Palestine capped off with an International Women’s Day Celebration.

NY Times “investigation” of mass rape by Hamas falls apart

Ali Abunimah,  Electronic Intifada, 9 January 2024

Facing growing international isolation and an imminent prosecution for genocide at the International Court of Justice, Israel is doubling down on one of its most lurid propaganda narratives: The claim that Hamas fighters systematically raped Israeli women, girls and even some men on 7 October 2023.The latest installment of this tale came in the form of a 28 December New York Times “investigation” led by Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Jeffrey Gettleman.

It is dramatically headlined “‘Screams Without Words’: How Hamas Weaponized Sexual Violence on Oct. 7.”

The Times asserts that it conducted a two-month investigation “establishing that the attacks against women were not isolated events but part of a broader pattern of gender-based violence.” But under scrutiny the article spectacularly fails to live up to that bold claim.

The article is an emotionally manipulative fraud aimed at justifying or distracting from Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

That’s why I considered it essential to debunk it – which I did in conversation with my colleague Nora Barrows-Friedman on The Electronic Intifada’s livestream on 3 January.

We previously debunked Israel’s claims of mass rape in a segment on 4 December, but returned to the topic following the sensationalist and false reporting by The New York Times.

You can watch the latest segment in the video above.

Lies and manipulation

Central to the Times’ story is its claim that an Israeli woman called Gal Abdush was a victim of rape before she was killed on 7 October.

More

The newspaper claims that Abdush “has become a symbol of the horrors visited upon Israeli women and girls” on 7 October.

But Abdush’s family have repudiated this claim, saying that there is no evidence she was raped.

They say they were manipulated by The New York Times and had no idea the newspaper was going to use their loved one to further the rape narrative despite the lack of any evidence that it occurred.

The distortions and manipulations in this article are now reportedly causing “growing concern” even within the newsroom of The New York Times, a private newspaper that has long-functioned as a semi-official mouthpiece for the US government and intelligence agencies, most notoriously its laundering of their lies about Iraq possessing weapons of mass destruction.

Dismantling atrocity propaganda

The key points we covered in our latest segment on this story also include:

  • The New York Times identifies four eyewitnesses for alleged incidents of rape and murder – a woman identified only as Sapir, and three men: Yura Karol, Raz Cohen and Shoam Gueta. Each of these eyewitnesses, whose accounts are not new, lacks credibility. This is either because their stories are inherently unlikely or impossible, there is total lack of corroboration, including bodies and other physical and forensic evidence, or because the supposed witnesses have changed their stories over time.
  • The Times “investigation,” like previous similar stories by The Washington Post, CNN, Haaretz, The Times of Israel and others, does not confirm the existence of victims or physical or forensic evidence. Rather, it provides a litany of excuses for why there is no forensic evidence or crime scene photos – even though there was ample opportunity for authorities to collect them.
  • Another main Times’ source is ZAKA, which the newspaper misleadingly describes as a nonprofit “emergency response team.” In fact, this extreme Jewish religious group and its leaders have been caught fabricating atrocity propaganda about 7 October, including the debunked tales of beheaded babies, children tied together and shot and burned, and of a pregnant woman whose fetus was torn out of her belly.

ZAKA was, moreover, founded by a man accused of serial rapes over decades – a man the organization’s leaders continued to defend up to his death in 2021, despite evidence he used the organization’s money and resources to commit his crimes, including against children.

  • Despite Israel saying there are tens of thousands of videos filmed on 7 October, authorities have not claimed that a single one of them shows a rape or a sexual assault taking place – a glaring absence, given that Israel asserts that rape was used on a wide scale as a weapon of war.
  • One of the Times’ main sources is the Israeli military, currently engaged in genocide in Gaza, and notoriously unreliable as a source on anything.
  • Israel has refused to cooperate with any international investigation of its claims, to be conducted using established methodologies for documenting claims of rape during armed conflict.
  • Israel’s mass rape claims fit into a longstanding colonial tradition of atrocity propaganda demonizing colonized indigenous or enslaved men as inherently brutish, violent and lustful, especially towards white or settler women.

Story falls apart

Since our livestream, even more information has come out exposing the extent of the fraud being perpetrated by the Times under the cover of its prestige as the world’s “newspaper of record.”

This includes the key admission by Israeli police that they have been unable to locate any survivors of the alleged mass rape campaign.

And, as the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported on 4 January, in “the few cases where police have already amassed testimony about the sexual assaults Hamas committed during its massacre in southern Israel, they haven’t yet been able to identify the specific victims of the acts to which witnesses have testified.”

And here’s some additional sources and observations about some of the themes, inconsistencies and so-called witnesses we discussed in the program:

We will starve you or kill you


Israel is making it clear to Palestinians in Gaza: We will starve you to death or we will kill you when you try to get food.

At dawn this morning, as hundreds of desperately hungry people gathered in Gaza City in hopes of getting a sack of flour from the few aid trucks that Israel has allowed in, Israeli forces opened fire killing 112 and injuring more than 700 others.

I have been waiting since yesterday. At about 4:30 this morning, trucks started to come through. Once we approached the aid trucks, the Israeli tanks and warplanes started firing at us, as if it was a trap.

The number of dead will no doubt rise, as nearby hospitals are barely functioning because of Israeli attacks and the blockade of Gaza. While blood filled the ground where people were waiting for food, hospitals do not have blood supplies to treat the wounded.

Stop the Genocide in Gaza!

Shocking but not surprising, the Israeli military first blamed the violence on the starving people themselves, saying that people were crushed in the crowd.

Only a ceasefire will stop the slaughter and starvation. And it is up to make that happen. Take action today, tomorrow, and as often as possible. Share this message. Ask friends and family to join you.

Stop the genocide!

In outrage and solidarity,
All of us at MECA

P.S. Read more coverage of the massacre from the Palestine Chronicle.

Mohammad Hureini of Youth of Sumud

Final Straw, Jan 28, 2024

This week, we’re featuring a conversation with Mohammad Hureini (twitter / instagram), a young activist from Masafer Yatta, an area in the hills south of Hebron in the occupied West Bank in Palestine. Mohammad is a member of a non-violent group called Youth of Sumud that struggles to hold on to the sites and lives of Palestinian villages despite displacement by the Israeli military occupation as well as the illegal zionist settlements (like the neighboring Havat Ma’on) and their routine violence and impunity. For the hour, Mohammad speaks about the work of Youth of Sumud, their recent report co-published with The Good Shepherd on increased settler violence entitled Indigenous Erasure: How the zionist movement is using state sanctioned violence to eliminate the Palestinian communities of the West Bank, the South African genocide case against Israel in the International Court of Justice and other topics. A transcript of this interview will be available soon.

Al-Addameer’s recent publication on prisons and repression of Palestinians since October 7th, 2023: https://addameer.org/media/5262

Organizations Mohammad names doing on the ground support:
– Defund Racism (https://defundracism.org/): follows NGO connections to settler projects recently published a report on Regavim, a pro-settler organization that pulls funding from the US, Canada and elsewhere to displace Palestinians
– Operation Dove /Operazione Colomba from Italy (https://www.operazionecolomba.it/)
– International Solidarity Movement (https://palsolidarity.org/) Community Peacemaker Teams (https://cpt.org/)