love when ppl defend the aggressive monetization of the internet with "what, do you just expect it to be free and them not make a profit???" like. yeah that would be really nice actually i would love that:)! thanks for asking
The massacre in Jenin is horrific but just the sight of bodies being left on the street because no ambulances/paramedics can get to them since Israel has been blocking them from reaching areas of the refugee camp…yeah there aren’t any words. Literally what can you even say
“Since the 7 October attacks, Israel has repeatedly accused Hamas of committing sexual violence during its incursion. Many mainstream western media outlets have paid considerable attention to these allegations, despite a lack of concrete evidence. But while reporters must always take such accusations seriously, it is equally important for them to uphold journalistic standards in the process - and there appear to have been serious lapses in that regard.
At the same time, allegations involving Palestinian women in Gaza have received far less airtime.
Despite a UN report citing testimonies from Palestinians who said they were sexually assaulted and beaten while in Israeli detention, the mainstream western media has failed to give this issue much attention.
In addition to the UN report, there are many documented cases of Palestinian women who described sexual abuse at the hands of Israeli forces. Detainees reported being stripped to their underwear, beaten, searched and threatened with rape. Despite all the documented cases of sexual assault, however, Israel has used a single incident to refute them all. After Al Jazeera recently covered an alleged eyewitness account of the rape of a Palestinian woman by Israeli forces at al-Shifa hospital, the network backtracked upon learning the claims were fabricated, with a former managing director saying the woman had misled people “to provoke an emotional response”. After the report was debunked, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz suggested that the UN was wrong to take any such reports seriously. This is a dangerous position, considering that the UN and other human rights groups have recorded myriad other incidents of sexual assault and humiliating treatment of Palestinian women by Israeli soldiers. All of this has left us in a situation where Israel, despite being accused of sexual violence in the ongoing war on Gaza, continues to benefit from the silence of mainstream western media - and sometimes the silence of the victims themselves.”
Israel is expanding ground operations in Gaza and proudly announcing their murder plans while everyone watches because they have the full support of the US and other powerful governments. God save Palestine because we are literally seeing unimaginable horros unfold with Israel having a complete freehand in anything their vile brains decide to do.
on twitter, a viral thread started where people around the world shared their translations of “If I must die”, the last work of Dr Refaat Alareer also known as "the voice of Gaza". A beloved poet, teacher and life-long activist for Palestine, he was recently assassinated along with members of his extended family by a targeted Israeli air strike. His loss leaves a hole in the heart of palestinians all over the world.
Below the cut, I’ll be posting the translations of his poem, with links to the original posts. Unfortunately, tumblr limits posts to a maximum of 30 images. I will update when I can.
‼️THE ALQUTATI FAMILY NEEDS HELP TO EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY‼️
PLEASE REBLOG!
Moatasem (5) and Obida (2), brothers living in the cold tents of Rafah with the rest of their family, and area under threat of invasion.
THE ALQUTATI FAMILY NEEDS HELP NOW TO EVACUATE. With the ground invasion of Rafah, this could be their only chance to escape death in the ongoing GENOCIDE! With our help, they can evacuate to safety and live a safe life like EVERYONE deserves.
Every single person in this family has dreams and passions. Every single person is someone’s everything. Please, do what you can to protect them.
PLEASE REBLOG, and donate if you can! ANY HELP COUNTS— SHARING GOES A LONG WAY!
People seem to think this is fake because it's written in English. Apart from the racism in believing that Arab doctors and nurses aren't fluent in English (a second or official language for half of Asia), Palestinians have deliberately been addressing their audience in English on every social media, from journalists to children, because they know speaking English to Westerners immediately makes people more human in their eyes. Because language is one of the ways the imperial cultural hegemony conditions us (yes, everyone in the world) to see who qualifies as "people" and who are simply a mass of bodies who were always made to suffer and die. Gazans know this deeply, which is why they have been using English to beg and plead through social media, "We're not numbers! We're not numbers! We're people like you, we speak your language, we deserve to live!" all the while they're systematically slaughtered.
Israeli forces also encircled Al Shifa Hospital yesterday and bombed it for several hours while shooting dead anyone trying to flee including medical staff moving between buildings. Not sure whether it's still continuing because WHO lost all communications with its staff there a few hours after. The last new report said that thirty-nine babies had been removed from the incubators before the power went out. It's extremely unlikely they will survive.
Please understand that these atrocities depend on the war of attrition between governments and public attention. The momentum of public outcry is difficult to sustain through repeated stonewalling and bureaucratic intractability. When we're flooded with these reports and a sense of futility and despair replaces the anger, it allows compassion fatigue to set in and the violence to become normalized. Massacring hospitals, killing sick children and openly targeting humanitarian aid workers (Netanyahu just declared the UNRWA is in league with Hamas) will become simply more news articles that fade into the background, and open genocides will soon become part of the "lesser evil".
Take care of yourselves how you can, take distance where needed, but please never tune out and give up on the two million people for whom we are the only witness and hope. Never stop boosting and sharing the news and posts you find, never stop getting out there and joining every protest you can, however small. Anger burns out, which is why activism must depend on an immovable sense of justice and uncompromising value for human life. It's not just about Gaza, it's about the kind of evil our generation will be coerced into accepting as unchangeable and inevitable hereafter.
It has been six months since Israel launched its brutal offensive on Palestine’s Gaza, killing more than 33,000 Palestinians — mostly women and children — and driving nearly 2 million more from their homes, in what humanitarian agencies have called a “betrayal of humanity.”
As Israeli troops withdraw from Khan Younis to prepare for a military offensive on Rafah, the last remaining safe haven for those who were forced out from their homes, the people of Gaza brace for a projected famine that could see as many as 70% of Gaza's population facing catastrophic conditions in the next 4 months.