A Poem for Gaza
(after the Slaughter resumed)
“I was hoping I could bake bread
and feed those who are hungry.
Gaza’s people are our family, our children, our girls,
I swear if I had a home
I’d put them there in my embrace.
May God protect them.”
Survivor, in Gaza’s Southern town of Khuza’a
(during the temporary ceasefire)
Someone took the words
right out of my mouth
– i said: “time to shut up”
the thieves on the TV
have stolen all the words.
“Worse”, i say…
They have taken the heart from the body
and left a fucking corpse in its place.
In my dreams
I pass this corpse (without words or a heart)
always dying on a street with its hospitals on fire.
In my dream (which is not really a dream at all!)
i watch the incinerated corpses
of words and orphaned Palestinian children
hanging from these cruel mouths
after the bloody soldiers have left and
taken their rage and poison with them.
Here another voice says:
“just shut up, anti-Semite!”, “what
would you know about it”, in your cave
on the edge of a continent!
This faceless voice, with its friends-in-power,
the ones that have squatted in the
skull of an honest man for far too long!
These lying voices that have learnt how to
imitate life!
This voice that was de-educated to become
a politician, a statesman, a diplomat!…
So even though i am dreaming
with the cries of children trying to wake me up
i know i am really awake.
i am awake and this heaving in my chest
(of fire and blood and war
and the amputated hands of
the helping doctors)
has told me
these soldiers and their masters have come.
They have come and taken all the words
right out of my mouth.
They have stolen them
to go rot in their cruel bibles.
They have replaced them now
with the corpses of these children
and the mothers
left lying on the street
with their sad faces
all blown away.
séamas carraher
1 – 5 december, 2023
Note
“The bombardment resumed in both north and south Gaza, minutes after the Hamas-Israel truce expired”.
Moments after Israeli air strikes in northern Gaza
“What happened while we were sitting
we saw the air strike come
how it happened and where it came from
we don’t know
we don’t know anything
and here it is all of our children
and everything is gone
why we don’t know…
there’s nothing.
I am known
that I do not lean
towards this side or that side
Allah will provide solace…”
Survivor, near Kamal Adwan Hospital in Northern Gaza
Image
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in Jerusalem on May 25, 2021.
[State Department photo by Ron Przysucha/ Public Domain]
Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Video
“We are fighting against human animals”. This is how Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant announced what he called a “complete siege” on Gaza, following a surprise attack by Hamas on Israel.
Updates
“According to the Ministry of Health in Gaza, between 7 October and 3 December, at least 15,523 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, about 70 per cent of whom are said to be women and children. Many more are missing, presumably under the rubble, waiting for rescue or recovery.
According to OCHA, since 7 October, 244 Palestinians, including 65 children, have been killed by Israeli Forces in the West Bank. In addition, eight people, including one child, have been killed by Israeli settlers.
Nearly 1.9 million people (or over 85 per cent of the population) have been displaced across the Gaza Strip since 7 October.
In total, almost 1.2 million displaced people are now sheltering in 156 UNRWA installations.”
Permissive airstrikes on non-military targets – An Investigation
Since October 7, more than 3,257 children have been reported killed, including at least 3,195 in Gaza, 33 in the West Bank, and 29 in Israel,
More kids killed in Gaza in 3 weeks than all global conflict annually since 2019, Save the Children says
Why Israel’s military wanted to end the Gaza truce, and what now?
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