HUNGER (& the HATRED)

“There is no food to feed my children nor is there any bread… we came to the point where we are eating tree leaves we are eating the food of this donkey … you are asking me why did I come here I came because I want to take flour …look my leg is broken and I came to take flour I came to take flour … I came yesterday and people stepped over me I came today… even if I were to die I want to take a bag of flour because I can’t feed my children I don’t have anything to give my children to eat even if I die I will stay…”

(Democracy Now Interview, 1’56” – February 28, 2024)

 

“Israel has announced its intention to destroy the Palestinian people in whole or in part,  simply for being Palestinian. In my view as a human rights expert this is now a situation of genocide.”

(Michael Fakhri, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food)

 

1

 

Hatred

like a wildfire

stalks the machinery of

my mercenary chest.

 

The blood,

well-armed in its rage

likewise pleads for revenge.

 

Night soon settles like

a smokescreen over this murderous heart

where a million mute massacres cry out

for redemption.

 

Who lit this fire that

sweeps whole worlds away?

Who forged these cruel contracts

signed in blood and retribution?

What bitter Bible blesses their ruthless laws?

And who, each day, lights the spark

on such senseless suffering?

 

And, tell me, Mr. Netanyahu

what merciless mother

would feed her children

on famine and starvation?

 

2

 

“I’m wishing for my child’s death

so he can’t ask me

for a loaf of bread…”

 

These pictures

in their mindless malice

tells me who.

 

This heartsick heart

in its sinking

tells me who.

 

These hungry children

laying siege to my mind,

tell me who.

 

Your criminal silence and

the poisonous lies of the powerful,

they, also, tell me who.

 

Here is where we will all burn.

 

All the birds of night and heartache,

in their futile flight, their fierce

falling, have shown me how

 

and here, too

this single starving mother

calling out for bread

to my overfed stomach.

 

Why? And How?

And how much longer?

 

Only this simple prayer may

reach its tormented fingers

into her searing ache, the

desolate-scorched-earth

of what was once both

body and soul.

 

All these assassins of my peace

are now summoned here

like messengers, or angels,

of sorrow and despair:

 

here the flood.

Here a nameless river crying for revenge.

 

Hatred like a wildfire withers me in its wrath.

My blood grows cold counting the corpses.

And still night will spread its hunger

everywhere, like a siege.

 

i’m telling you, people of Israel,

people of Palestine,

it will take more than 30,000

godforsaken funerals

to calm these troubled waters.

 

séamas carraher

 

Image

News Report – “Mahmoud Fattouh – a 2-month-old baby, dies from starvation in Occupied Gaza”

Al Jazeera Newsfeed – February 27, 2024

 

Note

“I’m wishing for my child’s death / so he can’t ask me /for a loaf of bread…”

Al Jazeera – 27, February 2024

 

“…this single starving mother / calling out for bread …”

Democracy Now – 28 February, 2024 (3’03”)

 

Links

Israeli IDF Soldier Video –  “Genocide in Gaza through the eyes of Israeli soldiers”

Al Jazeera – 3 March, 2024

 

“Here we are, at the end of February, with at least 576,000 people in Gaza, one quarter of the population, one step away from famine; with one in six children under two years of age in Northern Gaza suffering from acute malnutrition and wasting… in Gaza City residents have described dire conditions where children have no food to eat …”

Democracy Now, February 28, 2024 (@ 1’56”)

 

“We Are Dying Of Hunger, Not Bombings…”: Displaced Palestinians Grapple With Starvation In Gaza

India Today – February 29, 2024

 

As 2-Month-Old Starves to Death in Gaza, Mosab Abu Toha Says His Own Family Is Eating Animal Feed:

“A famine is unfolding in Gaza, where hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians have resorted to consuming animal feed amid soaring prices and dwindling supplies of food… “Israel is not allowing food into the northern part of Gaza so people would regret not having left,” says Palestinian writer Mosab Abu Toha, who fled Gaza for Cairo in November and has been attempting since then to secure safe passage for his extended family members…Abu Toha urges international actors to take action and end Israel’s siege of Gaza. “They are killing us every day,” he says. “Where is the mind of the people in the world? How could you let this happen?”

Democracy Now – 25 February, 2024

 

* Fonte/autore: il manifesto

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