Gaza Under Attack: How Can You Sleep Under The Shadow Of A Bomb?

I didn’t plan to annoy you all until Sunday. That’s my normal blog day you see. 

Blame the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF). Don’t call them the IDF and quit the “most moral army in the world” bullshit. They are USA/UK backed terrorists. 

Come at me.

I’m not a writer, a hack, an author, I flunked English and Maths, I don’t even know where the spellcheck widget thing is, and my grammar is up there with the very best of your 8-year-old children. If you’ve tuned in to read a remarkable piece of statistical genius from one of Cheltenham Ladies College finest, you may wish to twiddle your knob and tune into Centrist FM, because they will tell you everything that you want to hear and very little of what you need to hear. 

Still here? Great.

Me? I’m just a human, and I write things how I would say them - based on how I see them. I don’t intentionally search out ridiculously long words, just in case somebody asks me what it means. 

But this isn’t about me. 

“Tonight, I put the kids to sleep in our bedroom. So that when we die, we die together and no one would live to mourn the loss of one another.” 

Those are the words of Eman Basher, a Palestinian mother living under Israeli occupation in Gaza. 

But she isn’t just living under occupation, she is living with the fear of a million dollars worth of bombs landing on her house as her family sleeps. 

I don’t think many people reading this now can say they too have lived with this fear. We can only imagine the awfulness. It hurts me just trying to imagine it. I don’t know about you, but when I say “goodnight” to my children, not a shred of me thinks I am also saying “goodbye”.

Eman went on to speak about her 4-year-old child. 

“Faisal keeps wiping my tears away and saying: “these are only fireworks, mama. Don’t be scared!” 

I should be calming him down. I should be wiping away his tears. Things should be other way around. This is how war makes life chaotic and nonsensical.” 

Four years old. 

The footage emerging from Palestine has been disturbing, angering, and heartbreaking. I feel emotionally scarred from some of what I’ve seen, perhaps that’s another reason why I am writing about it now. 

I have seen the bodies of young Palestinian children, wrapped in a simple cloth, their faces torn by shrapnel. I have seen the devastated parents, crying so hard I had to look away because I am weak. 

I have seen a young grief-stricken child, running to stand at the front of his father’s funeral procession, his father’s body held aloft by family members. He was broken. This was his Daddy. He wasn’t an insurgent, a member of any terrorist organisation, just an innocent father. 

I have seen the grenades thrown into groups of peaceful protesters. So have you. I’m not imaging things. I have seen the defiling of the sacred al-Asqa mosque. I have seen the attacks on innocent worshippers, men, women and children. Clashes around the al-Aqsa mosque compound have seen Israeli occupation police firing rubber bullets, tear gas and stun grenades inside what is the third holiest site in Islam. 

I have seen the attack on Sheikh Jarrah in occupied Jerusalem - I’ve been going on about this crime against humanity for months on end now. I have seen ‘soldiers’ arriving at Palestinian homes to evict the residents, leaving them homeless, so Israeli settlers can move in. 

Erm, hello world? Are you paying any attention or are you going to keep running with the line about “war”, and “clashes”, or maybe something equally fucking disingenuous.

There is no “both sides”. 

This is the full might of one of the most advanced armed forces on the face of the planet, and they are pulverising a civilian population armed with no more than a prayer. 

Before a small number of those still reading this have a hernia, let me unequivocally condemn the firing of rockets by militants. I’m against all forms of violence. I do not want any civilians to get hurt, or worse, whether they are Palestinian or Israeli. 

But I must ask, is this battering from the Israeli oppressors in any way proportionate? Of course it isn’t.

The people of Palestine have lived under Israeli occupation since 1967, and with now over 700,000 illegal settlers living on stolen land the future looks incredibly bleak. The settler colonialists have utterly atomised the West Bank, making the prospect of a viable Palestinian state all but impossible. 

Israeli settlers frequently attack the Palestinian people. I have seen scores of video clips of violent illegal settlers, attacking Palestinian farmers, destroying their olive trees, which is a vital source of income for Palestine, and this is often done under the watchful eye of the Israeli Occupation Forces.

Palestine, particularly Gaza, is a humanitarian crisis of unimaginable proportions. The poverty, the destitution, hunger and malnutrition, and the permanent fear. Palestinians speak of the constant buzzing of Israeli drones flying over their homes. 

Palestinian men, women and children are thrown into jails, often facing no charges, and they are tortured and abused by their captors. They call this ‘administrative detention’ - a law that allows Israel to hold suspects for years, without being formally charged with a crime. 

Gaza has a limited supply of electricity, often for just four hours a day. Clean running water is in short supply, because the local power station is frequently flattened by Israeli bombs. Palestinian homes are being systematically destroyed, ethnic cleansing is running rife, apartheid is happening, in Palestine, in 2021. 

And how does Britain respond to this latest assault on the Palestinian people and complete disregard for international law? 

Johnson and Starmer were so fucking furious they put out a couple of tweets. 

Remember, Johnson doesn’t support the ICC investigation into Israeli war crimes… and Keith? He doesn’t know who or what he supports, he just knows who he doesn’t want to upset. 

They’re a pair of fucking cowards, sucking up to the far-right racist despot Netanyahu. 

Some detractors will read this and scream “antisemite” - I expect this, I’ve been speaking up for Palestine for a few years now. But do you know what? 

You can call me anything you wish, a million times over, through every sock account you can muster up, and it still doesn’t compare to living under the shadow of death that the people of Palestine are living under, right now.

I can walk to my local shop without having to stare down the barrel of a gun. I can drive to the hospital knowing there’s not much chance of them not having the electricity to power a life support machine. My community isn’t separated by a giant wall, and my home won’t be demolished if I refuse to demolish it myself. 

So call me whatever you want. I honestly couldn’t give a fuck, and if I had a fuck to give, I wouldn’t give it to you. 

Palestine is burning. Israeli war planes are targeting residential buildings under the guise of them being weapon storage units for Hamas militants. The same residential buildings have offices for Palestinian media. If you crush the media you will silence the messengers. 

And this is where you come in. 

Every injustice must be highlighted. The apartheid state of Israel must not be allowed to get away with genocide. They must not have a free pass to commit these atrocities against human kind. 

Many Palestinians are Christians, I believe it’s nearly one-third of the Palestinian people. This Israeli assault isn’t just aimed at our Muslim brothers and sisters, this is an indiscriminate murder of humanity. 

Britain MUST do more. Platitudes are fucking worthless. 

Palestine MUST be free. 

Take care folks. 

Rachael x

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