"Israel is an Apartheid State Responsible for Genocide"

Hossam Shabat from northern Gaza for Drop Site News in "Death March from Beit Lahia" reports on "Israel’s mass expulsion campaign." Amnesty International just published a lengthy report concluding that Israeli authorities have committed -- and are still are committing -- genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, also see video.

Via Mosab Abu Toha — “Must-watch: The moment the Anadolu photographer Mohammad Awad was shot in the neck as he was covering Beit Lahia’s ethnic cleansing.”

SUSAN ABULHAWA, Susan@Palestinewrites.org, @susanabulhawa
Available for a limited number of interviews, poet Susan Abulhawa recently participated in the Oxford Union debate "This House Believes Israel is an Apartheid State Responsible for Genocide."

Video is now available of her remarks, see full text: "You have crossed all lines and nurtured the most vile of human impulses, but the world is finally glimpsing the terror we have endured at your hands for so long, and they are seeing the reality of who you are, who you’ve always been. They watch in utter astonishment the sadism, the glee, the joy, and pleasure with which you conduct, watch, and cheer the daily details of breaking our bodies, our minds, our future, our past.

"But no matter what happens from here, no matter what fairytales you tell yourself and tell the world, you will never truly belong to that land. You will never understand the sacredness of the olive trees, which you’ve been cutting down and burning for decades just to spite us and to break our hearts a little more. No one native to that land would dare do such a thing to the olives. No one who belongs to that region would ever bomb or destroy such ancient heritage as Baalbak or Bittir, or destroy ancient cemeteries as you destroy ours, like the Anglican cemetery in Jerusalem or the resting place of ancient Muslim scholars and warriors in Maamanillah. Those who come from that land do not desecrate the dead; that’s why my family for centuries were the caretakers of the Jewish cemetery in the Mount of Olives, as labors of faith and care for what we know is part of our ancestry and story."

She wrote the foreword to the just-released If I Must Die: Poetry and Prose, a collection of the writing of Refaat Alareer, who was killed by Israel a year ago, on Dec. 6, 2023. A webinar in honor of Alareer is taking place Friday.

Her debut novel Mornings in Jenin, translated into 30 languages, was an international bestseller.

Abulhawa is the founder of Playgrounds for Palestine, an organization dedicated to uplifting Palestinian children. She is also co-chair of Palestine Writes, the first North American Palestinian literature festival.