Vox Populi
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Letter from South Gaza, 12/13/2023
Dear [Name Withheld]:
The situation in the North is getting worse and worse day by day. They manipulate the news. They play with the scenes. The Israeli forces break into UNRWA schools and assassinate people there. I saw that on Aljazeera in Shadia Abu Ghazala school in Beit Lahia and my friends there told me about it too. They break into schools and start shooting people, even newborn babies.
This is real; this is happening. Horrifying testimonies from Palestinians who are evacuating to schools in the north and other places were deliberately hidden. They prevent journalists from going there to cover their crimes. They force evacuees to take off their clothes in such rainy stormy nights and take them to unknown places to use them as human shields. They shoot many in front of their kids and wives. They shoot women, the elderly, children, men, and newborns. All of them are civilians. What’s happening is more than shocking. They commit massacres and enjoy committing them.
Another friend from the North whom I trust told us that the soldiers put an e x p l o s i v e belt around him and a camera on his head and pushed him into a tunnel. They were planning to explode my friend in the tunnel if they saw fighters inside the tunnel on their screens based on the camera they fixed on my friend’s head!! I have a friend from Beit Lahia in the North, her name is Fatima. She made it to the South; however, her sister’s family was stuck in the North. Her sister’s husband was shot and they left him behind bleeding until he died. They forced her sister along with her children and many women to leave the UN school where they were evacuating. Fatima couldn’t get in touch with her sister. She doesn’t know where she is now. She is terrified of losing her sister. Many Palestinians here in the South have no idea whether their relatives in the North are still alive or not. We lost contact with my 2 sisters and their families for 8 days. Today we got a call from a friend and he told us that they’re alright but they do not have charge in their phones to call us and the networks in their area are down. He told us they are happy with the rain as they boil the rainwater to filter it and then drink it because they’re out of drinking water for weeks. It was such a relief to know that they were still safe and sound.
What I’m telling you is happening, is happening every single moment in the North and other places they invaded in the South. They massacre people in front of the entire world and show off what they do. Here in the South, as I told you before, people are sleeping outdoors in the streets. They are using nylon tents. Tents now are being sold for 800 – 1500 ILS. People are in the streets starving.
They don’t get medicine, no shelter, no clothes, no drinking water, no sanitation, NOTHING!
Whenever we go to the grocery or the market; you find empty shelves. Nothing to buy. Even vegetables. Even canned food. No flour, no water, no gas, no coal. Whenever we find simple products, we cook them using firewood and this takes hours to cook and hours to get the firewood. Sometimes you’re forced to buy it and it’s very very expensive.
I’m writing to you in a very dark room where we use a very small pale LED. We live in endless darkness. Literally. Let alone endless terror, starvation, waiting, nostalgia, grief, pain, sadness, poverty, helplessness, and many many painful feelings. It’s raining outside and the weather is very cold and the Israeli warplanes are hovering heavily.
We were very shocked when the U.S. vetoed a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza. We need a humanitarian pause. A forever ceasefire to end this nightmare. People are drowning in the streets with their tents because of the heavy rains. Children are dying of cold and starvation. They are sick and can’t find medications, They cannot find milk for their newborn babies, and we cannot find sanitary pads/towels for our period. I’m sorry for this so much pain in my message.
Your friend, always.
[Name withheld]
Editor’s Note: This letter came to me from a trusted friend who cannot reveal his name because he fears for his safety. I believe his assurances that the person who wrote the letter is a Palestinian woman who currently lives in Gaza, but readers will have to assess the authenticity of this letter for themselves. –MS
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Absolutely heartbreaking!!
Praying for peace
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Praying for peace!
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I can’t find my comment again. It seems to have disappeared.
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Sorry, Rose Mary. Your comment is not in the Vox Populi unpublished files. Perhaps you can recreate it?
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Although many may deny it, I believe the behavior of the IDF as noted in this letter is not only characteristic but standard. There are many videos posted and accounts stated by personal sources and even mainstream media that document inhumane and brutal acts by the IDF. One I saw recently was of an IDF jeep from which soldiers fired on 6 young men running away (which all Palestinians have learned to do when soldiers come speeding up) and one of the teens fell to the ground from a bullet fired from the Jeep. As he lay there writhing in pain, the Jeep drove up to him, parked about 10 feet away, and bullets came from the Jeep into his body, killing him. Or, we can hear and (gruesomely) sometimes see Gazans walking from hospitals or to hospitals taken down by IDF sniper fire. Just in the last few days, a Christian church leader reported on IDF snipers killing civilians sheltering inside of a Christian hospital. BBC and other mainstream media consistently report on male hospital workers being forced from their patents at gunpoint, herded outside, stripped naked, and forced to stand like that for as long as an hour until some are taken away to unknown locations/jails and others are released. Or shall we talk about the 3 hostages half naked waving a white flag and screaming in Hebrew who were all shot down by the IDF? This IS the characteristic behavior of a terrorist army that has been given the green light by the ultra-right wing fascist cabal that now rules Israel, a nation liberal Jews and secular Jews now find to be uncomfortable and not welcoming to even them. Not only Muslim mosques but Christian churches are under attack by ultra-orthodox thugs who want nothing but Judaism practiced in a land they insist is only for Jews. Israel has embarked on a fascist path, determined to take all of Palestine and to allow only those Palestinians willing to live under its version of “Jim Crow South” laws to remain on that soil. The horrors are taking place with our nation’s complicity and with its full financial and military support even though the polls clearly show that the population wants a ceasefire NOW. As for Hamas, there a almost certainly crimes committed by some of its fighters and those acts should be condemned. but Israel’s current path is only a guarantee that the future will bring more and even larger and even more well-organized groups like Hamas. The oppression of Palestinians, like all oppression, inevitably breeds resistance. One cannot stop that from developing and gaining strength in any other way than by acknowledging past crimes, agreeing to end conflict, and plot a future together for a nation with full democratic rights for all, no exceptions, and no exclusions.
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I believe this letter is authentic, but whether it is or isn’t, the fact is that whatever is reported by eyewitnesses to war is going to be extremely unpleasant. If people don’t want horrible things to be reported from Gaza, then they should urge their government to stop sending arms to Israel.
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I shared suggesting readers will judge for themselves . I have lost friends from both sides. I cannot understand.
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I disagree completely re: “characteristic behavior of the IDF” as I have seen many videos of similar crimes committed by the IDF. One I saw recently was of an IDF jeep from which soldiers fired on 6 young men running away (which all Palestinians have learned to do when soldiers come speeding up) and one of them fell to the ground from a bullet fired from the Jeep. As he lay there writhing in pain, the Jeep drove up to him, parked about 10 feet away, and bullets came from the Jeep into his body, killing him. Or, we can hear and (gruesomely) sometimes see Gazans walking from hospitals or to hospitals taken down by IDF sniper fire. Or shall we talk about the 3 hostages half naked waving a white flag and screaming in Hebrew who were all shot down by the IDF. This IS the characteristic behavior of a terrorist army that has been given the green light by the ultra-right wing fascist cabal that now rules Israel, a nation in which liberal Jews and secular Jews now find to be uncomfortable and not welcoming to even them. Israel has embarked on a fascist path, determined to take all of Palestine and to allow only those Palestinians willing to live under its version of “Jim Crow South” laws to remain on that soil. The horrors are taking place with our nation’s complicity and with its full financial and military support even though the polls clearly show that the population wants a ceasefire NOW. As for Hamas, there a almost certainly crimes committed by some of its fighters and those acts should be condemned. but Israel’s current path is only a guarantee that the future will bring more and even larger and even more well-organized groups like Hamads. The oppression of Palestinians, like all oppression, inevitably breeds resistance. One cannot stop that from developing and gaining strength in any other way than by acknowledging past crimes, agreeing to end conflict, and plot a future together for a nation with full democratic rights for all.
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Thanks for sharing this, Mel.
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Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Noelle.
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Michael I specifically said I didn’t want this in the public domain. Why did you publish my comments? This is so not on. It is disrespectful and hurtful, especially coming from you. Noelle
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Noelle, I did not post your comment in the public domain, you did. Do you want me to remove it?
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Yes.
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