Tawaadna, she said. We’re used to this.
My young friend, in her early twenties and about 5 months pregnant, called me this evening, after I’d spoken with her husband earlier.
Her voice was tired, at times hard to hear, but she was quietly defiant…as are most in Gaza.
They live in central Gaza, in the same town as the Aqsa hospital which was savagely bombed earlier today, killing at least 4 Palestinians. RT reported:
Four Palestinians have been killed and dozens wounded after an Israeli tank shell hit the third floor of Al-Aqsa hospital in central Gaza, according to a Health Ministry spokesman.
Ashraf Al-Qidra said that the third floor housed an intensive care unit and operating theaters. Other shells had fallen around the hospital, he added, with officials calling on the Red Cross to help evacuate patients.
A doctor at the hospital, Fayez Zidane, told the station that shells hit the third and fourth floor as well as the reception area.
“There is still shelling against the hospital,” he said speaking to AP. He said he found bits of a rocket, presumably from one of the projectiles.
Zidane appealed to the Red Cross and a nearby hospital to send help.
There have been conflicting reports about the number of people injured following the attack. Reuters has put the figure at 16, while AP says 60 have been wounded, including 30 medics.
My lines blur, between activist and freelancer and human being who has loved ones in Gaza. In the Nov 2012 war on Gaza, I was in that very hospital with a dear one, documenting the criminal massacre. And while this documentation is imperative, and there are many Palestinians and some internationals doing so, I selfishly say thank goodness my friend stayed home… although that means little in the end, the Zionist war machine tearing down homes with entire families in them.
The lines which do not blur and which have become more focused are the absolute obligation to support Resistance, who are fighting against foreigners, occupiers, and for the very lives of Palestinians, and in Syria, Syrians, against largely foreign insurgents whose “revolutionary” tactics include: car-bombing civilian areas, mortaring (with insidious mortars packed with bits of jagged metal, glass… whatever will inflict as much pain and damage as possible upon their civilian targets), cutting–often sawing, not enough the luxury of a swift stroke, but instead a jagged blade, a slow and brutal death, stoning to death, using chemical weapons, and if not murdering flogging, cutting off hands…
It’s time to really bring Resistance to the forefront and erode the stigma corporate media and Western governments have tagged them with. They have a legitimate and legally-lauded right to resist.
The countless Syrians I met in Syria, Lebanon and Canada were uniform in their unwavering support of Palestine. Hezbollah has again come out with statements of unwavering support for Palestine.
These, the Resistance, and the medics/rescuers, and the Palestinians resisting in so many ways throughout occupied Palestine and proxy-warred Syria are my heroes and inspiration.
In Gaza 
You are absolutely right in your conclusion. It is resistance that is the key to defeating zionism. The resistance of the Palestinians is what has forced the rest of the world to take notice of what is happening there. It is what has steadily destroyed Israel’s moral standing in the world.
There is also our own resistance to think of. Here is the imperialist countries, there is more we can do that simply ask our imperialist politicians politely not to take Israel’s side – not to send weapons, money or supplies to the zionist state that commits such heinous crimes. We can actually force our governments to drop support if we are prepared to ACT.
What we really need to be calling for in all our respective countries, and especially in those with close ties to Israel like Britain and the USA, is a mass campaign of non-cooperation with Israeli war crimes. I know that British people are sick of the crimes being committed in Palestine. They are sick of their government’s complicity. They feel powerless. It is the Palestine solidarity movement’s job to point out that they are not as powerless as they think.
Not only the media needs to be held to account and those firms that profit from the war and occupation singled out and boycotted (something the PSC does work at), but all parts of the war machine need to be actively stopped from functioning.
We are not only consumers but workers. Media workers should refuse to write war propaganda or to publish or broadcast them. They should be reminded that taking any part in creating such propaganda makes them war criminals too, according to what was established at Nuremberg.
Those who are making munitions for Israel need to refuse to continue with such work. Those who ship them likewise. Those who provide any goods or services to Israel and to the settlements need to withdraw their labour from such work and explain exactly why they are doing so to the rest of the British public. Supermarket workers should refuse to put Israeli products on the shelves. Transport workers should refuse to carry them.
Collectively, as workers, we do have a lot more power over the situation than the ineffectual lobbying of MPs would lead us to believe. The role of the PSC should be to lead the campaign to raise that awareness and mobilise workers in every area of productive life to get behind such a campaign and bring their co-workers with them.
The whole zionist enterprise would collapse pretty quickly if we put our money where our mouth is and used our collective power. It’s the one thing that could terrify our own ruling class into dropping its support for the Israeli project.
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