Wednesday 21 November 2012

Palestine, November 2012

A girl holds a candle next to a photo of three-year-old Ranan Yousef Arafat, who was killed in the Israeli strike on Bethlehem's Manger Square, where Palestinians had gathered to mourn victims of the slaughter.


  People gather in Manger Square to mourn.
One-hundred-and-forty were murdered last week.
More than thirty of the dead were children.
In Gaza, Jabaliya, Rafah, Beit Lahiya …
Hundreds of families have been decimated.

They have no escape from this Hell.
A mother weeps in the devastation that was her home,
There is nowhere to go.
There is no escape.

Those who are left come to remember their dead,
And Israel makes sure they will never forget.

Monstrous new airstrikes massacre these mourning crowds.
Three-year-old Ranan Yousef Arafat dies.
Jumana and Tamer Eseifan, both under four, die.
One-year-old Iyad Abu Khoussa dies.

There is no escape from Hell.

We should remember them all,
but we do not know their names.

Israel does not want us to know.
They bomb the media centres
and slaughter the journalists.
Truth may be the clichéd first victim of war,
But we will not stay down.
They cannot suppress news of this carnage.

The realities, the facts, all the names will be known…
… estimated 1,643 missile strikes over the last six days…
Many dead, more injured, medical facilities failing...


Mourners around the bodies of the al-Dalu family at their funeral -- four adults, four children

The bodies of Jumana and Tamer Eseifa carried by mourners


We are ashamed to be human…. 
But we are compelled to act.
We will not stay silent.
They cannot kill compassion.







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