From west Wales to the West Bank

Palestinian teacher Awdah Hathaleen who contributed to the Oscar-winning documentary 'No Other Land' (2024), was murdered today (July 29th, 2025) during an attack by Israeli settlers in the south Hebron hills.

This short poem was inspired by that film and particularly by Awdah's bravery. Our poems won't stop the horror, and every killing is a tragedy, but it feels this is the moment to share a few words

From my back door to the West Bank

while I walk down to harvest salad leaves

spinach and spring onions

I pass the rambling roses with 1,000 buds

that promise summer scent,

and I eye the red of ripening strawberries.

 

While not so far away

centuries old olive trees are bulldozed,

women wail by their wrecked houses

and men weep over the bleeding bodies

of their brothers

 

and the promise of roses

becomes thorns in my eyes.

 

No Other Land, trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWlx4J8coxU 

 

 

The Wall

Today I am one of thousands of poets around the world who are taking part in 100-Thousand Poets for Change day. The poems I am reading are below.

I’ll be reading them in Cardigan, west Wales, between 4pm and 5pm in an event organised by our local live literature group, the Cellar Bards. We’ll be reading short poems on the theme of ‘change’ and ‘peace’.

The town’s community bookshop, Leafed Through, is also taking part.  Everyone who reads poems will write them on postcards, which are being laminated to hang on lines in the bookshop.

This is one of many events being staged simultaneously around the world as a demonstration/celebration of poetry, art and music to promote social, environmental, and political change.

We hear so much bad news and this is a chance for people to be involved in something positive, and to link with others in getting the message out there that people do care about local and world issues.

Many poets around the world, several living in war-torn countries, are taking part in the event and they need to know that people are listening to the fact that daily life and poetry must go on.

Hundreds of cities representing over 100 countries signed up to the 100 TPC global initiative.

Visit www.100TPC.org for more details about 100 Thousand Poets for Change.

I chose one symbol to focus on for my poems for the day. When I was younger we had the Berlin Wall, which symbolised the Cold War. Now we have the great wall that cuts through the Palestinian lands and for me symbolises the tragedy of the Middle East and the terrible divisions of today’s world.

At 25 feet it’s twice as high as the Berlin Wall and it is 800 km long. It’s made of concrete and razor wire and it’s not straight, oh no, it weaves around to do the most possible damage. Sometimes it encircles villages, sometimes cuts right through them.

The Wall …

makes borders 25 feet high,
it separates, isolates,
divides families, splits communities,
wrecks water supplies,
surrounds villages to make prisons;
it’s a blueprint for division
it constructs apartheid -
and it kills the view from both sides.
 

* 
and two haiku on similar theme… 
 

Children cry out for
the power of peace as
conflict tears the world

 

*
flags over mountains,
bright colours for refugees
flying over plains

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.