Messages from Gaza show Palestinians face the grimmest choice imaginable

A Palestinian father running through a hospital holding his child while doctors and soldiers watch


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With Israel’s invasion of Gaza intensifying, terrorised Palestinians are facing the grimmest choice imaginable. It’s a choice that most of us couldn’t even begin to imagine:

Die together or die apart

Abby Martin is a documentarian best known for The Empire Files. The message sent to her reads:

Our Lord, some people in other countries differ in opinion about whether they will have a break today or what they will eat. I will tell you about the ordeals where we differ in opinion about what. Some of us want us all to stay in one place, and if a bombing hits us, there is no doubt that it will destroy us all from the severity of the bombs. Thus, we do not succeed in losing the other, so we all die together

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The other opinion is that we separate, so that the harm becomes less and the tragedy becomes less, so that someone remains carrying the family name and telling their story to people

It’s a situation beyond the imagining of most of us. Sadly, for the Palestinians this is far from the first time they’ve faced this choice.

The grim decision being made by countless Palestinian families was actually discussed on the BBC. Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran said the following:

Additionally, Moran also addressed the idea that Palestinians can simply extract themselves from the hell they find themselves in:

As communications networks started working again in Gaza, messages from Palestinians themselves revealed the heartbreaking consequences of these decisions:

Furthermore, as one human rights activist in Gaza pointed out, many people now don’t even have a choice about where they might die:

The British media

While historically the plight of the Palestinians has not been honestly considered by the British media, this time the gravity of the situation seems to have become too grave to ignore completely. Predictably, those who want to go back to the status quo have put the smear machine into overdrive:

The BBC, meanwhile, published an article on how to “spot disinformation”. A community note on the tweet points out that “The BBC itself recently had to apologise for airing misinformation over a pro-Palestinian protest”, and it provides a link to read more about that:

No choice at all

The Palestinians face the most horrendous choice, but for those of us in the West there should be no difficulty in how we choose to support them.

We need a situation in which Palestinians can live freely, and aren’t trapped under what the UN has referred to as “apartheid”, and in conditions similar to an “open-air prison”. Palestinians do not have the ability to make this happen, but Israel – and its supporters in the West – do. As such, we need to use our voices to make Palestinians’ demands clear. The invasion must end; the bloodshed must stop, and Palestinians must be free.

Featured image via Wafa (cropped to 770 x 403)

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