"Until now, I lost two friends. One friend is from school, from childhood; he was sleeping, he was taking a nap in his apartment, and he was killed while sleeping. His house was hit by a rocket that was launched from the sea. That's it. This is how it happened. He was taking a nap, he was civilian, he was doing nothing, he was sleeping on his bed, and suddenly the house was targeted and he was killed. Another friend was killed while fleeing a neighborhood in Gaza City, which was exposed, to the extremely violent ground invasion. And he was shot in his back while fleeing.... We went to school together. We knew each other in school and I was really surprised when I heard about his death. He's a normal person, like me and you. He goes to school now, he goes to the university. He has a life. He's just a normal person. He was just trying to take a nap in day time because at night time you can barely have a sleep."
Jihad said there has been no peace for his family, and no end to his worry...Each phone call is accompanied by the sound of bombing.
"I was talking to my father, a few days ago, and like I'm talking to him for about two minutes on the phone. In these two minutes we counted seven explosions by the heavy artillery that's being shot at our neighborhood. So, my family couldn't really stay where they are and this also applies to my friend who was killed, and this applies to 1.8 million people who are stuck in the Gaza Strip right now. So, it's a really difficult situation, and civilians are paying...the Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip are paying the heaviest price."
Exiled Palestinian activist Ziad Abbas of the Middle East Children's Alliance in Berkeley with members of his group on the ground in Gaza City, told me. "When I talk to my friend and colleagues in Gaza, I record what they say, and try to get Americans to feel what's going on," he said. "I hear bombs going off in the background. Sirens going off right as we're are talking. You know how sometimes you call someone and hear music some music or kids playing in the background, now it's the bombs exploding and kids crying...lots of the them."
Fighting Back In Cities Around The World
On the same day, July 20, that Dr Jamah was learning the devastating news regarding the bombing and killing of 27 family members, millions of Palestinians, and their supporters around the world had taken to the streets. Thousands gathered and marched through the streets of San Francisco, to protest the massive deadly civilian attacks on Gaza, that as of this writing have taken over well over 800 lives, including about one quarter who were children, and over 4,000 wounded.
I spoke to Eyad, a rally organizer, who asked that his last name not be used for fear of retribution against his family back in Gaza and here in the US. He said the Palestinian community is tired of the ongoing "ethnic cleansing of Palestine and the endless building of illegal settlements on Palestinian land. Eyad said that he and millions of Palestinians around the world support the resistance to the US-supported devastation and overtaking of Palestinian lands. Eyad talked about the reason people were in the street in numbers and will continue to be.
"We called for this protest today in order to bring attention to the on-going slaughter. We also need to underscore one thing, and that is, this slaughter will continue every couple of years. The Israeli objective in attacking Gaza, it is not really a military objective beyond the pacification of our people. They want our people to give up resistance, to give up Palestine."And they do that in a couple of ways. One, is to terrorize the population constantly with drones in Gaza, and arrests in the West Bank. Also, to kidnap children in the middle of the night, and torture them, so that by the time they grow up, they fear Israel, as this larger than life monster that they cannot really confront. I think what this last massacre has shown is the amazing perseverance and the will of our people to stand up to this kind of slaughter and to say 'No, we have a right to resist, and we have the right to liberate ourselves. We will not die quietly, under siege. And if you want to attack us, as you have been, on a daily basis...you send in drones, you send people to assassinate our activists, you are blocking our food and medicine, you target our hospitals, and you target our schools. This time we're going to fight back.'"
The Palestinian people have shown that they have the will to fight back and we here in San Francisco are standing up and saying "Enough is enough!" It is not only about Israeli policy, it's also about the nature of the state of Israel.
The Palestinian American activist added a reminder about whom exactly the Israelis are bombing in Gaza...
"And it's also important to recognize that the native population of Gaza has a few hundred thousand. The majority of people in Gaza are refugees that were displaced in 1948, when the apartheid state of Israel was established. So they are basically keeping a refugee population under siege. They are bombing them, and they are displacing refugees, in an open air prison, with massive amounts of artillery."
And then Eyad pointed his words in the direction of the US Government and the American people, who are heavily funding the Israeli's and have provided extensive advanced weaponry for Israelis last three massive attacks on Gaza. He said...
"So the question here, that we ask the American government and the U.S. population is -- Where do we want to stand in history? Do we want to see the U.S. supporting, and propelling, and providing cover-up, for such a genocidal state? Or do we want to finally raise the question, and say that Israel, as a Zionist nation, has failed. They have failed to co-exist with the indigenous people of the land. And they have failed in doing so in a variety of ways."Number one, is that they maintain military occupation through the West Bank and Gaza. Number two, is that they continue to displace Palestinians who live within the borders of 1948. Number three, is that they have killed 2 million of us. And number four, and perhaps this is the crux of the matter, is that they have displaced 7.1 million refugees. So to say that Israel is anything short of a genocidal state, and that the Zionist regime is anything short of an exclusionary regime that shares all the characteristics of European fascism and European anti-Semitism, is really not an over-statement.
"So it is time for us, within the progressive community, within the activist community, to say, 'Enough, is enough.' It's time to stop support to Israel, and it is time to call for ending the Zionist regime throughout Palestine. And we do this by isolating and exposing those who support Israel, through boycotts, through divestment, through the application of sanctions, and through escalation of our protest movement. Now is the time to escalate, and now is the time that we take it to the streets."
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