The Voice of Hind Rajab gets record 23-minute ovation at Venice premiere

Al Jazeera’s Caley Callahan reports:  The Voice of Hind Rajab, recounting the final plea of a six-year-old Gaza girl who was brutally killed by the Israeli forces in Gaza City last year, received a more than 23-minute standing ovation at its premiere at the iconic Venice Film Festival. At Wednesday’s premiere, the emotional docu-drama focuses on recordings from the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, which tried for hours to reassure six-year-old Rajab as she lay trapped in a car where her aunt, uncle and three cousins were killed by Israeli fire in early 2024.

Hospitals in Gaza registered 4500 amputation cases in the past 15 months. Of them were 805 children and 541 ladies.

Gaza 2025

The New Yorker Dispatch

March 2024 in The New Yorker:  The Children Who Lost Limbs in Gaza

More than a thousand children who were injured in the war are now amputees. What do their futures hold?

https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/the-children-who-lost-limbs-in-gaza

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This Week in Palestine December 2024: The War of the Narratives by Sani P. Meo

"... TWiP was initially intended to be a guide for tourists and pilgrims, offering them information on where to go and what to do while visiting the Holy Land. That was back in late 1998 and 1999. By the year 2000, TWiP had started to emerge as a voice for Palestine, promoting it in the best way possible, advocating for its rights and cause, and bringing out the best in Palestine.

The history of This Week in Palestine was published in an article in the June 2022 issue themed “Palestinian Archives” – in my opinion, one of the most powerful editions. The article, “TWiP: An Inadvertent Archive,” offers an in-depth exploration of the wonderful journey of This Week in Palestine that has included every single human emotion one can imagine.

However harsh this year has been on the Palestinian people, it has also been an excellent one for This Week in Palestine, at least from the standpoint of popularity and credibility. During the past year there has been a surge of around 350 percent in TWiP’s readership, which is understandable because of the grace of Gaza and the fact that people around the world want to know more about Palestine. Thanks to the young generation who by using social media have brought the question of Palestine to the international stage. It’s worth noting that this keen interest in Palestine, translated through millions of pro-Palestine posts on various social platforms, has come with a price. It has irked mainstream media and sent it on a frantic journey to debunk the Palestinian narrative. As TWiP turns 26, the war between the Palestinian narrative or story and that of the Zionists is reaching a peak.

In her article “Working with the British Media on Gaza,” published in the May 2024 issue of TWiP, Leila Sansour lists a few tactics that the Western political establishments use against the Palestinian narrative: “…from the willful choice of always starting history on October 7 and disregarding all the voices that have painstakingly pointed out the flaws in this approach, to denying Palestinians the right to comment on just about anything that concerns their plight.”..... "  READ MORE  https://thisweekinpalestine.com/twip-turns-26/ 

TWiP Turns 26

The War of the Narratives

By Sani P. Meo

Sani Meo is co-founder of the English-language print and online magazine This Week in Palestine and has been its publisher since TWiP’s inception in December 1998. Since January 2007, he has also been the publisher of the Arabic online magazine Filistin Ashabab, which targets Palestinian youth.

 [AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or quotes or watch videos) IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine]

 

Palestinian Refugees and International Law

Palestine: The Litmus Test of Our Shared Humanity

The Betrayal of International Law

Israel’s UNRWA Ban

The Campus, the Courts, and Chickpeas

Christmas Is Palestine

Follow the Star

Despite Our Justified Skepticism

December 2024 issue of This Week in Palestine https://thisweekinpalestine.com/320-dec-2024/

Christ is still in the Rubble. Munther Isaac Christmas Message December 2024

We will always carry their memory in all we do...

 António Guterres

@antonioguterres

 

Even in the darkest hours, @‌UN personnel are a constant beacon of hope and light. 

 

As 2024 draws to a close, I pay tribute to them, particularly those who made the ultimate sacrifice in carrying out our vital mission. 

 

We will always carry their memory in all we do.

CHRISTMAS 2024: From DC to the Vatican, baby Jesus is wearing a keffiyeh (RNS) — The pro-Palestinian creche is intended to point out the disconnect between the idealized Bethlehem of most representations and the reality in present-day Gaza and the West Bank.

St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Washington’s Capitol Hill neighborhood is one of several churches across the country that have created crèches called “Christ in the Rubble.” The name comes from a book by Palestinian Christian pastor Munther Isaac. Featuring the baby Jesus wrapped in a black-and-white checkered keffiyeh, the creche is intended to remind Christians that if Jesus were born today, he would be born under the rubble. (Photo courtesy Lindsey Jones-Renaud)

 By Yonat Shimron  December 9, 2024 

(RNS) — The scene representing the birth of Jesus is a common December sight, artfully arranged on church lawns or entryways across the country.

But in some churches this year, the nativity crèche is looking a bit different.

The manger has been replaced with a pile of rocks, and the baby Jesus is swaddled not with a thin blanket but with a black-and-white keffiyeh, the Middle Eastern-style scarf that has become a symbol of Palestinians’ resistance to Israeli aggression.

This tableau, often called Christ in the Rubble, first appeared last year in the town of Bethlehem outside the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church, pastored by the prominent Palestinian minister and activist Munther Issac. All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, California, quickly copied it and constructed one on its lawn.

This Advent season, leading to Christmas, they are becoming more common. Even Pope Francis was presented a crèche Saturday (Dec. 7) by two Bethlehem-based artists, featuring a baby Jesus nestled in a keffiyeh.

The pontiff declared “Enough wars, enough violence!” while receiving the delegation of Palestinian groups that organized the project.

In Washington, D.C., less than half a mile from the U.S. Capitol, another church assembled a Christ in the Rubble crèche last week.

The nativity scene outside St. Mark’s Episcopal Church features a Black baby Jesus swaddled in a keffiyeh lying in a bed of broken bricks and clumps of concrete and wire.

It is intended to bring awareness to Israel’s ongoing war that has leveled the Gaza Strip and killed more than 44,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, as well as to the plight of Palestinians in Bethlehem, located in the occupied West Bank. While most Palestinians are Muslim, there is a thriving Palestinian Christian community in Bethlehem, the site of Jesus’ birth, according to the gospels of Matthew and Luke.

 “At Christmas, we sing about Bethlehem and we put up our manger scenes and talk about this story of Jesus being born in this town of Bethlehem with its themes of peace, love, joy and hope,” said Lindsey Jones-Renaud, a lay member of St. Mark’s who was part of the team that assembled the crèche last week. “But there’s such a disconnect between all that and what is actually happening in Bethlehem right now and in the surrounding lands.”  ... READ MORE  https://religionnews.com/2024/12/09/this-advent-christ-in-the-rubble-creches-feature-a-baby-jesus-in-a-keffiyeh/

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Mosab Abu Toha of Palestine's newest book of poems Forest of Noise

Mosab Abu Toha of Palestine's newest book of poems Forest of Noise

Mosab Abu Toha

@MosabAbuToha

Mosab Abu Toha taught English at United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) schools in Gaza from 2016 until 2019, and is the founder of the Edward Said Library, the only English-language library in Gaza.^[5] In 2019-20 he was a visitor at Harvard University, as a Scholar-at-Risk Fellow at the Department of Comparative Literature,^[5] a librarian at the Houghton Library, and a fellow in the Harvard Divinity School.

Abu Toha is a columnist for Arrowsmith Press,^[6] and has written from Gaza for The Nation, Literary Hub, the New York Times,^[7] and The New Yorker.^[8]

His poems have been published on the Poetry Foundation website, and in publications which include Poetry Magazine, Banipal, Solstice, The Markaz Review, The New Arab, Peripheries, The New York Review,^[9] The Progressive,^[1] The New Yorker,^[10] and The Atlantic.^[11]

In 2022, he published his first book of poetry, Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear (City Lights). It won the Palestine Book Award and an American Book Award. It was also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Walcott Poetry Prize.^[1] The New York Times said, "Abu Toha’s accomplished debut contrasts scenes of political violence with natural beauty."^[12] For the National Book Critics Circle, Jacob Appel wrote, "What makes Abu Toha’s work resonate so strongly is his gift for the particular. By avoiding panoramic generalizations, he hones in upon evocative images that capture the larger plight of his people."^[13]

In 2023, Abu Toha was appointed to a visiting faculty position at Syracuse University through the Scholars at Risk network.^[14] He is currently serving as an instructor and writer in residence at The American University in Cairo for the Spring 2024 semester.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosab_Abu_Toha

May 15th poem-a-day from the Academy of American Poets:We Live We Live by Brandy Nālani McDougall- For Palestinian poet Refaat Alareer, with lines from his poems

poem-a-day  May 15, 2024

We Live We Live Brandy Nālani McDougall For Palestinian poet Reefat Alareer, with lines from his poems We live. We live. We do.                   ——Refaat Alareer You were killed today            December 7th                         my birthday     It was today    son of Shujaiya                           in an Israel airstrike                you were killed                       visiting            your brother’s home   in Gaza City   Today, the anniversary                       of when my grandfather             only 12 years old                    climbed onto the roof                           of his dormitory                      to watch the bombs             fall on the American naval base         built over Puʻuloa             Your brother               your sister                   and four of her              children were killed, too                     You were                                           just a few years                       younger than me               This morning              after Israel’s birds       of death            screeched down                      toward you                  my children woke up                          on their own    in Honolulu     though it was still dark                           their breath      like soil           their voices     like soil                        their kisses     like soil           blinking when touched by rain            And my youngest        rubbing her eyes                     asked if              it was my birthday—              And am I now 47?—                                           before singing             in our ancestors’ language                  we are learning                       to speak together         after    the wreckage   of English                   and Americans             And my oldest            who is learning                       to speak                           in speech therapy        giggled            in her grogginess                    then sang                     her own song  too                  And what did I do       to deserve                    such tenderness                                   this early morning?     Or to live                     this long                                               having heard bombs and guns            fired only             from a distance?                      Having stood   safely                            scared  as a child                     and angry        as an adult                  at the sound     of our lands and waters—         Kahoʻolawe                 Pōhakuloa                   Mākua                Wahiawa                     battered             bruised burned poisoned                         in live fire practice?                            By bombs that may have        fallen on you   or close                                      to you on those you loved full-hearted          recklessly                                                 those you learned to cling to even harder            bombs                                      that may have hurt or killed children like mine            who                           could still sing?                       And you                      what did you do                                      to deserve                    your shorter poet’s life                except                                                    tell the truth    and sow the seeds        of songs                                     in your students        except grow your        love for them                                    for your people           for your land               and country                                                     for the promise                        within the wreckage                                                   that is this English                  echoing                                      all the way here                       to Honolulu     where I resisted                           opening my TikTok feed        to savor my children’s sleepy                                      sweetness                    a little longer               before facing                                                    that birthdays are death days              too?                                                   That each day              bombs and schools                              hospitals and houses               fall                   each day children              are pulled from rubble          children          are pulled away                         crying           from rubble             that buried              their mothers                                that they feel                  alone                         that their hurt seeps                          down               into the dirt                    as they look heaven in the eye                                       somewhere in Gaza?              That they         have written                            their names     and their parents’ names         on their limbs                                       so their bodies             or maybe just these parts                                            if that is all                         that’s left                     can be known                                                   to anyone                    who finds them?               That                 if they          if you                must die                       so easily uprooted       from the earth             so harshly unsung       let it be a tale                and why not    write poems   to birth              the strongest words                    of love             like rocks?                           like seeds?                   like songs?      like names?              And why not               hold those rocks          in your hands?                        Your arms?            Pull them              to your chest       like children              lighting         the darkest            of birthday mornings?                           Why not feel               their full weight                      and cling                          even harder         to live            to live                dear poet                            of Shujaiya                  of Gaza           of Palestine                                         just before                  they                  just before         you                                                                                                                             take flight?  Copyright © 2024 by Brandy Nālani McDougall. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on May 15, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets.  https://poets.org/poem-a-day?mc_cid=72282341f5&mc_eid=544ee8b5c2  [AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or quotes or watch videos) IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine] About Poem-a-Day Poem-a-Day is the original and only daily digital poetry series featuring over 250 new, previously unpublished poems by today’s talented poets each year.