A letter to Europe from a Palestinian
Majed Abusalama | I am writing this letter as news continues to reach me of relatives, neighbours, and friends being killed in Gaza by Israel’s indiscriminate bombardment. | I, like millions of Palestinians, am living through the worst nightmare of yet another round of mass death and destruction unleashed on our people – something you would often simply call “an escalation” of the “Palestinian-Israeli conflict”. ● As I write these lines, al-Ahli Hospital was bombed, killing hundreds of children, men and women, who had sought safety on the premises of the hospital. Hours earlier, the news of the death of my friend Mohammed Mokhiemar, his wife Safaa, and their three-month-old baby Elyana reached me. ● They were killed after evacuating with other families to the southern part of Gaza, following Israeli orders. They and 70 other Palestinians were killed by Israeli air strikes. ● The only word I can think of that comes close to what I feel right now is “qahr” in Arabic; it is not just pain, anguish and anger. It is the feeling passed on through generations, accumulated more than 75 years of ethnic cleansing, mass killings, injustice, oppression, colonisation, occupation and apartheid. It is a feeling ingrained in every Palestinian, something we have to live with all our lives.