Last week on the 77th anniversary of the Nakba, Israel began an intensification of its violent assault on the people of Gaza with attacks from land, air, and sea, with support and weaponry supplied by the U.S. government, sending more shells, drone missiles, bombs, and fire to kill Palestinians in hospitals, school shelters, tents, markets, and streets. 

Since then, this intensification has only worsened every passing day and night, becoming more murderous, terrifying, and brutal. Israel has continued to target hospitals, including one that could offer treatment to cancer patients. 

Israeli forces also continue to terrorize Palestinians in Gaza by dropping threatening leaflets from the sky, issuing so-called "evacuation orders" which force Palestinians to flee amidst the bombs with no safe place to go.

The women, men, children, who are not killed but are left trapped beneath the rubble, or who are rescued but left hurt and wounded, burned and besieged, starved and sickened, can not be given adequate treatment for burns or pain relief for their suffering, cannot be granted any comfort or assurance of even one moment of safety because of Israel's constant violent bombardment and genocidal attacks, cannot rest or breathe or heal. Israeli forces also continue to destroy any kind of construction or rescue equipment, as they also bomb and destroy whatever small food stores are left, while extending their illegal blockade to prevent food, medicine, water, and fuel from entering into Gaza.

How many times will I say that conditions are worse than they have ever been? How can each day and night, which are the worst possible days and nights, somehow be even worse than the preceding ones? And how many times will I have cause to wonder this? There must be an end, somehow, someway. 

Israel has also launched what they are calling “Gideon’s Chariots,” formalizing their blueprint for permanent occupation, mass displacement, and expansion of genocidal violence. While this has been referred to in some media sources as the Israeli government declaring it is launching a "major ground offensive," there is no "offensive." This is a violent intensification and acceleration of genocidal violence unleashed upon families who are already traumatized, starving, and suffering and who are trying to survive. 

Unleashed upon families. Fathers, mothers, children. Siblings, grandparents, aunts and uncles. Cousins, friends, husbands and wives. People who just want a chance to live their lives. 

Israel is violating international law, acting with impunity, and showing no indications they intend to stop. And Israel and the U.S. are also planning to further weaponize food and food distribution, effectively establishing concentration camps with the help of American mercenaries. This should be receiving more scrutiny and attention, especially from Americans, but so far it has not. And Israel's recent announcement about allowing in a mere nine trucks of so-called "aid" is merely a mocking and disdainful nod towards the increasing number of people throughout the world who have been protesting  these past several days who want Israel to stop starving and killing Palestinians. 

These past five days have been hell-like and continue to worsen. One of my friends recently sent me a video and voice note recordings of shelling and gunfire from the helicopters hovering above his tent. The video and sounds were enough to make my heart skip and my body to shudder, from the safety of my home, a 10 second clip--what must it be to be living through this, and for this to be only one threat, one source of fear, one cause of anxiety among so many, too many to count?

Everyone I talk to in Gaza is trying, trying so hard to keep going, to be ok. They are doing everything they can to take care of their loved ones, to be strong for each other. But there is a weariness, a fatigue, an exhaustion steeped in trauma, devastation, and starvation, compounded by being immersed in constant loss while also surrounded by an abundance of violent death.

It is too much to bear.

We need to keep doing what we are doing to end the genocide and the occupation, while we also continue to find new ways to stop it. We must keep giving all we can to help those who are trying to survive. I do not know how much longer we can continue like this, how much longer anyone can. But I feel strongly that time is not something we can spare. There is an urgency required of us if we are to adequately meet this moment.

One thing I am hoping more people are beginning to understand, one thing that I am trying to show with the presentations I have been giving, is that this is not something happening separately from us. The Palestinian people in Gaza are connected to us. And the people in the U.S. are connected to them. And this country is also the country that is enabling and supporting this genocide. 

What is happening to Palestine, what our country is doing, is also connected to what is happening here. And it is connected to the trajectory this country has been on for a very long time. And if we cannot somehow stop the normalization of intentionally using mass starvation, torture, and violence as means of asserting control and maintaining power, then there isn't much hope for any of us. And perhaps, there shouldn't be.

So again I request that you please do what you can, today, now, this moment to help. Send whatever support you can send to Palestinians in Gaza. Direct aid from us in terms of the funds we are raising right now is the only thing that is helping. And listen to what Palestinians are saying. Prioritize hearing their voices above the voices of others. And then talk to everyone in your life about this. Take whatever action you can take. Take up space. Take up room. Take up air time. Do whatever you can do. Nothing we have done so far has been enough. So we must keep trying. 

Two Months of Forced Starvation

 It has been two full months since Israel began its illegal, immoral, genocidal blockade, banning anything but weapons, bombs and death from entering into Gaza. No food, medicine, fuel, clothing, building materials–no anything. Nothing required for anyone or anything to survive in Gaza. 

This is the longest complete and total blockade Israel has ever inflicted upon Gaza, and famine is no longer “looming,” it has arrived. And not because of some kind of uncontrollable “natural” disaster–this is entirely human made and human-supported, created by Israel, and enabled by the U.S. Children are dying from malnutrition, and everyone is sick. The World Food Program has run out of food, and prices for what little food remains in Gaza have skyrocketed. What flour there is left is exorbitantly expensive and rancid. 

In the midst of all of this, Israel has intensified its campaign of mass murder, targeting Palestinians in every place and during every time– while they are trying to sleep in tents or shelters, when they are trying to receive medical treatment for their illness, while they are trying to get water, when they are searching for food, collecting firewood, or sitting with friends and trying to find a moment of joy amidst so much violence. Even children playing with other children in what used to be a street are targeted. It does not matter when or where. It could be bombs, drones, snipers, shelling, or fire. It could be men, women, children, and pets. It could be journalists, doctors and nurses, teachers, or mother and fathers--it does not matter who they are, what they are doing, or where they are. Israel has dropped all pretext of needing to make up their flimsy excuses–they just kill and harm whenever and wherever in Gaza they want to. They target men, women, and children in broad daylight or under the cover of darkness, ensuring no place is safe, and there is no rest for the weary and traumatized. 

What more is there to say to compel the world to act? To get more people in this country to care? To make this a priority? Americans turn out in the streets on the weekends to "resist" the growing fascism of this country, something that unfortunately was not resisted en masse while its roots were clearly growing long before Trump was president. And most often, missing from these laments and demonstrations, is anything about Gaza or Palestine, unless a few of us who are not ‘indivisible’ decide to make our presence visible. 

Labor unions can hold May Day rallies so unions can ask for higher pay for their members, but there is no talk of withholding our labor to end a genocidal assault of forced starvation and mass murder, funded and enabled by this country. What is there left to say? We are running out of time and more Americans need to care. And while I know many do, we still need more. And we need to back up that care with action.

And if you are looking for something you can do, right now, that will help, here are two small things. Much more is needed, but at the very least, please do this: 

• Donate to one of the families linked from the Whatcom Families for Justice in Palestine Linktr.ee. These funds are literally survival funds. Please give generously, as much and as often as you can.
• And contact your representative to demand they act to force Israel to end the blockade.  (I will be honest, I don’t have that much faith in our current political systems, or the people in power who are supposed to represent us. But it is one thing that more people could easily do, and we should be doing everything we can think of and more right now.) 

This is not getting better. It is not getting easier. As I was writing these words, the news broke of the drone attack on the Freedom Flotilla in international waters off the coast of Malta. Efforts to save the lives of Palestinians are being met with more violence and attacks. The U.S. keeps bombing Yemen for daring to defend Palestine. And campus protests are being met with more repression and police brutality. What does this tell you about the current state of the world? And how long can we continue like this?

The Need for New Words

This past Saturday, April 12, the Whatcom Coalition for Palestine hosted another public program featuring “Eight Families in Gaza: Amplifying Their Voices,”  the presentation I created in collaboration with members of the featured families, who generously shared their words, their photos, their writing, and their voices with us. My hope was to bring the families closer to my local community, to raise more support for them, and also to raise more awareness about the dangerous and dire conditions Palestinians in Gaza are being forced to endure and are trying to survive. I also hoped that people would be personally affected, and compelled to take actions to end the genocide.

Every time I give this presentation, I am also deeply affected. I have the deepest respect for these families, and feel that it is both an honor and a privilege to be able to speak and share about them. Words are mainly what I have to offer and to give. So I am using them in writing, in speaking, wherever I can. And I know that words on their own are not enough. But I hope that words will be a pathway to more--more connection, more support, more action, more awareness, more change. We need more of all of these things. 

After the presentation, about half of us stuck around to meet with coalition members, to process and talk and plan, and it was during that part of the event when I received a message from one of my friends in Gaza who had just woken in terror to the sound of nearby bombing, when the only remaining hospital in the north was attacked and destroyed by Israeli Forces, leaving patients with no safety, shelter, or medical care, as sick, wounded, and severely ill people were forced to flee into the dangerous streets. Israeli forces have been systematically and intentionally destroying all healthcare facilities, blocking all access to medical supplies, while also targeting, killing, and capturing healthcare workers, and creating conditions intended to inflict more pain, suffering, and death.

Last week, another friend of mine was trying to secure medical treatment for his parents who are ill because of the harsh living conditions and lack of clean water and food, and the clinic they were going to enter was bombed right before they arrived. Had they been moments earlier, they would not have survived. 

Meanwhile, the health crisis is growing increasingly serious with every passing moment. Israel's systematic attacks on the water infrastructure in order to destroy the water supply, while also using food and starvation as a weapon, continues unabated. Israel, and the United States are committing Crimes Against Humanity, genocide, violating all international laws, and engaging in violent acts of brutality that defy comprehension. And so far, nothing has been able to stop this.

Palestinians in Gaza are exhausted, fatigued, and starving. Everyone I talk to has lost weight, some of them have lost a dangerous amount. Everyone is sick with severe stomach pain and headaches. And the bombing, shelling, and drone targeting increases every night. The only thing helping people survive right now is the support they are receiving from those of us outside of Gaza who are sending them what we can, while we also try as hard as we can to end this.

This past Saturday, I was thinking a lot about words and actions, about how things are shared, about the power and shortcomings of language.  I posted on Twitter that I needed new words. I was sharing Moayed Harazen's post, as he was describing the water crisis, and I wrote:

“Just as starvation is used as a weapon, water & sources of water are also targeted & destroyed. I need different words to convey the seriousness of this. ‘Urgent,’ ‘critical,’ ‘emergency,’ ‘crisis’--these words are not enough. What words will finally compel the world to act?”

I keep thinking about how we do not know what it will be that will finally end this, which means we must keep trying anything and everything we can think of, while also thinking of new things to try. And while we are doing that, we absolutely must give as much support as possible to those who are trying to survive. This is more than critical and urgent--I do not have the words to describe how important this is.

Information About Donating:

You can find a list of links on the right side of this blog site where you can make direct donations to the families' campaigns online. And the eight families I have been trying to introduce to our local community are among them. And you can also find the links to the pages for the eight families on the Whatcom Families for Justice in Palestine linktr.ee. 

If you would prefer to give me your contribution so that I can distribute your donation myself, that also works and I am happy to do that. I have been accepting checks, cash, and payments via Zelle–whatever is easiest. Please feel free to reach out to me via email at clarissjanae@gmail.com and we can make arrangements.

Disability Justice for Palestine Online Event: April 15, 2025

During the public presentations, "EightFamilies in Gaza: Amplifying Their Voices," which I have been giving in my local community these past couple of months, I have begun by talking a little bit about the connection and intersection between Disability Justice and Palestinian Justice. I talk about mutual aid, collective liberation, the framework for disability justice, and how all of this has been part of my connection to Palestine. 

This week, on April 15, 2025 at 8 a.m. PST there is an online event, "Disability Justice in Palestine: Taking Action," organized by The Palestinian Disability Coalition, which includes members from "organizations of persons with disabilities, self-help groups, and activists with disabilities from all parts of Occupied Palestine, and also the Disability Justice for Palestine Collective, which is made up of disabled people, "researchers, human rights activists and advocates from all over the world working together to document the situation of Palestinians with disabilities and the crimes being committed against them, and advocating for justice and accountability." 

You can find out more about this event on the Disability Justice for Palestine Collective website, and register for the Zoom online. 

[Update from April 22, 2025- Here is a link to the event recording]

[Image Description: ONLINE EVENT: DISABILITY JUSTICE FOR PALESTINE: Taking action

APRIL15-11h EST/18h Palestine /Palestinian refugees with disabilities will join from Gaza, the West Bank and other locations to tell us what is happening to their communities in occupied Palestine. Join us, listen to their testimonies, and help us spread their voice! Register: https://bit.ly/DJPTA

Organized by THE DISABILITY JUSTICE FOR PALESTINE COALITION and THE PALESTINIAN DISABILITY COALITION / With support from WOMEN ENABLED INTERNATIONAL / ASL & IS interpretation and CART transcription into Arabic & English will be provided.]

Untitled

Of Births & Deaths - My birthday was one week ago last Monday on March 24. It was a landmark birthday, a birthday of deep reflection. I had the day off from work and I asked anyone who wanted to celebrate with me to please donate to my friends in Gaza. I did not get much sleep the night before, up too late, too worried, too much happening. After answering my morning messages from friends in Gaza, I tried to rest for a couple of hours. When I awoke and checked my phone, it was only to learn about the targeted killing and murder of beloved journalist, beloved son of Beit Hanoun, Hossam Shabat. Another journalist assassinated, another strong voice targeted, another beloved Palestinian gone, taken through extreme cruelty, brutality, and violence.

The shock, the grief, the overwhelming emotion felt and expressed by so many filled the day. I thought about the ways in which compounded grief can build and consume, triggering more memories of other losses, releasing unprocessed and ongoing traumas, and causing buried emotions to resurface as though the wounds are still new and fresh.

My birthday was a day of sadness, mourning, and grief. And it was also a day of deep appreciation and profound gratitude. I spent the day trying to raise more support for fundraisers to support families in Gaza, and I also received the most thoughtful and generous messages, photos, wishes and greetings from friends in Gaza, and from allies around the world. Messages, photos, words that touched my heart and soul on the deepest possible level. And I thought about how strange it is this world can simultaneously hold such contradictions and oppositions. How can it be a home to people who are so generous, so thoughtful, so kind and loving, and at the same time there exists people who are capable of committing and supporting horrific violence and cruelty? 

My birthday wish last Monday is one that I still have today: it is for us to do everything we can to support the people in Gaza who are trying survive, as we also do anything & everything to end the genocide & the occupation. May Palestine be free. May all oppressed people everywhere be free. May there be justice. May this  world be transformed. 

Every moment that passes and we are not able to stop this, we lose more loved ones, more lives, more universes, more possibilities of promising futures. And these losses are not just devastating to us and to the world, they are compounded by more trauma and grief. Immeasurable losses. Bottomless caverns of grief.

Everything was already urgent and dangerous because of Israel’s most recent illegal blockade that began on March 2, which cut off access to food, water, medicine, fuel, and urgently needed supplies of every kind. Despair was already widespread and life was already too hard. But with the return of the extreme violence and bombing, everyone is now also back to living in constant fear and danger, while also trying to survive the harshest and most extreme living conditions. 

People are back to trying to soothe their children and babies who cry as the bombs fall. Back to trying to dig out their friends and families from beneath the rubble of what collapsed structures remain with their bare hands. Back to not sleeping, not being able to rest, never being able to relax. Back to daily near-death experiences while also mourning the loss of more loved ones and wondering who will be next. 

There are not enough hospitals or medical staff to help the sick and wounded, and what there is are not easily accessible, not stocked, and staffed by medical workers who are also severely fatigued and traumatized. Food supplies are running low and the violence only worsens. The World Food Program has warned that backstock of any remaining food supplies will run out in a little over a week. Today bakeries in Gaza are announcing their closures due to lack of flour. Hunger and malnutrition are causing serious health problems, and the constant stress from living in extreme danger is taking a toll on people's hearts, minds, and physical bodies. We are running out of time, time we already did not have. 

Yesterday I wrote and posted an update to the fundraiser page for my friends Yanis and his wife and their sweet son Mahdi. In it I explained that despite the constant danger and harsh living conditions: 

"Yanis and his family are doing everything they can to take care of each other, to survive, to find and create moments of relief and joy in the midst of the suffering. Today is Eid, and many in Gaza have been calling it the 'Eid of sadness.' Yanis and his wife have tried to make it special for their sweet son Mahdi, but there is a heaviness in their hearts as many children were targeted and massacred by Israeli forces this morning.

The grief is immeasurable, and for parents especially, their grief is accompanied by a fear and worry of what will happen next, and how they can provide protection for their children when everything is out of their control, and people are targeted no matter where they are. Yanis and his family had a very frightening experience just yesterday when the tent next to theirs was bombed, and as Yanis explained, 'Death and I are neighbors.' The reality is, there is no safe place in Gaza."

Everything we do matters, and nothing we have done has been enough. We must keep doing all we can to support the people trying to survive, while also doing everything we can to end this. I don't know what it will finally take. I don't know that anyone does. But the more of us who are trying, the closer we are to finding out. 

We must do more, and we must do it now. This urgency cannot be overstated. 

[Image Information: Original image and text graphic can be found online at Al Jazeera: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/3/24/al-jazeera-journalist-killed-in-israeli-strikes-in-northern-gaza]

Whatcom Coalition for Palestine - Info Table at Local Event

I will be at the at the "Skill Up & Connect for Community" event, along with some other folks from the Whatcom Coalition for Palestine, on Saturday March 22, 2025. 

We will have information about upcoming events, craft items for sale to support donations for families in Gaza, and information about ways to get involved. 

March 22 from 2:30 to 6:00 p.m. Bellingham Unitarian Fellowship 

"We are living in a nightmare."

MARCH 16, 2025

There have been so many mornings after long nights of troubled sleep these past eighteen months when I have started my day thinking this was it--this would finally be the moment, the thing, the time the world would awaken and together do what is necessary to end this injustice, to stop this violence, to try to begin to put right so many wrongs which have left permanent scars and mountains of grief that will never be fully processed.

How I have been wrong so many times. How my heart has broken with each wrong day.

With Israel's continue violation of the ceasefire agreement, and constant flagrant violations of every international and humanitarian law, conditions in Gaza continue to be dangerous as they find ways to extend their genocidal attacks on the Palestinian people.

Military aggression and the sadistic violent targeting of people as they try to survive have increased. Since the very beginning of the ceasefire implementation, Israeli forces have continued their attacks, intermittently firing upon or bombing individuals with drones, killing approximately three Palestinians per day. The use of drones to create a permanent sense of danger and threat is also common, as they hover above tents and play threatening messages when people are trying to rest.

Israel's most recent total blockade of trucks and supplies, which began on March 2, means Palestinians in Gaza are suffering from extreme hunger and ill health, as conditions worsen by the minute. How we have allowed this to continue defies comprehension.

 
These past two weeks have been very very difficult. The water crisis has only grown more dire, with Israel cutting power to the last remaining desalination plant this week. Food prices have skyrocketed, and people are forced to survive on canned food with low nutritional content, which exacerbates chronic health problems, especially for those already suffering from high blood pressure. Which also means new health ailments and diseases are becoming increasingly widespread. And because it is Ramadan, people are fasting, which means there is also great suffering from not having enough food after fasting for 16 hours at a time.

Everyone I talk with is exhausted. Everyone is weary. Many are sick. And no one knows when this will end. And all of this suffering, hardship, and danger is not the result of a natural disaster which cannot be controlled– it is a deliberate, human-made crisis being intentionally inflicted to cause harm.

When I spoke with a friend on Friday, and I asked how he was, he said he was fine. He always tries to reassure me, never wanting me to worry. I responded that I was glad he was fine, but that I also understood that nothing was fine, that everything was difficult. And that was when he finally said:

"We are living in a nightmare. We hope it ends quickly, because this is not life."

[This animated image above includes some of the words shared with me by the families in Gaza who I am closest to.]

The pain of seeing others suffer and not being able to stop it is different from the pain of living through the suffering first-hand. But it is still a pain that binds us, and it drives my every action, hope, and prayer. I have stepped up all my efforts to raise funds because it is the main thing I can do to help right now. I am talking to everyone I can. I am selling anything I have of value. I am planning more fundraisers. Every day I seek out more ways to do more and to reach more people. I share this with you not to center myself–I hope the focus will always be on the families in Gaza who are trying to survive–I share it because I want you to understand how the support you have given is important. It is making a difference. It is helping. And it is needed. Anything you can do or give right now is needed.

The families I am talking with every day are living in a nightmare which feels never-ending, a nightmare from which they hope to awaken. A nightmare that would end if we could wake up those in this world who are still too asleep to understand and stop what is happening.

Please don't stop talking about Gaza, don’t stop giving your support. And if you haven't started yet, please start now. Bring this awareness with you to every space you are in. Give as much as you can afford to give. Lives literally depend on it, and we have a duty and responsibility to support those who are trying to survive, especially when we have been unable to stop what is being done to them.