Israel bomb tents. Israel bombs families. Israel bombs schools. Israel bombs healthcare centers, hospitals, and rehabilitation facilities.
Israel bombs apartment and residential buildings. Water treatment facilities. Community kitchens. Animal shelters.
Israel bombs cafes. Grocery stores. Libraries. Offices. Businesses.
Israel bombs universities. Museums. Churches. Mosques. Cultural heritage sites. Warehouses with food. Ambulances. Search and rescue vehicles and equipment.
Israel kills children waiting in line for water. Israel kills people who have been starved who are trying to find food for their families. People fleeing danger, as they are trying to flee, after being terrorized and threatened. And even fleeing isn't possible, because there is no safe place inside Gaza to go to, and there is no evacuation away from danger.
Israel kills Palestinian mothers, fathers, grandparents, children, friends, cousins, teachers, doctors, librarians, writers, journalists, nurses, farmers, anyone, everyone, no matter their profession or identity.
Israel uses psychological terror to enhance the horror of the violence they are inflicting upon the Palestinian people, with illumination flares lighting up the sky being one of the latest features of this approach, as they keep finding new ways to add to their repertoire of traumatization.
Israel is inflicting and causing mass disablement on an entire population.
Israel, with the full support of the United States --which bears responsibility and owns this genocide, because without its support, none of this could be happening--Israel and the United States have been doing this for almost two years now.
And no one has been able to stop it.
While there are many in this country who care, there are many more who don't, who don't differ that much from the Israelis who are living along the border of the sites of violence and forced starvation while justifying it or choosing not to think about it, as they continue to go about their regular lives--dining at restaurants, going out to movies and shows and entertainment venues, planning vacations, and enjoying themselves. Or maybe they complain about their own hardships, their own pressures and finances, jobs and lives. And all of this while still choosing to ignore, or condone, or support, or deny the atrocities being done in their name by their government.
We, in this country, may not share a physical border with Gaza, but the reach of America's imperial arm is long, and if distance is measured by power, money, and influence, then this country is as close to Palestine as Israel is.
What will it take? Will more people in the U.S. ever decide there can be no normal life until this ends? Shouldn't this have already happened? What will it take for more people in this country to care, to do more, to understand the seriousness of this, to recognize their own responsibility? To not treat the person who keeps bringing this up as the problem. To not become more focused on someone's negative reaction to a shirt expressing solidarity with Palestine than on the actual genocide the person wearing the shirt is opposing.
I don't know what it will finally take. I wish I did. I only know that those of us who are trying, who have been trying, we have to keep trying. We have to keep finding new ways to do more. We have to do everything we can, and keep finding new things to do.
As I write these words, as I think about the families in Gaza, the ones I know personally, the ones who I do not know, as I wonder how much longer they can continue like this, I read the words of Asem Alnabih, posted online three minutes ago:
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