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In this Genocide in Gaza everyone has a role to play
by Abu Yasan
A Palestinian firefighter reacts as he tries to put out a fire at Gaza’s main power plant, which witnesses said was hit in Israeli shelling, in the central Gaza Strip July 29, 2014. Israeli tank fire hit the fuel depot of the Gaza Strip’s only power plant on Tuesday, witnesses said, cutting electricity to Gaza City and many other parts of the Palestinian enclave of 1.8 million people.An Israeli military spokeswoman had no immediate comment and said she was checking the report. Israel launched its Gaza offensive on July 8, saying its aim was to halt rocket attacks by Hamas and its allies. Photo by Ali Jadallah
In this genocide everyone in Gaza was effected….If you were not killed, your brother, your sister, your mother, your father, your friend, your relative, someone you know, half of them or all of them together were killed. All houses were effected, some houses were leveled to the ground, some are half destroyed, some were destroyed partially but not good any more for living, some are slightly destroyed and if you’re lucky, your house would have lost only windows.. In this genocide we don’t cry the dead as much as we cry the injured; among the 9000 people injured, there are at least 3000 who are going to live the rest of their lives handicaps; some of them have lost legs, some have lost eyes, some have lost hands and some will be traumatized for the rest of their lives. In this genocide, Israel has destroyed our mosques, our schools, our hospitals, our universities, our homes, our streets, our water wills, our power plant and our shops. In this genocide Israel has returned Gaza to the stone age..
Despite everything mentioned above; This war is a victory for us; because in this genocide, we Palestinians are able to unite, we are able to live together, care for each other, open our houses for each others and love each others.. In this genocide, we forgot about our political differences, religious issues and cultural back ground. Our Muslims raised the Adan and prayed in the churches, our liberal girls fall in love with the conservative freedom fighters, our women and our men stood together as one hand, Fateh, Hamas, PFLP, Islamic Jehad, DFLP and all the other parties are fighting like an army.. In this genocide everyone knows his or her role and everyone trys to help everyone; Some of us are carrying weapons and fighting, some of us sitting in front of the laptops 24/7 typing, updating and exposing Israeli crimes, some of us are in the hospitals helping medics, some of us are in the UNRWA schools helping families who evacuated their homes and some of are working as politicians trying to make sure we reach a truce with good terms.. In this genocide, The Palestinians are able to wipe their own tears and say we’re ready to give more blood; They are able to show more steadfastness, more patience, more love, more care, more generosity and more fighting..
In this genocide, everyone is with everyone and everyone is for everyone.
Urgent Call From Gaza
Mohammed Matter ‘Abu Yazan’, from Gaza, Palestine is a political activist, writer and a member of Gaza Youth Breaks Out movement, known as GYBO (photo/aljazeera.com)
“A message to the world,
Dearest Comrades, Brothers and Sisters, and free people of the world:
The Palestinian people are being exposed to another one of the Israeli occupations aggressions. The occupation offensive continues in Gaza, Palestine, while the blockade never ended. Not only so, settler crimes continue with impunity in the West Bank and Jerusalem, meanwhile land theft and settler expansion persists. An apartheid wall furthermore aids the Judaization of Jerusalem, as the occupation forces continue to arrest thousands of civilians. 6000 men and women have been arrested so far, they have been abused and their human rights violated. Not to mention the destruction of Palestinian infrastructure, and the Palestinian national economy.
The Israeli military occupation has committed and continues to commit a number of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the form of genocide. In doing so, the military occupation is violating the IV GENEVA CONVENTION RELATIVE TO THE PROTECTION OF CIVILIANS IN TIME OF WAR, and a number of other human rights agreements. To this point the Israeli aggression has led to 167 Palestinian civilian deaths, 39 of which are children, with a further 23 women. 1123 civilians have also been injured, the majority of which are women and children, while tens of houses have been destroyed and their occupants killed. Not only so, but a number of key institutions have also been targeted, including civil and government institutions, emergency vehicles, and holy sites.
Friends and Comrades, we urge you along with the rest of the international community, with all its institutions including regional ones, and the various civil society organizations, to go from calls for justice for the Palestinian struggle towards the acceptance of your responsibility as actors in this issue. We urge you to hold Israel legally accountable in both an individual and a collective context, to stop the aggression and alienate via boycotts the Israeli military occupation.
We urge you to collectively work on a global solidarity campaign, the biggest of its kind, to expose the Israeli military occupation and hold it accountable. The continued international silence and the lack of accountability gives the Israeli military occupation impunity and encourages it to commit more atrocities and massacres.
Dearest friends: We as a people people live under occupation, and an apartheid state, without any protections. We urge you to take to the streets, and to protest nonstop as we do, the screaming violations that are inflicted on the Palestinian people. We urge you to demand the end of the occupation and the aggression, and to scream in the face of injustice. We urge you to take a stance against the double standards of your governments and to urge them to commit to their legal and ethical obligations towards protecting civilians in Palestine. We need you and we need your urgent solidarity today, and everyday, to stop the occupations crimes and continued aggression. We urge you towards a serious movement and work and solidarity with our just struggle for justice, dignity and freedom. Finally, we hope that you commit yourself to this call as individuals and/or organizations, and to do so with urgency, for tomorrow maybe a day too late.” Abu Yazan
Mattar wrote in 2012 for Aljazeera his feeling regarding the Manifesto that he and other young bright minds wrote in 2010 exposing Israel, UN, US, and its own government Hamas. The frustration to live in an occupied Land, living under the military boot of Israel under the protection of the UN, US and in large by the international community-leaders- on top of that under the dictatorial hand of Hamas that tried to crashed the movement since the first day arresting and harassing its founders.
It has been almost two years now since we wrote our manifesto. We called it a manifesto, but in reality, I’m not sure what it was, he said.
“Was it a manifesto, or was it a cry for help? Perhaps, an accusation, or even perhaps a demand to the world and to ourselves; a demand for change from the outside and from within.” matter said.
Now he appeals again to the international community, but more that to the leaders to citizens of the world to help them, to raise voices of conscience throughout the world to help to stop the massacre.
Read more on Gaza Youth Breaks Out
From manifesto to reality: ‘Gaza Youth Breaks Out’ member tells his story
“My story is marked by violence, persecution, arrests, abuse and resistance,” writes Matter.
It is almost two years now since we wrote our manifesto. We called it manifesto, but in hindsight, I’m not sure what it was. Was it a manifesto, or was it a cry for help? Perhaps, an accusation. Perhaps, a demand to the world and to ourselves; a demand for change from within and from the outside.
It was before the uprisings began around us, and they have been roaring the last two years; in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria and Bahrain. But we had felt like shouting in the dark, and while this raging had brought light into the darkness of the dictatorships around us, the night around us has not thinned even a bit. No, if anything, it has only become darker.
Is Hamas Being Too Extreme?
Posted on February 05, 2012 by Marivel Guzman in Collaboration with Omar Karem
I m Omar Karem, I m Palestinian, Live in Gaza. I m amateur photographer, writer and blogger, I m not spy of Israel Or CIA, I do not belong to any political parties, I belong to Palestine and fight to Liberate her. I m being continuously harassed, detained, interrogated for no apparent reason other than being Photographers and having many friends inside and outside Palestine.The situation in Gaza is devastating for all its residents, the Israeli Illegal Siege has taken the industry to almost a complete halt, the farmers unable to export their products have two options, to feed them to the animals or to stop cultivating. The fishing industry after all the assaults in the fishermen and the 3 mile limit has paralyzed the fishing industry in Gaza. The Hospitals are running on generators which are not sufficient to satisfy the energy needs of the medical equipment, the whole Gaza Strip is immersed in desperation and need for food and products. And in top of all the necessity that the people live due to the blockade and the Occupation itself, Hamas has not stopped it harassment against the citizens.
There are many accounts of abuses from the security forces of Hamas against journalists and regular citizens that dare to hold a camera, illegal detentions, incarceration, and confiscation of laptops and cameras, and cell phones are common complain.
Since last January that the Gaza Youth Broke the Silence and they published the Gaza Broke the Youth Manifest, Hamas has stepped the assault in journalist, students and ordinary citizens that all they ask is to end the Israel Occupation and the Internal Divisions
Gaza, Palestine(Akashma Web Blogs) Gaza is under attack, Israel have stepped up her attacks in the Besieged Gaza Strip and even under such circumstances the Youth of Gaza leading “The Initiative Call Home” staged a protest in the Square of the Unknown Soldier in Gaza City before they were ordered to evacuated the Plaza. The protest led by Young Palestinians to end the internal divisions is a sign that the Revolution that started in Tunisia and Egypt has sparked the light in Palestine. There is not to say that they did not want to brake the old rule, but with the air of Revolution and the global support is a good moment to engage the world in their calls for Freedom.
The protest was broken up by security agencies of the Government by force, today they organized a sit-in group where Young People peacefully gathered to demand an end to the internal divisions, in the Square of the unknown soldier in Gaza City, Palestine. Their demands have been growing stronger since last December when the Youth of Gaza Broke Out, a movement started growing support around the world, when they declare in their Famous “Gaza Youth’s Manifesto For Change” made public by blogger, Opinion Maker Online Newspaper and many others News Outlets around the world.
Such Manifesto was not welcome for factions inside Palestine and for many activists around the world, they saw in this Youth Manifesto more divisions, but in reality was a desperate call for a change. Free Gaza Today
Omar Karem a photojournalist in Gaza and co-founder of Akashma Web Blogs have seen the rage of the security forces of Hamas in many occasions while covering the events in Gaza, the public sit ins demonstrating against the division, in the protests to support Egypt, in the March 15 but in On March 18, 2011 he was violently assaulted on the street in Center of Gaza, and forced to accompanied some security men for ‘questioning!’, but he was not take to the police department office, but to some rooms around the Unknown Soldier Square, ” before the incident occurred he witnessed how some other security officers also approached two foreign women and took their cameras. When he was in those small rooms, he saw how two other women were there probably arrested. He made a public denounce to Mr Hammad head of Security in the Interior Minister of Gaza, he was being treated as criminal and not as a Palestinians that is fighting against the same aggressor Israel. And again on February 01, 2012 after the demonstrations on Beit Hanoun he was arrested, his laptop, camera, and phone confiscated, his home searched and given an order to appear again for interrogation at Hamas Security Headquarters of Monday February 6 2012.
The internal division and the paranoia is taking its toll, Hamas sees enemies in every person that walks in Gaza, not realizing that elections sooner of later will take place and they can not stage a victory, they need to win Palestinians to their side, unifying the people that has been divided for so many years of internal conflict.
Israeli occupation forces broke up the peaceful March on Tuesday with live bullets. Israeli occupation forces opened fire towards a peaceful march was headed for the buffer zone north of Beit Hanoun, accompanied International Peace Activists . March gained access to about 50 meters near the Beit Hanoun “Erez”, adding that “the fire heavily towards the march led us to turn it off and return for fear of casualties, and, fearing for the lives of the people. Palestine News
Please come with no banners, no flags, no colors, security forces please do not give bad image to the world. Do not copy the practices of Israel, we are tired of repression and oppression. Support us, in the new Palestine Nation that we all try to build. Tomorrow is a new day, to rectify the errors, to take lessons of the past. Inshallah Omar Karem, Gaza, March 15 2011 Palestine One Nation
He is being accused by the Security Forces of Hamas of being Israel collaborator, CIA operative, FATAH member, Egypt Spy all absurd and nonsense charges that he denies categorically, for Hamas the idea of a Gazawan to externalize his opinions as a Citizens of the besieged Gaza or as a journalist telling the world the crimes that Israel commits everyday is censored as if this was a crime against the state.
The way I see Hamas now throwing punches to the wind in its effort to curtail the opposition ideas to a system that is not working. Hamas has lose sight of what it is important. Israel was and still the enemy of the people, the people of Gaza are not enemies of the state, they all fighting for a common enemy, and all the Gaza society has to be united to be able to defeat so strong enemy, and Hamas as the government elected by the people of Gaza has to show restrain in its security extremes or lose the sympathy of the citizens that put them in the chair.
Many Arab/Muslim activists reject our movement & consider us as some Zionist machinery because in the manifesto, we’ve been denouncing Hamas – among others. It’s always amazing to see the shortcuts people’s minds can take and how good they are at condemning without even trying to understand. We’d like to remind all our goal: yes we are frustrated and tired of being oppressed, killed, humiliated and kept from even leaving to study in other countries, yes we denounce political parties governing us because they didn’t help in anything, but we denounce ALL of them, not ONLY Hamas. Abu Yasan Gybo
No crime go unpunished, no deeds go unrewarded, if Hamas saw its victory in Gaza was because its support for its people, they need to stop the the harassment and see that the times are changing and they need to be the leaders to their people and not their oppressors.
It turned out that our crime is that we’ve been very active in the March 15 protests that called for unity between Fatah and Hamas. We were interrogated separately, but had the same reaction when we felt that they deal with this movement as a crime and actually going after its members now. We tried to explain that we didn’t go against anyone and what we called for was in our cause’s interest which is the only thing that matters to us! What we did understand from their questions is that we’ve “as in March 15 members” been meeting with politicians (both Palestinian and foreign), implementing their agendas as getting funded by them and asking them for visas. Also sitting with Israelis “which means we’re spies” and they’re holding all kinds of evidences against us! Gazanism
The youth of Gaza are in their twenties, they dress sporty, they are University Students, they are the facebook activist, the twitters, youtubers, this generation that want to change the old ideas, they want a new Palestine without the rigor of religion, without the stamp of millitary flavor, their envision a new Palestine United by their flag, their Land, culture and her people, they want to forget about the political parties that have damage so much the reputation of Palestine.
It takes courage to speak the truth in a place such Gaza, that even with close to two million souls crumble down in a tiny strip of land, the news goes faster that Israel Bullets and the arrests of activists are to the order of the day. But with all the oppression and repression and Israel Occupation Gazawans don’t give up their hopes for a better Gaza, a New Gaza Palestine where diversity will be found only in the cultures and the International Peace Activists that have shared their struggles and not in the party lines that seems to divide the people.
Now all the lies are exposed, the internal fights need to settled, the youth of Gaza is forcing the old leaders to rethink their role, to lead Palestine as a Nation and come as one voice. They created a big platform where all the dissidents voices can be heard and the obsolete policies and old practices be clean away.
Akashma Online News 