From the Mouth of Babes

Welcome to this space, as I share the stories, I hope you’ll stay, support the work, and connect to learn, grow and expand your conversation to fight against genocide.

I started this write up, piecing together an old story for a modern translation. And then the news got worse, as it always does. A wrench in soul as the Israeli militancy announced they would treat any kite and kite-holder as a threat (this means bombing, shooting, further attacks), because once in recent weeks, a kite escaped a child’s fingertips and landed in an illegal settlement occupied by snowflake Israelis who want to take everything from Palestinian children, including the air they breathe.

A series of photos of kids protesting against their own death because of the kites, the pieces of paper they string together to feel the air.

And then, a video emerged of a child, who’d lost his father, ripping apart his kite screaming “they want to take from us the only thing we love.”

Anger. Fighting his little body’s pain.

Verge of tears again and again and again. For fucks’ sake. When is it fucking enough? May hell haunt those who refuse to see it and call it for what it is: Genocide.

When

Is

It

Enough?

Calling for peace is a fool’s errand when revolution, a militarized resistance is necessary to overcome this rot ~ against these kids.

So maybe I will take you back so you can hear it from them.

The dust cleared and the searing sun slipped above the horizon. The ruins then a fraction of what they are now. It’d been another night of Israeli missiles, Hamas volleyed back. Two, three hours of quiet, the Adhan and then sunrise.

Sometime, late in August 2014, the days and nights blend together looking back, close to a truce, or cease-fire, which since 1948 never really was. For Israelis, Palestinians cease while they fire, and attempt to erase an entire people.

I bounded out of bed to meet my fixer, to survey the wreckage near Beit Lahia, find who we could find. The drones were louder than normal, and who was sleeping anyhow?

Over a decade ago, I spent a lot of time with Gaza’s kids during the 50-day resistance, they were the first to come out, to show us they were “alive another day” (in the words of Bisan Owad).

I wonder often, where are they now? Did they survive, did they go to Universities? Did the boys become fighters?

Even so, what they said stays with me. I pulled up some of the interviews with the kids, from back then, and now, I wonder, can we understand why armed resistance matters too? How they get there? How they see it?

A GIRL IN PINK, SHE CALLED HERSELF MARWA
Do You Like Hamas?
“I like Hamas because Hamas defended the homeland and w/o Hamas we would be killed and there would be more destruction.”
What do you think of Israelis?
“We wish God would destroy them like they destroyed us. And God would be with us to bring back the freedom of Palestine. The Israelis have our land, we cannot go outside and see the world”
What did you do when the war started?
“We evacuated our homes to other safe places”

THE GIRL IN BLUE, SHE CALLED HER FATMA
“Without Hamas, there would be more destruction and the farm lands would be all be destroyed.”

Some people think Hamas brought the war, what do you think?
BIAN 
“Hamas defended the land – the Israelis destroyed the land. “
YOUNA
“She [Hamas] defended the land and kept Israelis from moving more inside the city”
RAWAN
“They defend us”

THE BOYS,
Were you afraid?
“I was terrified. During the Seige, we said, “Go To Tel Aviv”
Do you like Hamas?
No
Who do you like?
“Islamic Jihad”
Why do you like them ?
“They fight the Israelis, They kill the Israelis.”
What do you say to the Israelis?
“Go away to your father, you dogs”
Would you allow them to come to Gaza [to talk]?
“They came. With the tanks.” 

In the days and weeks after, sometime September 2014, Palestinians were surveyed, in favor of Hamas, who’d brokered a truce. The surveyors defending how Hamas fought, why they fought and blamed Israelis for instigating yet another catastrophe.

The ruins of concrete and soft voices growing in rubble spoke clearly.

Is it any wonder, their young nervous systems were set ablaze from birth, their chances to live, even now. beyond 30 seem slim. Many of them today would be in their late teens or 20s.

As the open air-prison is being pushed in further into a concentrated area, with concentration camps and limited movement, as Israelis, with the help of American terrorism, squeezes Palestinians into smaller spaces, often without food, medicine or access to water supply, are we, in the white west,

Awake

yet?

Recently I started following a young one, Haitham, whose every word in English is prose, he’s eloquent in a colonizer’s language and I can only imagine, prolific in his own. Regularly he posts to remind each of us about his reality, of the cost, and its wisdom, we all need to hear.

Can we find ourselves in these kids? After all, they “are all our children” (Baldwin), can we see them and become radicalized to make the world better for them? Even if we don’t live to see it, might we leave a piece of something better so they can?

Speak. Up. For them.

Because the old white men are rotting the earth, and won’t go fast enough. We have time to take it back, and we must keep fighting for these kids. To give it back to them, to give them a fighting chance.

• Ash is a poet and veteran war reporter who was in Gaza in 2014. To connect or find out more, email here.

• For More, Check Out Gaza Poets Society ~ which features Mohammed Moussa and many others writing from the wreckage.

• Other Palestinian writers I’d recommend following include Eman Mohammed and Ramsey Hanhan