Israel eta NATO zale estatu guztiak Palestinaren aurka (27) eta Mosab Abu Toha poeta

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this is democracy Now democracynow.org The War and Peace report I’m Amy Goodman

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as human rights activists plead with global leaders for immediate action

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calling for an end to Israel’s genocide in Gaza Jordan’s foreign minister met

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with US Secretary of State Anthony blinkin in London today and condemned the humanitarian catastrophe in Northern

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Gaza telling blink and quote we do see ethnic cleansing taking place and that

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has got to stop he said for more we’re joined by Palestinian poet and author

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from Gaza who writes in his new book of poems if you live in Gaza you die

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several times mosab abu’s second book of poetry is just out it’s titled Forest of

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noise his previous awardwinning book of poetry things you may find hidden in my

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ear poems from Gaza masab abua is a columnist a teacher founder of the

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Edward SED library in Gaza his recent essay in the New York Times is headlined

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Gaza schools are for learning not for dying and his latest piece for the New

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Yorker is headlined the Gaza We Leave Behind masab Abu TOA it’s wonderful to

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have you in studio safely here in New York but I know that your heart and mind

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are in Gaza right now before we talk about your poetry uh you have just come

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with terrible news for you and your family about what is happening there can

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you describe what you’ve heard just today thank you so much Amy um yeah I

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mean just you mentioned the the the air strikes that U took down 10 residential

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buildings um I was staying with that in that place with my wife and kids just

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before we had to leave uh for an honor School uh to stay in a shelter there and before I was abducted by the Israeli

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Army and this morning I looked at the names of some of the people who were killed in that air strike and I see the

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I mean 19 um names from the same family including iMat AB Rashid I mean a

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temporary neighbor I mean we had M fat as a neighbor for a few days before we had to leave the neighborhood and now I

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read that this neighborhood which I where I was staying with them was bomed so she was killed along with some of her

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children and this is the of so many people I’m not sure if you can see this this is the list of the whole family and

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for example you’re holding up a list of what some 20 names yeah 20 names including fat the grandmother her

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children and her grandchildren and I I look at for example I read this every day so there is Muhammad Salman his

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brother YF Islam s so five brothers and then there is there is muhm fat the son

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of fat Abu Rashid and his wife and his and their children so I’ve been seeing

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all this all the time time and by the way we are focusing right now on North North Gaza yesterday late at night

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Israel bummed intensely kanun and I’m looking at some of the pictures here these are the the photos of the children

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who were killed yesterday they just were able to withdraw the bodies of these children after the Israelis retreated

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from the area so and and that was today I learned about this just half an hour

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ago and then I went to the to the local news channel in my city Bia North Gaza

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and I saw the picture of my neighbor um Iman abua this is his

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photo he was killed he was killed this morning uh while he was trying to to get

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some water from from a tab in the street aan to honor his memory he was

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the principal of the Oni agricultural College in North Gaza and he was trying by the way he

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lived just a few blocks away and he wanted to move to to stay with his brother because there are some friends

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who and some neighbors are staying there so he wanted to be close to the people who are there but he was killed and his

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his son my wife just told me because she was on the phone with her mother and father who are trapped right now in

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bethle they were told that the brother of my my neighbor has been critically

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wounded and he is in the house there’s no way that an ambulance can come there’s no way that any anyone can come

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to their rescue and the same thing happened yesterday in the jab refug Camp the 10 residential bu building that were

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took down massab yesterday last night I saw you at

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the Brooklyn Public Library sold out to hear you speak about your poetry and you

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said at the beginning I saw your wife and your three little children but that hadn’t been the plan uh you’re now in

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Syracuse at Syracuse University um talk about you almost canceling the day

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before CU your wife was too terrified for you to come to New York indeed I mean taking my wife and three kids with

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me was a last minute decision I mean the Israeli Army has been in I mean horribly

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attacking North Gaza displacing people and and kidnapping abducting doctors and and nurses and and journalists and from

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and even the even even the injured people they were they had to evacuate I just imagine I mean people who have been

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injured and they had some medical care and they had to be um on some some some

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medical equipment they are taken away from the hospital some of them would die and that’s why the Lancet Journal said that more than 200,000 people have been

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have died or were killed by the Israeli airri the Israeli uh military campaign since October 7th so my wife’s family

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including her father her mother her her siblings and some of the uh the nephews

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and nieces her grandparents too aged 75 they are now trapped in the family

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house and they are unable to leave and now the ab my neighbor was killed just a few a few meters away from them by by by

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by Shel my from a tangel so she worries that if I I’m away from her and she gets

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some terrible news like to like today’s news she she would she would die from from from Pain and grief so she wanted

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me to be with her and I told her I I I couldn’t cancel you know the event at uh

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at the Brooklyn Public Library and also my event today at NYU so I said okay you

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come with me and now she came with me as if this would I mean I I don’t claim I

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don’t say that I would make her feelings better because I too have family in

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bethle I have a young sister with three children the youngest is 2 years old and I haven’t talked to her for about 10

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days it’s it’s impossible to get in touch with my sister I don’t know how she’s surviving or whether she’s alive

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alive at this moment uh you wrote on social media six days ago I write with a

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heavy heart that my cousin Sama 7 years old has been killed in the air strike on

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their house along with 18 members of her family which is my extended family for

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our TV audience we are showing an image of sama right now tell us who she is so

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so s is one of the five children of my aunt Asma who was also injured the

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mother I mean in the House s was staying with her parents with her siblings with

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her grandmother who happens to be my my grandmother’s sister and I used to call her grandmother because my grandmother

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passed away when I was very young so my my my my my grandmother’s sister with two of her daughters and her

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grandchildren and two of her daughter-in-laws and the grandchildren are still buried under the rubble until

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this moment so s was killed in the air strike and the only reason why my aunt

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and her other children or even though they were wounded the only reason why they they were not killed is that they

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were staying close to the door because the bomb when it falls it usually hits the middle of the house so my my my my

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aunt Asma survived the air strike with some injuries along with her husband and four other four

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children and they had by the way they were my my my my aunt had to walk to the

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Israeli soldiers who were standing just a few meters away from the bond house so just imagine a criminal killing you and

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then waiting for you until you are either dead or or or come to them

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limping and and and she she she told me that she kissed their hands begging them to leave them alone and if she could

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take with her some wheat flour from the house that she was keeping next to her because there is no food in Gaza so s

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was seven years old and I remember something very clearly which is that every time I visited my aunt’s house

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especially during theid the the you know after the Ramadan and all after you know

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the pilgrimage season so we have two big uh AIDS or feasts so I used to visit my

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aunt and her children are there and this this photo is from I think you showed it but this is from the theid this this is

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her dress and my aunt would bring um a sheet of paper and and ask her daughters

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including s yal because I’m an English language teacher so she said Y show show

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M the new words that you have learned the colors the animals but now S I mean I did not I did

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not have the chance to bid her farewell this is my cousin and I lost 31 members of my extended family including three

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first cousins two of them with with their husband and children I didn’t get just the chance even to see them before

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they were buried and I didn’t know whether some of them had any part of their bodies intact after the air

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strikes so just imagine the magnitude of loss that I’m facing as a I’m just one

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person some some other people lost all their families and we know about the the the new term uh wounded the child no

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surviving family about more than two 2,000 children had the same case they

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were the only the so survivors of their family I mean what future is awaiting them no one is asking this

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question no abuta is an award-winning poet and

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author he has a new book of poetry out it’s called Forest of noise your descriptions now make me

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think of your little son you you came with your three children yesterday can

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you read the poem about your son and your daughter yeah sure so by the way

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this poem was written after May 2021 attacks so my son yazan was uh about 5

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years old old my daughter yaa was uh four years old and this is about them now this is very important because you

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just said this is written in May 2021 half your poems in forest of noise

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are before last October 7th and the other half after well I mean this tells

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you this tells you and others a lot of things so this this poem could be written today and if if it was written

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today it there are so many things that would not be present here because this current genocide is so different from

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any other uh Wars that Israel launched against the civilian population in the Gaza

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Strip my son throws a blanket over my daughter Gaza May

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2021 at night at home we sit on the floor close to each other far from the

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windows and the red lights of bombs our backs bang on the walls whenever the

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house shakes we stare at each other’s faces scared yet happy that so far our lives have

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been spared the walles wake up from their fitful sleep no arms to wipe at their

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blurry eyes flies gather around the only lit ceiling lamp for warmth in the

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bitter night cold except when missiles hit and burn up houses and Roads and

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trees the neighborhood next to us where yazen learned to ride his bike

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scorched every time time we hear a bomb falling from an F-16 or an

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F35 Our Lives Panic Our Lives freeze somewhere in between confused where to

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head next a graveyard a hospital a

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nightmare I keep my shivering hand on my wrist watch ready to remove the battery

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if needed my 4-year-old daughter yafa wearing a pink dress given to her by a

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friend here’s a bomb lood she gasps covers her mouth with her dresses

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Ruffles yazan her 5 and a half yearold brother grabs a blanket worn by his

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sleepy body he lays the blanket on his sister you can hide now he assures

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her and I have a video of that it’s on my phone I took a video of my son

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throwing a blanket that’s that’s how I couldn’t forget this moment now you’re

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kids know the hospitals in Gaza that we were just describing um tell us to

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humanize Kamal adwan Hospital ala Hospital yeah yeah I mean by the way ala

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hospital so Kamal adwan is run by the Gaza Health Ministry the the Ala

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hospital is run by the Palestinian red crescent which is an NGO um and and the

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Ala hospital is U dedicated mainly to the uh people who cannot afford to pay

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uh health health insurance and uh many of the uh pregnant mothers uh who go to

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onra clinics are referred to Al the hospital to give birth there for free so it’s it’s a hospital not only not only

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for the patient but also for the pregnant women to give birth my sister a

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uh 30 sorry 35 years old is pregnant and she’s about to give birth and there is

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no hospital near close to her so I don’t know what she’s going to do um

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Kamal adwan hospital is the main hospital in Bia and also in B project um

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and in the past few years it was turned into a children’s hospital and I used to take yafa and yzan to that hospital when

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they feel sick when they have fever when they are injured and I have many friends who used to work as nurses there and I

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know Dr Ham Abu safia who is the the head of the kamalan hospital right now who we watched just a few minutes ago I

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mean he is very helpless I mean I use this in my language I say that situation

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in North G in be or north is catastrophic I mean how many times did I use the same word I mean sometimes I

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want to stop writing because I’m repeating the same the same word even though the situation is worse so I

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mean the language is is helpless I mean I use the same the same vocabulary after

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October 7th it describ the situation in in North Gaza in be lahia I said we had no water no food that was October 12th

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and now we are October 25th 2024 so I hear I mean does the language help

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us why do why why does the world make us feel I mean helpless I think I I mean I

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I I don’t like this as a human being we have never never stopped shouting and screaming and showing our pictures and

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videos can you remind our viewers and listeners who may not have seen you on

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democ now first soon after October 7th we talked to you in Gaza um we then talk

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to you or spoke to others about you when you were taken by the Israeli military

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um then when you were released and made it with your family to Cairo we spoke to

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you yeah we spoke to you in South Africa and now you have come to the United States but take us on that Journey how

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you got out and remind us what happened when you were separated from your family and taken by the Israeli military so Emy

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that that interview that you did with me it was October 12th I can’t forget the because that was the last the last day I

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was in my house I just finished my interview with you on October 12th I

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think it was uh 300 p.m. which is 8 oh 8 morning yeah I I even didn’t pay

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attention to New York time yeah I mean by the time I finished my interview with you I went down my SI my father and

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mother and my my brother Hamza and his children and his pregnant wife my brother my brother Muhammad and his wife

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my sister a with her children who is now pregnant um my sister s and my sister SU

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about 25 people were in the house with me so I went down and I found my father and my mother packing their their bags

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and when I talk about bags I talk about children’s uh school bags we don’t have suitcases by the way which is something

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that many people don’t understand why because we don’t have airports we don’t need suit suitcases we travel with our

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backpacks my children’s kindergarten backpack I stuff it with some clothes and some I I put some water s some water

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bottle there so I found my parents packing their their their bags and I I asked him where are you going and they

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said you know the Israelis just dropped some leaflets ordering the residents of B about 9 90,000 people you know to

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evacuate and that was the first time I found my parents you know leaving and then I went upstairs I didn’t know what

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to take with me I only took with me the copy one copy the only copy that I had of my first poetry book and I took a

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bottle of water and some clothes for my children and then we went to the refugee camp and where do you know where we

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stayed we stayed in the same uh neighborhood that was bummed yesterday where where 150 people were killed and I

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just told you about the names of the people who were killed including inat who I now remember that uh we got one

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hour of uh of water from the tab when I when we were in the camp and in fact he would tell tell the neighbors the water

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is on the water is on fill your buckets so I remember here um and then when the

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bombing got intense in the refugee camp we thought of going to an honorous school which is just a few hundred

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meters away from the neighborhood in the camp so we stayed in the in a in a school shelter in jabalia which was

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later raided by the Israeli Army and by the way a few days ago the Israelis again visited that school took the men

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out incl and they has they have abducted so many including my S my wife’s sister

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husband he he’s he’s a brother-in-law to me so he they took him and one reason he

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he stayed in the school he’s a nurse he couldn’t leave the refugees in the school without any any any nursing

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person so he was abducted and he’s left with three children the youngest was born after October

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7th so when the bombing got intense I had to leave the school with my wife and kids especially because we had the the

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chance to leave Gaza H for Egypt and and and and on the Salah Street which was

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described by the Israeli as a save passage I was abducted by the Israeli soldiers I was handcuffed and

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blindfolded and before that I had to remove all my clothes I was naked for the first time in my life and under gun

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point two Israeli soldiers were pointing their guns at me and the the the person next to me and then they were we were

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taken to a place we didn’t know I mean it’s for me as a Palestinian who was born in Gaza I had never been to

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Palestine which is now Israel so so that was the first time for me to sleep in my country as a datiny as someone who was

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blindfolded and handcuffed as someone who didn’t know there his wife and children who he left behind we’re still

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breathing just imagine Not only was I taken and blindfolded and handcuffed and and beaten and harassed and insulted

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they kept saying bad words in Arabic to these are the only words they know in Arabic insulting words but also I did

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not know whether my wife and kids from whom I was separated were still breathing whether they went to a place

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that is safe because there is no place that is safe why because when there is occupation there is nothing that’s

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called a safe place and I had also to worry about my mother and father who I left behind in the refugee camp and my

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siblings and their children I mean I I I I was torn I was torn into a hundred

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pieces thinking about myself where why are they taking me where are they taking me and I heard the the some young men uh

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screaming you know some of them were had to be separated from their from their pregnant

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wives so after 3 days um I was released I was dropped at the same checkpoint

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well there was International outcry over you having been taken as as as m not as

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a Palestinian so I think many people cared about me because I am uh a friend on and a writer but they did not maybe

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um consider maybe doing the same thing with other people it’s easy to get someone out uh than getting a whole

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population uh from under the military uh Fist of the Israeli Army I mean just

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imagine if if I was not a writer if if I was not a poet if I did not have a publisher if I did not have an um you

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know some journals and magazine that I wrote for just imagine no one knew about me

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I would still have been under the Israeli uh custody maybe I could have died just

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like Dr Adan B who was taken from Al hospital by the way in November last year and he was announced last October

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he was the best surgeon in the Gaz trip and he was he died he was killed I

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wanted to ask you about another man another poet but he didn’t make it um

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the Palestinian poet the Islamic University Professor someone you knew rafat alad last on Democracy Now October

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10th 2023 rafat was killed by an Israeli strike in December along with his

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brother sister and four of his nieces this is Scottish actor Brian Cox reciting rafat ELO’s poem If I must die

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and then I want you to share your poem a sort of segue to it a thoughts if I must

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die a video that went viral if I must die you must live to tell my story to

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sell my things to buy a piece of cloth and some

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strings make it white with a long tail so that a child somewhere in Gaza while

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looking heaven in the eye awaiting his dad who left in Ablaze and bid no one

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farewell not even to his flesh not even to himself seiz the kite my kite you

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made flying up above and thinks for a moment an angel is there bringing back

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love if I must die let it bring hope Let It Be A

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Tale Scottish actor Brian Cox you know um who played in succession reciting

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rafat alad’s poem If I must die in a video that went viral and you can go to

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democracynow.org to see our interview with rafat just before he was killed in

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your book masab abua Forest of noise um talk about rafat and then your kind of

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rejoiner to this poem I I mean I I knew rat as a

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professor at the isic University of Gaza he did not teach me but I would say that he taught me a lot uh because when I was

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uh in my second year he was in Malaysia doing completing his finishing his

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PhD um and when he returned I was already finishing my courses um so but

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he was someone who led me uh to the we are not numbers project that he

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co-founded which is a project that um offer some mentorship for Young Writers I was uh in the beginning of my writing

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career so he introduced me to the group and uh that is a picture that I took with the

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strawberries uh we’re showing an image of fat holding strawberries yeah yeah we

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picked that strawberry that same strawberry together in ble in my father-in-law’s farm from father my

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father-in-law’s Farm um so yeah I I knew as um as a

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father he’s he he was a Wonder a wonderful father uh uh for his kids and

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he was a lovely son of his parents his parents still survive I hope in Gaza

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City um and he’s also a professor of English literature and we talk when we

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when when we when we were talking uh about literature he would talk about Arabic literature and also English

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literature his favorite poet I think was John dun and in the Arabic language he loved the classical Arabic poems like Al

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like like he would recite some Arabic poems to me and I was amazed you

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know um so uh before before was killed he published his poem uh if I must die

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and he posted it on his Instagram and I read that and I was still in North Gaza

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it was before I was abducted and it was very heartbreaking for me I mean someone writing about his death and what his he

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wishes his death to be um um like and I

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couldn’t but try and write my own uh if I must die but I did not call it if I

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must die I wrote If I’m going to die but after he was killed I retitled the poem

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which is now called a request a request after

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if I am going to die let it be a clean death no Rubble over my corpse no broken

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dishes or glasses and no not many Cuts in my head or chest leave my ironed untouched

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jackets and pants in the closet so I may wear some of them again at my

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funeral yeah MAV abuta reading from his new second book of poetry Forest of

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noise just months after rafat was killed his eldest daughter sha

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rafat um was also killed an Israeli strike in Gaza along with her husband and two-month-old son uh rat’s

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grandchild yeah yeah I mean just imagine I mean rat became a grandfather after he

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was killed he was he became a grandfather after he was killed and I mean something that that breaks my heart

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just like just as it must break break everyone’s heart is that when someone is

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killed they even don’t know who was killed with them they don’t know I mean did not know that his his daughter sha

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and her husband ABD I think his name and and and his grandchild were killed after

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him I mean I don’t know whether he knows about this whether I mean he’s now I mean feeling a lot of pain knowing about

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this um so it is it is a campaign of killing the father the mother the

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sister I would call this not only a genocide it is it’s not only a genocide against a

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people but it’s also a genocide against families because when you look at the names of the people who are killed you see the name of the father the mother

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the children the grandchildren it’s not about killing five people from the street or five people in the mosque or

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the school it’s killing a whole family when I tell you that I lost 31 members of my extended family I talk about two

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first cousins with their husband and their children I’m not talking about my cousin no her husband their children the

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youngest two or four m can you look into this camera

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and share your message with the world what you want the world to take away

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right now about what’s happening in your home in Gaza I mean if the world cannot

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really help us I hope that they will not continue to uh to support the oppressor

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if you can’t really stop this why don’t you just go away I mean I I wish the world was ignoring us no they are not

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ignoring us no they are contributing to our suffering and our the our our the genocidal campaign that Israel has been

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launching not not since last year since 60 76 years I mean I mean you maybe you just

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mentioned that um that that blinkin would say says that in a few days you know the the negotiations would start

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again I mean why don’t you say the same things about sending the weapons to Israel why don’t you oh in in a few days

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we will try and send the Israelis some new weapons why don’t you take your time and think about what these weapons are

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going to do why does it take time to resume negotiations and force the

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Israelis to stop their their their killing of my people why does it take

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time what why is it difficult to stop this but it’s easy to send more and more weapons just leave us leave us

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alone your choice of a last poem to share with our audience around the world

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would you like to share the moon or right or left or under the rebel oh under the rebel is long so I would just

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go with right or left which is a poem that I wrote for one of my my my

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friend’s uh sisters my friend himself was killed with his parents with his uh

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with with four of his sisters with his two children so the only survivors was were his wife and two other sisters so

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the the body of my friend is abuin the body of his sister uh 16 years old and

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his father are still under the so I read this poem about the bodies that remain under the rubel the body of

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his sister right or left under the rubble her body has

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remained for days and days when the war ends we try to remove the rubble stone

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after Stone we only find one small bone from her body it is a bone from her arm right

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or left it does not matter as long as we cannot find the H from her neighbor’s

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wedding on her skin or the ink from a school pen on a little index finger