A million anguished voices cry out to us from Gaza – here is one of them

Israel has been committing genocide in Gaza for six days – a war crime in real time that the Canadian government ignores. My messages to friends stuck in the hell of Gaza have remained unanswered since Monday. Out of power? Running for their lives? Lying in the rubble of their bombed out apartment building or outside the overcrowded Shifa hospital hoping to be treated? Or perhaps worse…? I fear to know the answer. Then out of the blue, a message tonight (Friday) from my Arabic language teacher. One voice of millions. I share it with you. Read more.

Dear Peter,

This is Kerama your Arab teacher from Gaza. Help!! Please!!

What is happening is a massacre!!!

Genocide, literally I can’t tell you how much is scary and terrifying…. Gaza is destroyed completely… people died whole families died together it is a nightmare I don’t believe that’s it is true I don’t believe 😔I

My friends my relatives houses destroyed… they destroyed neighborhoods with many houses at one rocket.

they targeted the telecommunication company, they targeted the journalists and all the press offices and agencies 😔

The majority of people don’t have internet and electricity at all.. because israel targeted the infrastructure of the Gaza Strip.

I am crying now while i am writing to you, my heart is totally broken i am destroyed psychologically … i cannot stand on my legs because of fear.. my hands are shaking while iam writing to you..

I couldn’t evacuate from my house because shelters are crowded of people even shelters are goals because they targeted one of them..They also targeted mosques, university, civilian buildings.

I saw people were running in the streets don’t know where to go no safety place in Gaza no protection from death..

Israel used the white phosphorus chemical weapons which is internationally banned and prohibited…

**Deadly whie phojsphorus rains down on Gaza – photo credit CBC**

; what i say is nothing compared to the reality and what we live in Gaza right now…

Every night is worse than previous night… people wake up to search for relatives if they still survived or not.!!

Last night at 2:30 am while we were sleeping we received calls from the Israeli Army to leave our area and to evacuate to south Gaza. All my neighborhood left I could take only my bag and I carried my little niece and we ( my brother who works at ICRC and i evacuated to the ICRC office and we moved by their cars to UNRWA big warehouse, very big one.

Fear and chaos – who are the terrorists now?

Once we arrived there one of UN delegates asked me and many people to leave and she didn’t allow for me to stay.. the situation was soo bad and scary and she insisted to kick us outside because we don’t work with United Nations, she says literally UNRWA will receive only UN employees and their families but not any one else.

We felt disappointed and very mad we don’t know where to Go or where to escape she said she will send us to one of UN schools shelters. We have no security and not protected we refused to leave the place and we asked her to treat us exactly like other Palestinians.

We demanded to add pressure to the UN to accept us in the place like all other UN local people and their families all. We need PROTECTION!!!

Kerama’s email ended there. I wrote her back immediately but did not get an answer.

Canadian mutism is appalling. Prime Minister Trudeau, Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre and Jagmeet Singh should open their ears, their hearts and their mouths to denounce this ongoing war crime. Shouldn’t “never again” apply to everyone?

Canada Talks Israel Palestine (CTIP) is the weekly newsletter of Peter Larson, Chair of the Ottawa Forum on Israel/Palestine (OFIP). It aims to promote a serious discussion in Canada about Canada’s response to the complicated and emotional Israel/Palestine issue with a focus on the truth, clear analysis and human rights for all. Readers with different points of view are invited to make comment.
Want to learn more about us? Go to Ottawa Forum on Israel/Palestine.ca

10 comments

Back in 2005 Israel pulled out of Gaza completely and left Gazans with all the infrastructure to build an economy as prosperous as Singapore. A seaport an airport. Lush agricultural land, on the Mediterranean

By 2007 the citizens of Gaza voted in Hamas. Hamas dedicated all its efforts to the war against Israel.
Last week Hamas launched an attack that killed over 1300 most of them civilians who were slaughtered, babies children women and even elderly holocaust survivors

They also kidnapped 140 people, most of them children, few were already executed

If Gaza and Hamas want it all to stop they should release all the children, immediately, with no conditions

Peter Larson says:

October 14, 2023 at 10:13 am

Hey Ahik,
I often appreciate your well informed comments from your Zionist perspective. But I don’t appreciate it when you fudge or mislead. You were an IDF soldier deployed in Gaza, and you know well that the settlers did not leave happily from Gaza – they trashed pretty well all they could. You also know that Israel bombed and destroyed the Gaza airport in 2001 making it inoperable.

Yes, the land of Gaza was lush, mostly watered from the Hebron Hills. But Israel has now captured most of that water flow to irrigate Israeli farms, leaving Gaza with a constantlly sinking water table, now being backfilled with salt water.

I am sure you know that Hamas has said they would release the women and children hostages if Israel would do the same. Most of the hostages, I believe are Israeli soldiers.
Dr. David Lorge Parnas says:

October 14, 2023 at 10:46 am

Ahik,
When Israel pulled out of Gaza, it (cooperating with Egypt) built a fence around Gaza and made sure that they controlled all significant traffic in and out. Singapore could not have prospered under such conditions.

Shortly thereafter, Israel refused to communicate with the people that Palestinians chose to represent them. Since then, Israeli has repeatedly “mowed the lawn”, a euphemism for destroying the infrastructure and other buildings that the prisoners in Gaza had built to try to make their lives better. By such actions, Israel has convinced many Palestinians who desperately want justice, peace, and freedom that only violence can succeed.

If Israel wanted peace, it would agree to share Palestine with all Palestinians. Both sides have to recognize that violence is not a step on the road to peace.
Jake Javanshir says:

October 14, 2023 at 7:30 pm

I the last 18 years, Israel assaulted Gaza about 6 times, in a big devastating way. Each time leveling properties and killing huge number of defenceless Gazans. Just in one assault, over 2000 people killed, among them over 500 children and 100,000 left homeless.
All due to a few rockets fired at Israel, which fizzled to nothing. On every occasion, after Israel shot over the border or entered and killed a few. The fired rockets, were out of desperation and reminding the world about their inhuman conditions.
In addition in 2018, when thousands gathered near the border with Israel, in absolute peaceful manner. Israeli snipers targeted and killed mainly medics, journalists, children and young Palestinians, shooting the young in the kneecap, with Dom Dom bullets which disintegrated bones and led to legs to be amputated. (Those bullet types are outlawed).
All the assaults are war crimes. That’s not counting this murderous assault of this week. All in revenge of “No one dare touch us”. Israeli supremacy. The same as 9/11, the whole world had to change.

Whenever I hear an Israeli spokesperson telling people to leave their homes and wander elsewhere, I remember the pogroms in which Jews in eastern Europe were told to get out of town or die. Israel is full of the children of victims of pogroms (plus a few surviving victims) but cannot see what they are doing in that context. As Mark Twain said “History never repeats itself, but it does often rhyme.” Sad Bad Mad.