There is so much violence every day here. My heart is heavy from the news of the Palestinian Authority’s continued attacks on refugee camps in Jenin and Tulkarem. Six Palestinians were killed by P.A./Israeli forces, including an 80 year-old woman, Halima Abu Leil, who was shot in the chest and leg, and a 13 year-old boy. The Red Crescent reported that Israeli forces stormed Ibn Sina Hospital and opened fire at ambulances, obstructing the medical services. Four Palestinians were killed and three were injured from a car bombing in Tulkarem. The Bar al-Walidain mosque was also attacked by Israeli settlers who set it on fire and spray painted “death to Arabs” on the walls.
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There is no sense to this violence. It is shameful for me to realize I struggle to keep up with what is happening just within a mile radius around me. Every person murdered is a complex human being who meant the world to their family and friends, who was just trying their best to survive, whose death deserves a front page in every newspaper, and so, so very much more. We owe everything to them. Even though I do not know the names of every martyr, I feel their absence in every cell in my body. What profound losses. I have been holding a pen to my journal every morning trying to write, but the brutal reality of life here is beyond words.
In Jenin and Tulkarem, the Popular Resistance is strong. This is why those cities are so frequently attacked; the Zionist agenda aims to eliminate resistance in the West Bank. But as the John F. Kennedy quote goes (though I hate to reference any member of that corrupt family), “those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” The armed resistance gives me hope. It is not politicians who will liberate Palestine, but Palestinians themselves.
