U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres grieved that Gaza is becoming a “graveyard for children. Hundreds of girls and boys are reportedly being killed or injured every day.” Meanwhile, at a UN meeting on the same day, Doctors Without Borders working in Gaza drew “attention to the many children who will be orphaned, some rendered “WCNSF,” meaning “Wounded Child, No Surviving Family.”
According to the WHO chief, a child is killed in Gaza every 10 minutes. (Think of a child you love; ten minutes later, think of another and then another until the bombing in Gaza ends). Eighteen U.N. organizations declared, “We need an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. It’s been 30 days. Enough is enough.” Hundreds of thousands of protesters worldwide marched on the streets demanding an immediate ceasefire while their leaders stumbled into found poems as they struggled to pronounce the verboten “ceasefire.”
Trudeau & The Art of Ceasefire.
“We need to see
a cease
uh, we need to see
a humanitarian pause
we can flow
uh, we need to see
ceasing
of the levels of violence that we’re seeing.”
That was over a week ago, when over 4000 children had already died from Israeli strikes. The total death toll then exceeded 10,000, according to the Palestinian health authorities. Add to that 41 children who were killed in the West Bank and 30 children who died in Israel.
The Israeli journalist Amira Haas wrote in the longest-running newspaper in Israel, Haaretz, about the significance of the deaths that occurred during the Hamas attack in Israel on October 7th.
Enough, it appears, is not enough.
The killings continue. As Jeremy Hammonds affirmed on November 15, “This is Genocide,” those numbers, “of estimated Palestinian deaths are now five days outdated. The situation is so bad with the collapse of services, including most hospitals becoming inoperable, that the Gaza Ministry of Health can no longer even attempt to keep track of how many people are being killed.”
Carl Sagan reminded us three decades ago, “Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.” While the river continues uninterrupted, Angela Davis reminds us today that history will judge each of us in our response and action to the screams streaming live on our screens.
Angela Davis was recalling June Jordan (1936–2002), who wrote eloquently and fearlessly of apartheid in the white settlers’ states of South Africa and Israel. After the Sabra and Shatila massacre of Palestinians in 1982, she wrote the long poem Moving Toward Home that ended by declaring Black Solidarity with Palestine, as a moral imperative:
I was born a Black woman
and now
I am become a Palestinian
Against the relentless laughter of evil
There is less and less living room
And where are my loved ones?
It is time to make our way home.
Author’s Note: The UN quotes are from Reuters: “Gaza death toll tops 10,000; UN calls it a children's graveyard” Nov. 6, 2023; WCSNF acronym is sourced from UN Meeting Coverage of Seventy-Eighth Session, 23rd & 24th Meetings on Nov.6, 2023, titled "Speakers Voice Alarm at Rising Gaza Death Toll, West Bank Settler Violence as Fourth Committee Debates Israeli Practices in Occupied Lands" GA/SPD/796; "A child killed on average every 10 minutes in Gaza, says WHO chief" Reuters November 10, 2023; Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's words are inscribed verbatim from a Global News video clip dated November 8, 2023. Children death in the West Bank and Israel sourced from Save the Children "At Least 41 Children Killed In The West Bank As Violence Spikes" November 4, 2023; Jeremy R Hammond's quote is from his 15 November newsletter “This is Genocide” ; he is the author of five books on the Palestine-Israeli conflict; Carl Sagan's quote occurs 1:22 minutes into his video “Pale Blue Dot,” CSI, Cornell University. June Jordan, “Moving Toward Home,” in Living Room: New Poems by June Jordan (New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1993). The Child Casualties graph source: "Gaza reports more than 11,100 killed. That’s one out of every 200 people." The Washington Post Nov.13, 2023. The PDFs of all the above calligrams can be downloaded from Academia.
Architect-Poet-Calligrapher H Masud Taj is a protege of Master Calligrapher David Hosbrough in the Italic Hand.
The author in The Beacon
Leave a Reply