MNLS_Palestina

Last night I was proud and inspired to attend It Sounds Like Courage at the Royal Festival Hall — a breathtaking evening of music, poetry and solidarity with refugees. @NaiBarghouti’s performance was luminous, her flute and voice filling that great hall with beauty and defiance. Accompanied by the London Contemporary Orchestra, she brought to life the words of professor and poet Refaat Alareer, who wrote this poem weeks before an Israeli airstrike killed him and members of his family. If I Must Die If I must die, you must live to tell my story to sell my things to buy a piece of cloth and some strings, (make it white with a long tail) so that a child, somewhere in Gaza while looking heaven in the eye awaiting his dad who left in a blaze — and bid no one farewell not even to his flesh not even to himself — sees the kite, my kite you made, flying up above, and thinks for a moment an angel is there bringing back love. If I must die let it bring hope, let it be a tale.

Meet Abeer and Shaban Zomlot, mourning the murder of their mother, Taghreed Zomlot, in northern Gaza yesterday. Abeer is heard asking how she will break the news to her youngest sister, Leen, who is 14 years old. Taghreed was 51, a mother of six, and my cousin. She was hanging clothes to dry in a yard of her semi-destroyed home in Beit Lahia when an Israeli drone shot her in the back and killed her instantly. Taghreed is one of dozens of my family killed— cousins I grew up with, lives erased for refusing to leave their homes. Taghreed was among 10 people killed yesterday, and among more than 1,000 Palestinians killed by Israel since President Trump’s ceasefire and peace plan announcement last October. There is no ceasefire. There is no peace. While millions mobilise around the world to stop the genocide and end the occupation, governments choose empty statements over action. The killings continue with impunity. #Gaza‌ #Palestine