My name is Amal Alzughayyar, i’m palestinian dutch and i came from groningen to attend this protest for palestine, and to give a voice to those who arent heard.
I’d like to start by saying alhamdulillah. alhamdulillah for being able to feel safe. alhamdulillah for having running water and food to eat. alhamdulillah for having a roof over my head and not having to worry if it’s going to be crashing down on me at any given moment. alhamdulillah for my family’s well-being. alhamdulillah for everything.
These are the very basic things the palestinians in gaza are deprived from in their daily life. things that are a privilege to them, a luxury. These are things that the israeli occupation has full control over, with no justification whatsoever, and have now cut it off from them completely. and there is no such thing as a safe place in gaza, every single area is a target for these horrific attacks; homes, entire residential buildings, mosques, churches, schools, not even the hospitals are safe as we saw 4 days ago at the Al-ahli hospital, a place meant to not only aid those who were SEVERELY injured, but to also provide shelter for the displaced families whos homes have been demolished by the terror attacks coming from the israeli forces; who are now threatening to attack yet another hospital; the al quds hospital, which is one with over 500 patients and 12,000 displaced civilians who have sought refuge there with no other place to go. This is a war crime. a war crime out of the countless others carried out against the palestinians for the past 75 years by the israeli occupation.They are getting away with all of this and worse yet, receiving the unconditional support of the global powers. these people have blood on their hands and are complicit in the murder and slaughter of the thousands of innocent civilians in gaza, more than half of which were children, and the rest of palestine as well.
Martyrs name:
Maha, Khaled Abu Fadi, Muhammad Khaled, Azhar Khaled, Aya Khaled, Bisan Khaled, Wafaa AI-Swerki, Nesma Al-Yaziji, The children Maha Hassan, Miral Hassan and Masa Hassan and the quadruplet babies Khaled Fadi, Abdul Khaleq Fadi, Mahmoud Fadi and Maha Fadi. These are the names of the martyrs from the Al-baba family house that were massacred 2 days ago. 15 members of the same family were murdered in cold blood including the 4 quadruplet babies, only 2 months of age. The quadruplet babies came to this life after 16 years of their parents trying to have children. the family waited 16 years to have them and now they have lost them all in a single moment from an airstrike.
This family is only ONE of the countless others that have been victims of these atrocities. A journalist working to document and spread the ongoing dreadful events in gaza, was away from his family for 10 days, only to come back to find his wife and children killed and in their body bags. doctors and workers finding their loved ones arriving at the facility, killed or critically injured, but not being able to even grieve and mourn properly with the need to attend to the vast number of other injured people pouring into the hosptial. And as we speak there are still people looking underneath the rubble, hoping to reach their family members that are still buried underneath it, dead or alive.
Remember, we are human beings too, that were not just numbers, not just a statistic that you can call a tragedy later. We are people, with names, families, dreams, hopes and aspirations just like everyone else. our lives matter just as much as everyone else’s and we will continue to speak up and continue to fight for the truth, the freedom, the liberation and HUMAN RIGHTS of the palestinians.
This is not a war, i repeat IT IS NOT A WAR. A war is meant to have equal militant, armed power. And while the israeli forces are armed with heaps of weapons and military assistance from the US, the powerless civilians in gaza, whos children tremble in fear every day and night, have nothing. So Ill tell you what this is; it’s a genocide and its ethnic cleansing of the palestinians that didn’t just start october the 7th, but decades ago, and that’s history that no one can deny or erase. So i ask the world, where is the condemnation of that? When are we gonna hold the occupation accountable for this? How many more children, women, elderly, doctors and journalists have to be killed in order for the world to open it’s eyes to whats really going on? How many is it gonna take for the world to go against the unlawful war crimes commited against us? How could anyone with seeing eyes and hearing ears continue the support, and turn a blind eye to a brutal, colonist, occupating state that is responsible for the senseless killing and dehumanization of innocent palestinians for so long?
I am Amal Alzughayyar, and as long as I live, i will continue to speak for my people, to give them a voice, and to fight for the truth. And i urge you to do the same.