Palestine

Gaza

Justice

Accountability

Journalism

PALESTINE | WORLD

Witness شهيد

We are all witnesses. As witnesses, we owe Gaza accountability.

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Shaheed, Arabic for ‘martyr’, is one who is called to testify, one who sees and records — a witness. In the days when warfare was less cowardly, the shaheed would see his or her killer. But the shaheed is not the only witness. Hundreds of Palestinian journalists and photographers in Gaza -double-martyrs- gave their lives to share their testimony with us, making us witnesses, too.

Shireen Abu Akleh, the Palestinian American al-Jazeera reporter whom Israel assassinated in May of 2022, a moment we can regard, in retrospect, as the first shot of the genocide (Photograph by the author; poster by artist Brice Patterson at the Palestine Writes Festival, Philadelphia, PA, Sep. 2023)

We are all witnesses to the war crimes in Gaza. As witnesses, we cannot be expected to pretend nothing has happened and go on with our lives. We have to see accountability to stop feeling like accomplices. The witness has a duty to testify.

Throughout the day yesterday, I rode a roller-coaster of feelings, from elation to crying.

Poem: Twenty-One-Line Plan

I couldn’t help thinking of Hind Rajab. My daughter has an almost identical picture, taken on her graduation day from daycare. Barely 5, holding her hat, a wide shy smile at her first big achievement, and looking forward to many more. To think that such a life could be cut short in this brutal manner, and have the perpetrators get away under the cover of a “peace agreement” … this is unconscionable. As witnesses, we owe Gaza accountability.

A “peace deal” that doesn’t recognize Palestinian freedom, self-determination, and the lives lost, will not hold. Beyond Palestine, the genocide exposed the fault lines in every society: severe economic disparities; lack of democracy; detachment of leaders from peoples; the ineffectiveness of the UN and other international institutions. Do you trust those leaders silent on human rights for Palestinians, to stand up for you when your rights get trampled? Accountability is required not only to honor the lives lost, but also to protect the living from a repeat, whether in occupied Palestine or elsewhere around the world.

We have plenty of work ahead of us to make sure the world our children inherit is livable.

Embrace Your Grief, and Resist!

With their legendary stand against a medieval siege and extreme violence, the people of Gaza defeated the empire’s “removal” plans. It is on all the rest of us now — the witnesses — to ensure the accountability they deserve.

With love,
Ramsey Hanhan
Author and Public Speaker

“Tell me more about the Israelis” | Palestine Book | Fugitive Dreams