Fourate Chahal el Rekaby*
Some would like to have us believe that to refuse is “too much to ask”, that we must “tolerate” and find common ground, or otherwise run the risk of being, once again, accused of being terrorists full of hatred. It no longer works.
We don’t want to. This is a categorical refusal, without negotiations and without compromise.
A list, far from being complete, of the things we have been seeing and hearing during the past 118 days of a genocide documented in sound and image:
A grandfather tenderly carries the body of his granddaughter and declares, with a smile of unspeakable sadness, “she is the soul of my soul”.
A child staring at a body, covered by a sheet, repeating, paralysed: “it’s my mother, I know that it’s my mother! I recognize her from her hair!”
A father who arrives in front of a hospital with the remains of his child in a plastic bag.
It Is Not Just About Gaza and Palestine
18-02-2024
Alma, 13 years old, trapped under the rubble, responding to the rescue workers: “my brothers and sisters, my father and my mother are here with me. Rescue them first and me at last. Or else, get me out of here so I can help you.”
A petition signed by 100 Israeli doctors demanding the destruction of all hospitals in Gaza.
Doctors, in Gaza, surrounded by death, repeating “we will not evacuate this hospital, we did not chose to become doctors to save our own lives.”
All hospitals in Gaza destroyed.
A mother holding the hand of her child. Just a hand. Body missing.
A two-year old child getting arrested by the Israeli army.
People collecting rainwater, to drink.
Mothers writing names on the arms and legs of their sons and daughters, so that their corpses can be identified.
Our friends, on social media networks, trying by any means to make others understand what 30.000 dead means. Doing infographics, drawings, comparisons to try to convince the rest of the world that this is serious.
A mother, on the road to an umpteenth exile, carrying a suitcase and the corpse of her son. “I won’t leave him here.”
Journalists getting the news that their loved ones, spouses, brothers, sisters, children, grandchildren were killed, the live broadcast running.
A father who squeezes the body of a two months old baby, rocking the child gently in his arms, repeating: “who’s gonna drink the milk that I finally found?”
Eyes wide open. Incredulous eyes.
Bisan, story-teller-turned war correspondant starting every one of her videos since 118 days with “Good morning, this is Bisan, and I am still alive.”
Howling: “Where is his head? Where is his head? Where is his head?”
An Israeli soldier dedicating the bombing of a residential neighborhood to his two-year old daughter “for her birthday”, filming himself and publishing the video on his social networks.
A hospital that ran out of electricity has no other choice than switching off all the machines, including new-born incubators.
A doctor, forced to amputate the leg of his own daughter, without anesthesia. His daughter dying, from pain, in his arms.
Pictures of men, stripped of their clothes, blindfolded, dumped on stretches of land, in the middle of the road.
Dogs eating what’s left of the corpses that couldn’t be rescued from under the rubble.
Legs and arms sticking out.
Israeli soldiers dancing on TikTok and filming themselves ransacking the apartments in ruins of the people they killed.
The bodies discovered under the rubble of a boy encircling his little brother’s body to “protect” him.
Children holding a press conference to ask the world to stop killing them.
A consultant of Netanyahu declaring: “We didn’t kill any children. We don’t know how those children died.”
A liberated Palestinian prisoner who, after ELEVEN years in isolation, is uncapable of recognizing his own mother.
Doctors holding a press conference sourrounded by the corpses of the ill and wounded who were bombed to death INSIDE their hospital.
We, the babarians, no longer want to discuss with you. Nor do we want to hear you or listen to you any longer. You don’t talk to us anymore, about anything at all. We will decide what we want to do, come what may.
-Publishe at Naqd, Algerian periodical in a file about Gaza
-Translated from French : Viktoria Metschl
*Filmmaker and designer
