A letter to the Israeli occupation army from Gaza: #WeAreNotLeaving
When everyone in Gaza is losing their mind with fear of what is about to happen, and different views are circulating, Palestinian novelist Yousri Alghoul addresses the Israeli soldiers
By Yousri Alghoul • Translated by Sol Salbe & Tamar Goldschmidt
My name is Yousri Alghoul, a Palestinian writer, journalist, and cultural figure in Gaza. I am a civilian like most of the residents of the Gaza Strip today, if not all, because you’ve killed the fighters and their families.
I was not uprooted to the south of the Gaza Strip in the past, and I will not uproot myself there today. I will stay in what remains of my home, most of which was destroyed, because I am unable to walk a distance of 40 kilometres. There are no means of transport as you have wrecked the cars and the buses and the trucks and even the horse-, mule- and donkey-pulled carts. I cannot carry jerrycans of water and household furniture and books and clothes and mattresses and blankets and a little food to live in the open under a sky beaded by your planes that do not distinguish between child and woman, and then sit and wait for my death as you do every day to hundreds of my people, in all forms of abominable murder, whether by shooting in front of the gates of the GHF US-Aid Agency or by bombing civilian homes or burning tents or death under the rubble.
Therefore, I have decided to steadfastly remain firmly here despite the artillery shells that you are lobbing on the heads of innocent people in the streets and in the houses, even if it costs me my life.
You do not take into consideration the life of any human being other than your own, you are full of deep hatred to other human beings, even for our Christian brothers and for others. The Jewish religion and all other faiths and religions have nothing to do with you.
Perhaps if we had a powerful nation and proper Arab armies or peoples with self-respect, who would hear your open dreams of establishing a Greater State of Israel, you could not do this to us. But on our side, there is only God and the free people of the world.
I will not be uprooted, and you do as you wish.
#WeAreNotLeaving
Translated from Arabic and Hebrew by Sol Salbe, Middle East News Service
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