Various cover artworks for Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin
if israel is charged for war crimes, never ever let the support for palestine stop. it will take generations to repair what's been done. and there's no way to repair the hearts of those who lost their entire families, children, loved ones, limbs, etc. the most we can do is rally to dismantle israel entirely. only then can the fallen rest easy.
A few days ago there were reports of Israeli soldiers "returning" bodies of martyrs they took like just straight up from Gaza. Here is a report about bodies being stolen from al-Shifa (click).
The director of Al-Shifa had reported the bodies being stolen back in November (click) before his arrest. The hospital workers mentioned not knowing why the soldiers would do that. The speculation of the photo-op arose because the photo-op of October 7th within Israel happened a month and a half after October 7th, after the Al-Shifa raid. People (Palestinians) noted that the level of violence done to the bodies seemed similar to what they had been seeing with the bombs in Gaza, and found it hard to believe that Hamas could inflict that much damage. There was a thread that was examining this idea but I haven't found it as it's been a bit. If I find it, I'll comment on this post.
But even then, Israel routinely makes corpses serve out their sentences or even outright steals them for the sake of enacting psychological torture onto the relatives of the martyr (click). The burial process is an essential step in mourning and grief, which means by withholding the bodies, they ensure that the family is unable to recover emotionally from the death of their loved one nor are they allowed to move on. This is essentially a form of ensuring that people are unable to resist as the emotional toll this takes on them is quite high.
A variety of reports and testimonies are linked in this article regarding the harvesting and removal of organs throughout the years by Israel (click). The most damning of the evidence is a testimony by Dr. Meira Weiss in her book "Over Their Dead Bodies." The article has a translated passage from Hebrew about the period at the turn of the century and their practices then (roughly 1996-2002):
“They would take corneas, skin, and heart valves, while noting that non-professionals would not notice the absence of these organs as they would place something plastic in place of the corneas and ‘take’ the skin from the back so that the family wouldn’t see it. In addition, the bodies of detained martyrs are used in medical colleges at Israeli universities for research purposes.” Weiss confirmed that “in the first Intifada, the army effectively allowed the institute to extract organs from Palestinians under a military procedure that required the autopsy of a Palestinian prisoner. The autopsy procedure was accompanied by organ removal, which was used by the Israeli Skin Bank established in 1985 to treat burns suffered by Israeli soldiers. This was after the Chief Rabbinate Council issued a ruling legitimizing it, which led to saving the lives of many Israelis who were injured during attacks on Palestinian citizens, continuous assaults, and wars — at the expense of Palestinian martyrs, according to specialized Israeli medical sources for burn treatment.”
It's worthy to note: as an occupying force especially, Israel should not be doing ANYTHING with these bodies and just returning them to the families. I've seen some people say "they didn't JUST harvest Palestinians' organs, they also harvested Israeli organs." It doesn't matter. They are an occupying force that enacts systematic violence on Palestinians especially and within this context, anything Israel does towards Palestinians is a targeted, racialized violence. It is widely known that Israel denies crimes it has committed until many, many years, especially from during the Nakba, such as well poisoning.
People provide evidence that organs can't be used after a certain point in time.... in this context (October 2023-December 2023), it's not about whether or not the organs were used for anything. It is specifically for the purpose of body desecration which Israeli soldiers especially have not been shy about. Here is a report during the bulldozer massacre in which people report that Israeli soldiers run over bodies for no other reason than desecration (click).
Also, remember the grave desecration that happened a few days ago? It was reported that they had stolen bodies believed to belong to young Palestinian activists then (click). This is widely known as 'necroviolence' on Palestinian bodies in order to humiliate them (click).
You cannot remove the context of an oppressive force (Israel) that is documented to have disrespected graves and bodies. You must analyze it within this context, not any others. Withholding bodies of Palestinians, no matter what they did while they were alive, is a form of disrespect and oppression on a subjugated population. To deny that this happens and to attribute it to antisemitism is not only disrespectful of Palestinians' mourning rights, but also an effort to remold the narrative into one of "Jewish people against Palestinians" by emphasizing the Jewishness of the occupying force rather than focusing on... you know... the fact that they're an occupying force known to enact violence on Palestinian martyrs.
everyone has these favorite tgcf quotes that are beautiful and wholesome hualian or just inspirational quotes in general and then there’s me whose favorite quote is xie lian roasting mu qing
“Wen... Wen Kexing.”
EP.34 | Word of Honor 「山河令」 (2023)
IT MUST BE HEAVEN 2019, dir. Elia Suleiman
[ID: A video recording of Bisan Owda, filming herself standing still and speaking in front of a car underneath the morning sky in Gaza, with the sun visible above her head. Loud sirens can be heard around her as she says:
"Hey, everyone. This is Bisan from Gaza. We're still alive, and we wish you a merry Christmas in the Christmas eve. Wish you a merry Christmas despite the churches of Gaza are closed, full of displaced people, and surrounded with snipers. We wish you a merry Christmas despite the children, women, men, Christians and Muslims of Gaza are murdered and under genocide. We wish you a merry Christmas despite that we cannot exchange gifts or spend our holidays in our homes because they are completely destroyed, and merry Christmas despite there are hundreds of killed, decomposed bodies in the the north of Gaza Strip in the streets, at least 137 them are field executed by the Israeli soldiers in front of their children. Merry Christmas, but pray for Gaza."
End ID.]
Please think about why these videos are coming out in English. In your tongue, so that you can understand them. Don't ignore them or get tired of seeing them or call them guilt-trippy. Don't stop talking about Palestine. Make Palestine impossible to ignore. Even at the cost of "disrupting" your celebrations.
For the first time since the 1948 Nakba, there was no Christmas tree lighting outside the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, Palestine.
In its place, an installation depicting the nativity scene is placed as if it were taking place in Gaza today. This is done in support of the people of Gaza who have been facing a harrowing Israeli aggression for the past 80 days, an aggression so catastrophic that it lead to cancelling Christmas celebrations in Bethlehem this year.
With the nativity models placed amid rubble and barbed wire, the star of Bethlehem is represented by the aftermath of a bomb hitting their shelter. The scene replicates those following Israeli shelling of civilian homes in Gaza.
Portraits of Afro-Palestinians from the Book “Guardians of the Mosque”
SUNMI STRANGER, 2023
IT MUST BE HEAVEN (2019) dir. Elia Suleiman
The bathroom was empty.
Of course it was empty. Of course it was empty. Of course it was empty.
–The Raven King, by Maggie Stiefvater
The best ship dynamic is actually just. "I love you and it terrifies me. I'm terrified how much I need you and how much I want you to need me. I'm terrified I'm no good for you and I'm going to hurt you and ruin you and I'm terrified of how I feel when you're around me but I can't bear to push you away completely because I'm terrified to be without you so now we're stuck in limbo and that's terrifying too. I'm terrified that if I lost you now it'd destroy me and I'm terrified that it's too late to do anything about it. I love you. And it's terrifying."
me making sure i shake my head in disgust as i walk past booktok tables in bookshops
orange