June 7, 2024
( Middle East Monitor ) – Two Palestinian children
died last week of starvation, dehydration and lack of medicine amid desperate
conditions in the southern areas of the besieged Gaza Strip.
The Ministry of Health announced the death of
Abdulqader Sirhi, 13, and seven-month-old Fayiz Abu Ataya, from malnutrition
and lack of food and medicine at Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir Al-Balah. The
ministry said that the number of famine-related deaths has risen to 37, with
only those who reached the hospitals able to be counted. It added that many
died in their homes and their deaths have not been registered, while others are
fighting for their lives.
Over 3,500 children, under the age of five, are
facing an imminent risk of death due to shortages of food, nutritional
supplements and vaccinations.
Fayiz Abu Ataya’s father said: “My child was born at
the beginning of the current sweeping pogrom, in our shelter school, and died
in it. He needed a special kind of formula and food missing in Gaza.” The
infant’s short life is a chronicle of the deprivation overwhelming aid-starved
Gaza.
In a statement, 70 international rights
organisations – including the Geneva-based Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor,
Geneva International Centre for Justice, and Brussels Court – called on all
relevant authorities and international institutions to officially declare a
famine in the Gaza Strip. The statement stressed that food insecurity is
increasing across the tiny enclave because of Israel’s use of starvation as a
weapon of war against the Palestinian people.
The joint statement also warned:
“With the crossings closed and
humanitarian aid being prevented from entering by Israel, the threat of famine
and acute malnutrition has resurfaced and swiftly spread.”
“This affects the 2.3 million residents of the Gaza
Strip, half of whom are children, and particularly the people in the northern
Gaza Valley, where supplies have run out.”
Before Israel unleashed its current carnage, the
poverty and unemployment rates in Gaza had reached heights of 64 per cent and
45 per cent respectively, according to data from the World Bank and the
Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS). Some 63 per cent of the people
of the Strip were food insecure, while 80 per cent of Palestinians in the
besieged enclave depended on international aid. Now, living under the genocidal
war, things are aggravated. All families in the narrow enclave depend on foreign
humanitarian aid, so their basic survival needs are affected by its cessation.
Um Firas Ghanem, a Palestinian mother who was
displaced from Gaza City and forced to move to Deir Al-Balah, has three
children, the eldest just six years old. “I fear for my kids, and I know, if we
survive, the malnutrition and dehydration will impact their brain and growth,”
she said. “There is no milk or eggs or meat or fruits, and if they are found,
it’s very few, and extremely expensive that I can’t afford to buy it.” Um
Firas’s family, like most of the displaced families, relies entirely on charities
who provide them a meal every day. She is worried that if the Rafah Crossing
remains closed, they will reach the point where no flour or canned food is
available and children and patients will die in large numbers.
The Rafah Crossing has been closed since Israeli
occupation forces took control of the vital area on 7 May, raising the Israeli
flag to highlight its control. Now, thousands of trucks of food, water and
medical supplies are stranded on the Egyptian side of the crossing awaiting
Israel’s approval to enter the besieged Strip to help alleviate the crises
facing Palestinian civilians.
This is not the first time Israel has weaponised
water as a weapon of war. For almost two decades the occupation state has
besieged Gaza, limiting the entry of food and medical supplies in an effort to
pressure the Palestinian resistance to make concessions. Prior to the current
bombing campaign only 500 trucks of goods were allowed into Gaza a day,
insufficient for the enclave’s 2.3 million population. Since the end of October
2023, when Israel allowed aid to re-enter the Strip, after closing all the crossings
for three weeks, only between 100-150 trucks have been allowed to enter Gaza
each day, when deliveries have been approved
The humanitarian aid allowed into Gaza is only a
fraction of what is needed to answer the enormous needs of an exhausted people.
Since Israel stormed Rafah a month ago, no humanitarian aid has been allowed
through the crossing and no injured Palestinians have been able to leave the
Strip to access lifesaving medical care abroad. Now, even the few remaining
devastated hospitals risk being out of service as fuel supplies dwindle.
In her partially damaged house in Gaza City, Amani
Junaid, a mother of five, describes their life as a living hell. “Our lives
have completely stopped: no school, no hospital, no markets, no homes, no
entertainment areas for kids, scarce clean water and food,” she tells MEMO.
“Before March, we ate animal fodder. Now we have only flour, but we can’t find
anything to dip it in. We skip meals.”
“My children keep asking me for chocolates, snacks,
lollipops and I am in agony not being able to meet their needs,” she adds.
Amani has already lost her father during Israel’s war, he died as a result of
his inability to obtain the medication needed to stabilise his health.
In addition to Israel’s control of the supply of
humanitarian aid, it has also targeted food production factories, warehouses,
markets, shops, stores, and bakeries, ensuring it controls access to all life
saving supplies.
In spite of this, a famine has not been declared in
Gaza. The delay in changing the conditions for the Palestinians of the Strip is
another blow to a people who have struggled for decades under siege and
occupation and a nod for Israel to continue its annihilation of the indigenous
population of Palestine.
The views expressed in this article belong to the
author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East
Monitor or Informed Comment.
June 6, 2024
A new documentary, Where Olive Trees Weep, explores Palestinian loss,
trauma and the fight for justice over decades of life under Israeli occupation.
We speak with two people featured in the film: Ashira Darwish, a Palestinian
journalist and therapist, and Dr. Gabor Maté, an acclaimed Hungarian Canadian
physician whose work focuses on addiction and trauma.
“I was only 16 when I was taken,” says Darwish, describing the first time
she was beaten and arrested by Israeli soldiers, which motivated her to become
a journalist in order to both document and fight against the occupation.
“What’s happening in Palestine is devastating, and what’s happening in the West
Bank and Gaza has been going on for 75 years.”
Maté, a Holocaust survivor born in Hungary, recounts his own trauma as a
child and says “that same horror” is being inflicted on Palestinian children
today.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace
Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
We turn now to that new film, that explores the struggle of the
Palestinian people under Israeli occupation through themes of loss, trauma and
the fight for justice. It’s called Where Olive Trees Weep. It features people
like renowned trauma doctor Gabor Maté, Israeli journalist Amira Hass,
Palestinian activist Ahed Tamimi and Palestinian journalist and therapist
Ashira Darwish. This is the trailer.
ASHIRA DARWISH: I heard the
stories of the pains of how people were tortured in these spaces. I never
believed it until I saw. And when I saw, I couldn’t unsee it.
NETA GOLAN: It’s so important
for people to understand colonization in order to understand what’s happening
in the world. And here in Palestine, you know, it’s happening now.
AMIRA HASS: So, how does the
world completely turn a blind eye to the Israeli continuous violence and says
Israel is the victim? This is the big — this is the big question.
ASHIRA DARWISH: I would see it
and still get surprised every single time, that how could this soldier just
shoot me? We are so dehumanized, to the point where they can come and they can
exterminate you, because, to them, you’re nothing but a rat.
DR. GABOR MATÉ: I’m not
pro-Palestinian, but I’m pro-truth. And the truth is, the Palestinians have
been oppressed and suppressed and murdered and controlled and dispossessed for
decades. That’s just the truth. There’s no post-traumatic stress disorder here,
because the trauma is never post.
ASHIRA DARWISH: Your brother and
your sister being in chains will not make this experience on Earth acceptable.
Your chains will be still held by my chains. And unless I am free, you won’t be
free.
AMY GOODMAN: The trailer of the film Where Olive Trees Weep, that
premieres today. That last voice, the voice of Ashira Darwish, Palestinian
journalist and trauma healer. She’s joining us from Newton, Massachusetts. She
previously worked as a journalist and as a researcher for the BBC, for Human
Rights Watch and Amnesty International. And we’re joined by acclaimed Canadian
physician and author Dr. Gabor Maté, who’s also featured in the film. He is a
Holocaust survivor, Order of Canada recipient and a Hungarian Canadian retired
physician known for his work on trauma, addiction and childhood development,
the internationally best-selling author of five books published in 40 languages
on six continents. His most recent visit to the West Bank was in 2022, when he
led a healing workshop for Palestinian women who had been imprisoned in Israeli
jails. He’s joining us from Provence, France.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! I’m wondering how you each got
involved with this film. And also, Ashira, as a journalist and a therapist,
your response to the latest footage showing young men attacking and surrounding
a Palestinian journalist named Saif Al-Qawasmi, attacked on duty, beaten on the
head, a video, Haaretz journalist Nir Hasson also said attacked by a group of
Israeli nationalist youth and posted video showing the violent scenes? What’s
going on right now in the West Bank, which this film, Where Olive Trees Weep,
focuses on?
ASHIRA DARWISH: Good morning, Amy. I’m glad to be here with you from
[inaudible] land.
What’s happening in Palestine is devastating, and what’s happening in the
West Bank and Gaza has been going on for 75 years. What happened to the
journalists is not something new. This happens every single day. It just caught
the cameras this time. We have hundreds of journalists incarcerated in Israeli
prisons. And my friends and colleagues who were attacked in Jerusalem, and I
know them personally, and it’s just horrific to watch them getting beaten.
But this is the reality every single march in Jerusalem, where the
Israelis take over the streets, and they harass, terrorize the population
there. And they are, of course, not friendly to the journalists, because they
don’t want anyone filming them as they chant “Death to the Arabs” and as they
attack the Palestinians. Every day on this day, for a Jerusalemite like me, I
would walk through the streets of Jerusalem just to say that “we are here, and
this is our right to be here.” And we get attacked, and we get fought back, and
we have the army supporting these settlers as they march in our streets
attacking us. And we basically get put on lockdown. We’re not allowed to walk
in our streets. The shops are all closed. It’s just basic terror on this day in
Jerusalem.
But to be honest, it has been like this since before 7 October. Jerusalem
has become a city of ghosts. Armed soldiers have closed down the main entrance
of Damascus Gate. Our streets have become death traps. Going to Al-Aqsa Mosque
is one of the most spiritual, but also, for me — as a child, I grew up next to
Al-Aqsa Mosque — it’s my playground. Not being able to walk there, being —
every time that we walk, we’re always in fear of soldiers that are walking, and
they’re just waiting for you just to make a smile at some point, just to be
caught, strip-searched, stood on the walls. And it’s just becoming more and
more terrifying to be there.
AMY GOODMAN: In the film, Ashira, you describe your own experience being
beaten and arrested by Israeli security forces. Can you describe what happened?
ASHIRA DARWISH: So, on that day, my mom woke me up. I used to — we used to
live, at that point, closer to Ramallah.
AMY GOODMAN: When was it?
ASHIRA DARWISH: And she wanted me to go to this peaceful protest. Sorry?
AMY GOODMAN: When was it? What year?
ASHIRA DARWISH: This was in — it was in 2001. It was at the closure of the
Orient House in Jerusalem. And it was a time where we had protests in the West
Bank most of the time, and it was more of clashes. And my mother wanted to take
me to a protest to show me that there is another way of resistance. And it was
a joint protest between Israelis, Palestinians and internationals, and it was a
singing protest. So, in the beginning, I was like, “My god, Mama. What do you
think this is going to do? It’s like, what is our singing going to do to
liberate anything or help anyone, for that matter?” And I went very, like,
skeptical. And then, when I saw the people chanting, and I was like, “Oh, this
is beautiful,” because I love to sing, and we started singing.
And I did not even imagine. Like, when we are in protests in Ramallah,
soldiers are far. They shoot and fire at you. You’re lucky you get, like,
tear-gassed. If you’re not lucky, you get a live bullet. And there’s distance
between us and them. This one, it was very close. And the soldiers just rammed
us with horses in the beginning, and then they put these, what they call
Musta’ribeen, Israeli soldiers undercover. And one of them grabbed me. And I
thought we were doing a human chain, but then I realized everybody was moving
further.
And that was my first experience of being held down and attacked by the
soldiers. And I was on the floor, and the cameras were flashing. And they were
beating me with sticks on my knees, trying to break my knees. And I would just
remember waking up and closing my eyes and just not understanding why the
cameras are just taking pictures of me. And I was only 16 when I was taken. And
I knew — I was shouting when I got into the Jeep, and then the other activists
were like, “Calm down. They will take you and beat you,” until I saw a kid,
where they dragged him and they put his head into — they smacked his head into
the Jeep. And then I was like, “OK, this is, like, not — like, this is — this
is serious.”
And when we went to the police station, naive me thinking the police — at
that point, I still didn’t really realize the levels. So, I thought the police
will be better than the soldiers. And then, of course, it wasn’t better. And I
was slapped in the police station to sign a paper. And I basically gave away my
mother. I told them that it was my mother’s fault, she took me, I had nothing
to do with this, and that I would never go there on my own, and — just so I can
get out of that wretched place. And it was the Muskubiya. It’s one of the most
horrific places on planet Earth. If there’s one dream that I have in my life,
it’s that to turn that place into a museum, where we can just mark what has
been done to people in that place. And that was my first experience there. And
then I was detained two other times. But, yeah, that was the first time.
AMY GOODMAN: And then, can you talk about how that experience led to your
desire to become a journalist and why you believe that journalism can play a
role in peacemaking?
ASHIRA DARWISH: So, for me, it was an almost immediate reaction because of
the cameras. I was really upset that the cameras were filming me and none of
the journalists decided to, like, pick me up or help me. And I wanted to do
music before. That was my thing. I always wanted to chant and sing, and I used
to play the qanun. And that moment, I think, a few months later, I had to
register in college, and I was like, “I’m going to do journalism, because I
want to do journalism differently. I want to be the journalist who documents
and tries to help.”
And there’s no such thing as being on the — this whole Western theory
about balanced reporting. If you’re being balanced in a situation of a
genocide, then you’re complicit in genocide. There’s no white and black in
this. Journalism is a profession that’s supposed to open the eyes of the
people, and so that they can do something to put the governments in check. And,
of course, the situation right now is the governments and the capitalists
basically control the media, so it’s all one thing. But that was when I made
the decision. And yeah, I also paid for it afterwards, because I was arrested
for my journalism, as well, detained the two times.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn to another clip from Where Olive Trees Weep
that features the longtime Israeli journalist Amira Hass, the daughter of
Holocaust survivors, a Haaretz correspondent for the Occupied Palestinian
Territories. And then we hear from our next guest, Dr. Gabor Maté.
AMIRA HASS: The issue is the
present-day, ongoing settler-colonial project, that, by definition, is meant to
take the land and create a political system that excludes the Indigenous
people. Two hundred years ago in the States or New Zealand or Brazil, it was
not considered violations. It was the norm. Now, because Zionism is an
anachronistic settler-colonial movement, the world understands it’s not
according to the norm, but the world accepts it.
DR. GABOR MATÉ: In this Holy
Land, there’s always been a lot of violence and oppression and injustice, going
back to ancient times. And then, the foundation of the state of Israel, which
could only have been accomplished by denying the rights of the local
population. So, in that sense, it’s just another colonial project. In 1917,
when [Arthur] Balfour, the British foreign minister — who the hell was he to
promise a foreign land to anybody else?
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Dr. Gabor Maté, the acclaimed Canadian physician and
author, Hungarian Canadian, going back to Hungary. Today you’re in Provence, in
France, Dr. Maté. In Normandy, world leaders have gathered for the 80th
anniversary of what’s known as D-Day, where more than 150,000 Allied troops
forged a beachhead for the liberation of Europe from Adolf Hitler’s Nazis. You
yourself had your experience in the Holocaust, fled from Hungary. Can you talk
about how that connects to your deep concerns about what’s happening in
Palestine?
DR. GABOR MATÉ: First of all, thanks for having me back on your program,
Amy. And thanks for your coverage of this issue over the past months.
There was a study done in 2005 reporting many studies done on the mental
health of Palestinian children. And a large percentage of them, long before
Hamas became the ruling government in Gaza, a large percentage of Palestinian
and Gazan children were suffering symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder,
which included nightmares, aggression towards the parents, bedwetting. Now, I
wet my bed ’til I was 13 years of age, because I was born the same year that
D-Day happened — I was born in January — as a Jewish infant under Nazi
occupation and bombings and all the stress and trauma. How could I not relate
to the experience? And my mother took me to a psychologist when I was 8 or 9
years old for the bedwetting. And I remember what the psychologist said. She
said, “Madam,” she says, “if bedwetting is the only symptom this kid has,
you’re very fortunate indeed.” Well, it wasn’t the only symptom that I had. And
if you look at the studies of Palestinian children published in 2005, again,
long before Hamas took over — if anybody thinks history began on October the
7th, they should read that study in the journal of World Psychiatry. The most
prevalent childhood exposure of traumas were witnessing funerals, witnessing
shooting, seeing injured or dead strangers or a family member being killed or
injured. And a large percentage of these kids had PTSD symptoms. This is 20
years ago in Palestine, in the West Bank and especially in Gaza. So, now that
it’s the 80th anniversary of D-Day, which was the beginning, at least on the Western
Front, of the defeat of the Nazi empire, how can we not relate that to what’s
going on right now, when these children in Gaza are witnessing all the things
that I just described that people in Gaza have been witnessing for decades, and
that I myself experienced as an infant? And the resonance is just too powerful.
And this beautiful film — and, actually, the most beautiful part of the
film, as much as I love my friend Ashira, is not the part about her, although
she plays a major role in it. It’s just when the filmmakers show the experience
of Palestinian peasants and shepherds and ordinary people, and what it’s like
to live under this, in the grips of this brutal and relentless occupation. And
so, I went there to work with that. And yeah, this anniversary of D-Day really
resonates for me. Again, it’s the 80th anniversary of my own birth, that year,
but also that same horror being reenacted now on Palestinian children and
Palestinian people.
AMY GOODMAN: In this clip from Where Olive Trees Weep, that’s premiering
today, we hear psychologist and human rights activist Helena Beatriz Manrique
Charro of UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestine refugees. She works with schools
in Bedouin communities in the West Bank.
HELENA BEATRIZ MANRIQUE CHARRO:
You are not in a situation where the traumatic situation had happened and now
people have a safe space where you can work on that. So you need to understand
that working on trauma will be in a context of ongoing traumatic situation. You
cannot make a normal life if you are all the time in touch with the pain and
the sorrow and the grief.
AMY GOODMAN: And in this clip from Where Olive Trees Weep, Palestinian
Ahmad Saleh Barghouth describes being displaced from Al-Walaja village during
the Nakba.
AHMAD SALEH BARGHOUTH:
[translated] I was born in the village Al-Walaja in 1947. The Israeli
occupation took over our village and deported us. We were displaced into the
hills, and we settled here, temporarily, in caves and tents, hoping to return
to our village, as was promised by the United Nations. We lived the life of
refugees, displaced with no home, land or income. Being a stranger in your own
homeland is a dreadful feeling, a feeling that is not easy to accept, but what
else can we do? This is the reality we live in.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Gabor Maté, if you can take it from there? You were born
three years before this. You’re 80 years old now. And talk about what it meant
for you to flee Hungary and then what you see when you return to the West Bank
just two years ago.
DR. GABOR MATÉ: Well, you know, there are some such sad parallels. In a
few days, I’ll be visiting Hungary. I’ll be showing my children for the first
time the very spot, the very paving stones in Budapest, where my mother gave me
to a total stranger to save my life, and I didn’t see her for five or six
weeks. You can go through Hungary and Eastern Europe and not know that there
used to be Jewish life there, Jewish villages, buildings, synagogues, schools.
You can go through Israel and not know that there used to be Palestinian life
there, villages, schools, graveyards.
Now, in the West Bank, which is my third visit there, two years ago, to
work with these women, many of them who had been tortured in Israeli jails and
have had all the typical symptoms of what we call post-traumatic stress
disorder. But what I can tell you is that the atmosphere in the West Bank two
years ago, when I was there, was much heavier than even when I had been there
for the first time during the First Intifada. At that time, in 1992, when I
first visited, there was still an air of hope. The world seemed to be paying
attention to the Palestinian cause at that time. There was a fair bit of
sympathy internationally for the legitimate rights of the Palestinians. Two
years ago, there was despondence. People felt alone, abandoned. The pressure of
the occupation, the intensity of the — there’s hardly any family whose members
had not been jailed at one time or another. There was the intensity of the
occupation, the checkpoints, the surveillance, that terrible wall that you can
see [inaudible] of the Occupied Territories. It had all combined to create such
an air of despondence and sense of aloneness.
At the same time, I had to be very impressed with the resilience, the
ongoing willingness to endure amongst Palestinians. And I actually also should
mention here the sympathetic and brave Israelis who stand up to all that, Amira
Hass being one of them. And some of them helped to organize my visit, as well.
So, it’s not a question of, you know, Jews versus Arabs or Palestinians versus
Israelis. It’s a question of a system that has imposed itself like a monster,
suppressing and squeezing the life out of Palestinian national, cultural and
personal life. And that’s what I saw when I was there two years ago.
And the women I was working with, what was interesting is the commonest
symptoms, you might say, was a sense of guilt that they hadn’t been strong
enough to resist, that they hadn’t rescued their friends. It’s a typical trauma
response that these things, it’s all my fault. But it was, you know, as
somebody who works with trauma, to witness all this on such a massive scale,
even for me, was shocking. And what little could I do to help them? At least
what I could do, and what this film does, and what your program does so
consistently, is to witness, is to witness so they don’t feel so alone, so
Ashira doesn’t have to feel so alone with her experience.
AMY GOODMAN: We want to thank you so much for being with us, Dr. Gabor
Maté, acclaimed Canadian physician and author of many books, now heading to
Hungary, where as a child he was handed by his mother to a stranger as he fled
the Holocaust; Ashira Darwish, Palestinian journalist and trauma healer — both
featured in the new film, premiering today, Where Olive Trees Weep.
Next up, we speak with New York Representative Jamaal Bowman. Some are
calling him the most endangered Democratic congressmember in America. Stay with
us.
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