Roya Hassouna, A Displaced Palestinian Woman, Plays The Oud For Children At A Camp In Rafah, Creating

Roya Hassouna, a displaced Palestinian woman, plays the oud for children at a camp in Rafah, creating a musical circle in a bid to support their mental health and to block out the sound of war planes amid Israel’s ongoing attacks on Gaza.

— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) December 20, 2023

alright boys, girls, neither, both, and those in between we need to clear something up:

if someone says they are queer, they are queer.

no ifs, ands, buts, etc. they are queer.

and if they discover later that they're cishet, great, amazing, wonderful, i'm glad we gave them community when they were figuring themselves out and needed it.

no gatekeeping of queerness here, alright?

because when shit hits the fan queerphobes wont care whether you're a cis gay man who goes by he/him or a bigender aromantic pansexual who goes by it/its

so stop with the respectability politics.

we're a community, fucking act like it.

BISAN HAS CALLED FOR A GLOBAL STRIKE

January 21-28th

wanna hear a wild story? my brother’s history professor is closing in on 80 and basically lives at the university. one night my brother visited him for a meeting, and it came up that my brother was gonna be performing as a court jester at the castle the following day. and his professor busts out: “ah, that reminds me of my youth!”

he then proceeded to tell the tale of when he and his friends went backpacking to greece back in their early 20s. then one day they found themselves completely penniless. so they decided that the only reasonable thing to do was to set up acrobatic shows in skimpy outfits on the beach at day, and then drink up the money at night.

after a week or so they gained some traction, and a gang of young greek men walked up to them like “hey y’all are cool as hell, can we join y’all for drinks tonight?” and my brother’s professor was like “of course! y’all have to wear these revealing outfits and do somersaults with us tho” and the greek gang said “sounds dope. y’all are invited to live with us for however long y’all want.”

anyhow, they proceeded to live like this for the better part of 3 months, doing shows, drinking, and sleeping at the greek gang’s apartment. but after a while they decided enough was enough, and said thank you for everything, but we’re going back to sweden now. and the greeks said “sure! love y’all have a safe trip xx”

half a year later my brother’s professor gets contacted by the greek police. they ask him about the months they spent in greece, and then informs him that their greek friends have been convicted of serial homicide and robbery. that the group of young greek men had joined up with several tourist groups for several years “for drinks”, and then killed and robbed them all, terrorising the beach city for several years. with one exception, of course, because “this one group of swedish acrobats in slutty strongman suits were just ‘so damn nice’”.

and that’s the story of how one swedish history university professor survived sharing a flat with a group of serial killers for several months by performing acrobatics in slutty outfits on the beach. moral of the story? be kind of heart, thicc of ass.

Six ! For TWO MILLIONS! SIX LEFT

today marks day 111 of the genocide in gaza.

and i need you all to keep in mind just how dire the situation in gaza is right now. and to keep talking about it. now is not the time to turn away.

today i want to talk about khalil again. yesterday, khalil posted about how his aunt passed away and they went to the graveyard to bury her, only to find thousands of tents in the cemetery. the people living as refugees in rafah have been so jam packed that they’ve started sheltering at the cemetery.

in a heartbreaking sentence, khalil says “they are living in the cemetery, waiting for their time to be buried”. can you imagine the situation one has to be in to say something like that?

not only do the gazans not have a safe place to live, they are also starving and suffering from diseases and lack of medication. in fact, that’s the cause of khalil’s aunt’s death—bad food and no medicine.

the people of gaza barely have food to eat. the children have to clean dirt and insects off animal feed before milling it to make food. medicine isn’t coming into the gaza strip. there are pharmacies all around but none can help because they do not have the means to. why?

because israel consistently denies shipments of vital aid. in fact, according to the UN, israel recently added insulin pens for children to the list of prohibited items that are not allowed into gaza. this list also includes other medicines for chronic illnesses are also not allowed [here is the full press conference for anyone who’s interested].

this claim is also backed by the report journalist motaz azaiza was making as he was evacuating gaza of a plethora of aid trucks waiting at the border to enter gaza. and for the little bit of aid that is available to gazans? yesterday the israeli military opened fire at starving citizens who were queueing to get aid in northern gaza.

there are too many heartbreaking stories coming out of gaza; there is at least one per person, in a population of 2.2M people. i urge you to not turn away from hearing their stories and facing the reality of the crimes being committed against them by israeli occupation forces.

whatever anyone else might say, whatever the verdict of tomorrow’s hearing may be… i want you to remember that what’s happening in gaza is nothing short of a genocide—a collective total of 33,360 deaths, and 64,150 injured. don’t let them just be numbers. these are people.

people who are not just being killed in cold blood, but are also being starved. they are being tortured physically and psychologically. they are being subjected to illnesses with no treatment given. they are being subjected to eating things like grass, immature food, expired food. read the euro med monitor report for the full picture of the destruction happening in gaza at the hands of the israeli occupation forces.

this is a genocide. this is one of, if not the deadliest of war crimes we’ve seen in the 21st century.

i am so heartbroken i barely have the energy to type today. please call for an end to all of this, for a permanent ceasefire. and subsequently an end to the israeli occupation.

we cannot leave the palestinians to fend for themselves and continue being oppressed directly or indirectly by their oppressors and colonisers. this occupation must end. palestine must be freed in its entirety.

من المية للمية

ACTIONS YOU CAN TAKE

please especially send donations to help supply aid and food to gazans. especially to the organisations working within gaza. it’s not like there isn’t any food at all. gaza is not a barren land. the food is just inaccessible and very expensive and unaffordable for most gazans (if you follow journalist muhammad smiry, you’ll see he posts a lot about the atrocious prices of food in gaza). so your donations help people purchase food in bulk within gaza and supply to the civilians.