Eid Message
The Eid came to the Muslims around the world; it came to make people happy and draw a smile on children’s faces.
The Eid went in the streets of Gaza, one after another, the children have disappeared, the Eid started shouting for the children between the rubble and the destruction to wake up, Ramadan is over and now its the time to wear the new clothes and buy the toys, its time for the sweets, for the playing and for the fun.
The Eid found the children with burnt clothes, with cut body parts, with destroyed houses, with oppressed images, with torn apart toys, with hurt feelings.
The Eid cried and left.
The Eid called his worse enemy “Mourning” and told him to go to Gaza.
Mourning is in Gaza now.
Abu Yazan (Team leader at Gaza youth culture centre and member at Gaza Youth Breaks Out (GYBO)
My family in Gaza
My family in Gaza is on the run. They are already refugees but made refugee again as they are trying to escape for their lives and the lives of their children. Complete devastation and destitution and poverty. Some are living on handouts since they cannot gain access to their homes. I had to apologize to my sister as I told her happy Eid. Their is no happiness in Gaza. Nothing but death and destruction wrought by Israeli Nazi war criminals with US arms and western backing and Egyptian support. Everyone I know in Gaza is praying for the resistance, brave men feeding on few sips of water and dry bread while holed in tunnels refusing to surrender. 55 families in Gaza have been completely wiped out. Hundred of dead bodies are still lying under rubble of their homes in border areas. Smell of death everywhere. Humanitarian crisis is getting worse. Tens of thousands if people are living in UN schools which are often bombed by Israel. None is safe. Nowhere is safe. But surrender is not on the agenda. Not now. Not ever. Long live Palestine. Long live Gaza. Long live the Resistance.
Ramzy Baroud (Writer/editor at the Palestine Chronicle)
A poem for Gaza
I never knew death
until I saw the bombing
of a refugee camp
craters
filled with
dismembered legs
and splattered torsos
but no sign of a face
the only impression
a fading scream
I never understood pain
until a seven year old girl
stated up at me
with soft brown eyes
waiting for answers
I didnt have any
I had muted breath
and dry pens in my back pocket
that couldn’t fill pages
of understanding or resolution
In her other hand
she held a key
to her grandmothers’s house
but I couldn’t unlock the cell
that caged her older brothers
they said:
we slingshot dreams
so the other side
will feel our father’s presence!
A craftsman
built homes in areas
where no one was building
where he fell
silence
a .50 caliber bullet
tore through his neck
shredding his vocal cords
too close to the wall
his hammer
must have been a weapon
he must have been a weapon
encroaching on settlement hills
and demographics
so his daughter
studies mathematics
seven explosions
times
eight bodies
equals
four congressional resolutions
seven Apache helicopters
times
eight Palestinian villages
equals
silence and a second Nabka
our birthrate
minus
their birthrate
equals
one sea and 400 villages re-erected
one state
plus
two peoples
….. and she can’t stop crying
never knew revolution
or the proper equation
tears at the paper
with her fingertips
searching for answers
but only has teachers
look up to the sky
to see Stars of David
demolishing squalor
with Hellfire missiles
she thinks back
words and memories
of his last hug
before he turned and fell
now she pumps
dirty water from wells
while settlements
divide and conquer
and her father’s killer
sits beachfront
with European vernacular
this is our land!, she said
she’s seven years old
this is our land!
she doesn’t need history books
or a schoolroom teacher
she has these walls
this sky
her refugee camp
she doesn’t know the proper equation
but she sees my dry pens
no longer waiting for my answers
just holding her grandmother’s key
searching
for ink
Remi Kanazi (poet, writer and activist, based in New York City)
Carol Anne Grayson is an independent writer/researcher on global health/human rights and is Executive Producer of the Oscar nominated, Incident in New Baghdad . She is a Registered Mental Nurse with a Masters in Gender Culture and Development. Carol was awarded the ESRC, Michael Young Prize for Research 2009, and the COTT ‘Action = Life’ Human Rights Award’ for “upholding truth and justice”. She is also a survivor of US “collateral damage”.
Carol Anne Grayson (Radical Sister) blog 
the poetry – very good – always love your posts. 🙂