I was chatting with a new friend from Australia after adding me on Face Book. It was a very long conversation with lots of questions and answers about Gaza and its people. He asked me a tremendous number of questions and I answered all of them. The first question that I was asked, after I told him that I`m a Gaza, was” Where does that place locate?”
I smiled a little bit and sent him a smiling face. And then I asked him instead of answering his strange question” Have you ever seen mutilated children full of blood spread in the ground and under rubble in the Media?”
“Yes for sure. I have seen many of them, but why do you ask?” he retorted.

Now it`s my turn to answer his first question” So here Gaza locate”. The friend stayed silent for more than two minutes; however, I thought that he would unfriend me directly. After the two minutes have gone, he sent me another strange message” How can I come to you and kiss your forehead??” and then he sent me a crying face. I was shocked and cried a little bit and said to me “we are known by our blood. What a miracle”.
I`m not kidding when I say the people of Gaza are the greatest and the bravest in all round the world. I don`t say that because I`m one of them, but our rare behaviors forced my pen to write these humble words. I must admit that we are the bravest in all the sides, from the men to women and from the youngest to eldest. We all are one person called Gaza and our widow mother Palestine.

The second question that he asked me after crying” Tell me more about Gaza please!!”, I answered him without thinking” We are the greatest and the bravest people in all over the world”. He stayed silent again for a while and asked me” How come?”
My fingers typed directly as if I entrusted them my mind” Lets first speak about our men. When I speak about the Gazan men, I speak about the LIONS of Palestine. They are our honor that many countries missed these days. They are the first and the last defenders who protected our boarders and our families from the oppressive enemy. They stayed more than thirty days resisting the enemy. They did not know the taste of food except having three dates every day. Our men stayed at their homes and lands and refused to evacuate them in order not to let the despoilers steal them.

Beside of our men, there are our great women who refused to be the victims of the murderers. They have done what no one did. Many of them did not sleep during their nights staying beside their sick and injured children and husbands in the protective edge operation on Gaza. Many of them did not cry over their children and stayed patient when they were killed. Most of them returned to their destroyed homes under the danger and looked for food and clothes under the rubble for their children. They did not eat for days to save the food for their families. They breasts got dry and empty of milk and that did not stop them from feeding their children. I must say that they are the LIONESSES of the LIONS of Gaza.

I cannot deny that our children are brave as well even if they are children. They did not resist like the men and the women, but they did a lot of things that brought the word HUMANITY back to the dictionary of the human rights. Our children used to drink from the grimy water and the water of the toilet while the other children are drinking coca cola and Pepsi in the biggest restaurants in the world. Many of our children got killed in the sake of their countries while the others are enjoying their time in the amusement centers and cinemas. Our children studied under the destroyed schools refusing the let the enemy makes them illiterate and the other are asking their parents to let them join special schools. Our children see the death follows them in every moment and every step. The bloody sharpened dagger of the enemy follows them whenever they try to smile even if a small hidden smile. The joy of our children is imprisoned inside the jail of silent of the leaders of humanity. So I must consider them the SONS of the LIONS who will lead the humanity of the world after they missed it.

Mr. Pen( A pen for Palestine)

I quote from an article “The catastrophe inflicted on Gaza–and the costs to Israel’s standing”. Under international law, as the occupying power Israel is legally accountable for the welfare of the population.

Generally countries build up their defence systems in the light of threats from other powers who similarly spend huge fortunes on increasingly sophisticated armaments. Arms industries are also significant earners and enlist political leaders to help sell their wares indiscriminately. Even royalty is dragged in on their account on diplomatic missions. The Palestinian territories have no match for Israel’s economic and military might.

In the past it has been possible to some extent for the Israeli Government to rely on secrecy to cover its activities. The availability of social media has changed all that so the figures for casualties in Gaza have been plain for all to see:

“Of the fatalities whose identity and status have been verified so far, 86 percent are civilians, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Of those tabulated in its most recent update, 226 are members of armed groups; 459 are children.”

When in 1985/6 Mordechai Vanunu told the Sunday Times about Dimona and the highly dangerous nuclear arsenal held by Israel the official position was neither to confirm or deny the situation. It seems that although facts are there clear for all to see this is still the position. You pretend you didn’t see it. While this is harder and harder to sustain it remains a position shared with many of Israel’s supposed allies in the United States and Europe. As the United Nations speaks of “war crimes” it will be interesting to see if there is a variation in changes to policy of different states. Certainly rhetoric is changing markedly as there appears to be much less willingness to defend the indefensible in many quarters. As far as the people are concerned demonstrations have erupted far and wide with tangible effects on the BDS movement targeted at Israel’s economy, particularly where firms are operating on stolen Palestinian territory.

“It is—as usual—a matter of elementary simplicity to dispense with those declared objectives and the mendacious protestations and justifications Israel has fabricated around them. Gaza is not a sovereign state firing rockets across an international frontier: it is an occupied territory held under tight Israeli control. Sealed off by land, sea and air, even its population registry remains in Israeli hands. Internationally recognized as the occupying power in Gaza, Israel is legally accountable for the welfare of the population whose very capacity for life it has been obsessively reducing to ruins. And in any case the sequence of events leading to this bombardment was triggered not by rockets from Gaza but by the recent Israeli crackdown in the West Bank, which culminated in the burning alive of a Palestinian teenager by Jewish fanatics—and, beyond that, five decades of grueling military occupation.”

Note: Interesting to see in the Independent’s article on arms sales that supply to “Israel and Palestinian Territories” accounts for nearly £8,000 million, well over half the total, yet there is no marker re. concerns for human or civil rights! What, we might ask, is the division between Israel and the Palestinian Territories? Were rockets supplied to Gaza, or stones to be thrown in the West Bank?

While the established media are still prevaricating about what is going on in Gaza, we the ordinary people take to the streets and social networks and see that what is happening daily are war crimes. Still the politicians and sycophantic journalists are saying “maybe” war crimes have been committed. Looking at posts on Facebook and Twitter there’s no “maybe” about it.

In the first place the secrecy beloved by states like Israel and agencies like the NSA and GCHQ (which Edward Snowden recently declared is worse than the NSA – good grief!) is harder to maintain. Israel still maintains it isn’t nuclear power after Mordechai Vanunu blew the whistle in 1986 in the ungrateful Sunday Times. (it now barely utters a word about the man who subsequently spent 18 years, much in solitary, and now another 10 held in Israel against his will. 58 MPs invited him to Britain last month but the Sunday Times was virtually silent, apart from a couple of paragraphs).

That the social media counts is shown by Netanyahu’s (aka Bibi) reaction by offering bribes to young people with scholarships when they tweet something favourable to Israel. I call that scraping the barrel. Hard to stomach as it may seem Hamas also recognises that the world is at last seeing what has been happening to the Palestinian people under occupation and is seeking a long term end, not the capitulation that Israel and supporters such as the US and British Governments would wish. Even the UN seems to accept that scenario. As Ban Ki-moon deplores the shelling of the UN school in Gaza where at least 13 were killed he is reluctant to apportion blame to Israel.

One commentator guaranteed to get Bibi rattled and riled is Daniel Barenboim, holder of Israeli and Palestinian nationality. He can claim to offer both an informed and balanced view on Gaza and stating the obvious – that a military solution will never solve anything – speaks to everyone.