“One of my dreams is for my books and my writings to travel the world, for my pen to have wings so that no unstamped passport or visa rejection can hold it back.” – Nour al-Din Hajjaj 

The man who wrote those words was killed by an Israeli airstrike on his home in Al-Shujaiyya on December 2nd 2023. Nour al-Din Hajjaj was a young man, a poet, a writer, a playwright. Like the 35,000+ Palestinians killed in Gaza since 7th October 2023, he had dreams of a future which he will now never see.

“Another dream of mine is to have a small family, to have a little son who looks like me and to tell him a bedtime story as I rock him in my arms.”

Aid is trickling in.  A temporary floating dock built by the United States military has started moving aid ashore and into trucks. Most land crossing points are closed and these are the fastest way to deliver aid. Famine looms. Children have starved to death.

UN deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq said:

” We are grateful to the United States, as well as to Cyprus, with the support of other Member States, to sustain the maritime corridor as an additional route for aid to Gaza. After months of discussions with all relevant authorities, the UN has agreed to support in receiving and arranging for the dispatch of aid into Gaza from the floating dock, as long as it respects the neutrality and independence of humanitarian operations.”

In Rafah, 640000 people have had to flee because of the Israeli military offensive. People have fled to Khan Younis where there already was a water and sanitation crisis, with sewage overflow and faeces spreading across roads. This is having a disastrous impact on health.

Tarik Jašarević of the World Health Organisation (WHO) reported that only 13 out of 36 hospitals in Gaza are now partially functioning, emphasizing that fuel is required for electricity and to run generators.

He said health partners require between 1.4 million to 1.8 million litres monthly so that hospitals can function, but only 159,000 litres have entered Gaza since the border closure.

This is genocide. The slaughter of innocent civilians, the majority of whom are women and children; the destruction of health facilities, including the targeting of medical workers; the use of food as a weapon to starve people into submission; and the attempt to wipe out the culture and heritage by killing poets, writers, artists – the people who can tell the stories and bear witness to the genocide of the people of Gaza.

Islanders in Orkney will again meet on the steps of St Magnus Cathedral on Saturday 18th May between 1 and 2pm calling for an immediate ceasefire, the delivery of aid, the return of all hostages, and an end to the genocide.

“She tripped in beauty

and a shining splendour burned me.

And hers is a beauty that does what it may.” – Mohammad Abdulrahim Saleh

Twenty one year old poet Mohammad Abdulrahim Saleh was killed by an Israeli airstrike on October 10th 2023.

The slaughter in Gaza, which our UK Government is complicit in by continuing to sell arms to Israel, has come before the World Court again as South Africa brought a new request for more constraints on Israeli military action.  The International Court of Justice previously issued special orders to Israel in late January to prevent harm to Gazans, following South Africa’s allegation that Israel was in violation of its obligations as a signatory of the Genocide Convention.

“It shall pass, I keep hoping. It shall pass, I keep saying. Sometimes I mean it. Sometimes I don’t. And as Gaza keeps gasping for life, we struggle for it to pass, we have no choice but to fight back and to tell her stories. For Palestine.” – Dr. Refaat Alareer 

These are the poets and writers who have been killed in Gaza.

Fiona Grahame