It will be a blood-red Christmas in Palestine

This week has left many Palestinians in great sorrow and grief with several attacks and killings. When you think it cannot get any worse, well in fact it does and with a great blow; starting with the tragic death of a four-year-old boy on Tuesday.

With the 2018 Gaza Border Protest called ‘Great March of Return’ many were protesting to demand that Palestinian refugees and their descendants be allowed to return to the land they were displaced from in what is now Israel. They were also protesting the blockade of the Gaza Strip and the moving of the United States Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The result of this violent but revolutionary protest ended in a lot of blood and tears marking itself as the deadliest days of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since the 2014 Gaza War.

Considering this campaign started in March 30, the number of deaths and injured people is horrendous being; some 180 Palestinians shot dead and nearly 6,000 others injured by live fire along Gaza’s eastern and northern perimeter. Nearly three dozen of those killed were children, four-year-old Ahmad Yasir Sabri Abid sadly being the most recent one. Palestinian child fatalities due to Israeli fire have spiked in 2018, with more than 50 killed in the West Bank and Gaza Strip – one death per week on average.

Tuesday resulted in another fatality of Omar Hassan al-Awawdeh, 27, in Idhna village near the West Bank city of Hebron. Israel claimed that soldiers shot al-Awawdeh after he drove through a checkpoint without stopping and accelerated towards a Border Police combatant. No Israeli forces were injured during the incident.

We live in a hypocritical world where the interests of men come first and justice and democracy are exceptional. We take these two crucial parts of society for granted because I presume most of us have never been robbed and unjustifiably stripped down of their dignity by a foreign invasion. Most people also feel no need to inform themselves and take action in regards to the atrocities happening in Palestine because they reason that since it is not in their neighbourhood and not directly affecting them then why should they get involved? However this is not ethically right and certainly not how we should react to such things. This is a selfish and shallow approach where we just think of us and our benefits. If men had to act this way all throughout history many things would not be as we know them today.

It is even sadder to think that people even choose to support the Israeli government and all the liars who form part of  it. Netanyahu tries to deceive millions around the world over and over again that it is the people of Gaza throwing missiles and bombing towns. How can they when they have no great military power, America in the case of Israel, to support them? This is what Netanyahu said back in 24 September 2009 at the United Nations General Assembly:

In 2005, hoping to advance peace, Israel unilaterally withdrew from every inch of Gaza. It was very painful. We dismantled 21 settlements -- really bedroom communities and farms. We uprooted over 8,000 Israelis. We just yanked them out from their homes. We did this because many in Israel believed that this would get peace. Well, we didn't get peace. Instead we got an Iranian backed terror base fifty miles from Tel Aviv. But life in the Israeli towns and cities immediately next to Gaza became nothing less than nightmare. You see, the -- the Hamas rocket launchers and the rocket attacks not only continued after we left, they actually increased dramatically -- they increased tenfold. And again, the UN was silent. Absolutely silent.

This brings us to another death when on early Thursday a Palestinian was shot dead by police in Jerusalem. Majd Mteir, a 25-year-old resident of Qalandiya refugee camp near Ramallah, was killed while attempting to stab police officers in the Old City. Two police officers were moderately and lightly wounded. Video published by Israeli media shows a man, presumably Mteir, lunging towards officers and a knife lying on the ground. Another man was killed on Thursday afternoon who allegedly attempted to attack soldiers with his car when he was shot dead near Ramallah.

On top of all of these deaths, there were also numerous attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinian cars throughout the whole week. All of this feels so heavy on the heart especially because not many people around the world, despite the amazing increase of awareness and support towards Palestine this past year, are working hard enough to stop Israel and give the Palestinians back there home and freedom. It is incomprehensible to think of how much these people have suffered and how little they have been given in return. This cannot go on, it simply cannot. Bells won’t be ringing, choirs won’t be singing and the streets of Palestine won’t be covered in white winter snow but with the blood of innocent souls.