Raashi's Reflections

[Raashi's Reflections @RaashisReflect]

Attended the launch of 'Rising for Palestine' at PSA offices this Sunday. Thrilled to have met Raouff and Suraya in person, with whom I had the honour and pleasure of working with. I copy edited and referenced this well-researched collection of articles. Get your copy today!

[Raashi's Reflections @RaashisReflect]

I watched The Voice of Hind Rajab at Clearwater Mall on Sunday. Not just a movie, not even a documentary, but the heartbreaking story of a 6-year-old girl murdered at the hands of the IDF. It was enlightening, traumatic, inspiring and gut-wrenching all at the same time.

[Raashi's Reflections @RaashisReflect]

The Voice of Hind Rajab at Clearwater Mall on Sunday. Not just a movie, not even a documentary, but a revelation and understanding of the heartbreaking story of the 6-year-old murdered at the hands of the IDF. It was enlightening, traumatic, inspiring & gut-wrenching all at once.

[Dr.Hamza Alsharif 🇵🇸 @Hamzasharif5750]

For those who don't know.

Gaza now has the highest rate of children with amputated limbs in all of modern history.

Something you stand before with great sadness and shock,

not a passing news story.

[Raashi's Reflections @RaashisReflect]

It's all happening at the Redfern Community Hall in Phoenix, Durban.

It's the very last OneCity OneBook event honouring my book, The Cursed Touch for the past 2 and half years.

KZN Libraries feature one book to promote reading and literature.

[Raashi's Reflections @RaashisReflect]

@zoomafrika1 @IamMzilikazi May Allah SWT protect you, grant you even more success and independence and may other third world leaders be inspired by you and follow your example. Aameen

[Raashi's Reflections @RaashisReflect]

Time of the Writer opening and OneCity OneBook events last week photo flash.

[William Peynsaert @PeynsaertBill]

Losing a baby in the Gaza concentration camp
So you’re in a tent. You’re in your mid twenties. Last year you became a mother for the second time. Your husband was killed by a tank shell when he was out to get water six months ago. They only found his arm and his head. After he was hit the tank that killed him found it necessary to drive over him. The spot where he died looked like the ground of an abbatoir. Neither of you are politically involved. He was a fisherman before October 7th and you were a homemaker, in hip American lingo. You have two children. One is four and has stopped speaking entirely, even though before October 7th he talked non-stop, prattling commentary on anything he was doing while playing and firing off questions about whatever new thing he discovered. Now not a word. When a stranger comes near, he growls.

Your daughter is 8 months old. She has chronic diarrhea. She is always cold, so you try to keep her practically glued to your own skin, close to your warm breath, covered in several layers, but the layers are too thin. You’d need a thick fur coat to really keep her warm like this. Your grandfather used to talk about how warm those are. He studied engineering in Moscow in the 1960s. Try finding fur coats in Gaza though. Try finding anything in Gaza now.

Your parents are dead, your father died in the invasion of 2014 when the building he was doing some repair work in was struck by Israeli bombs. His chest was crushed by falling debris and he clung to life in a hospital for two days.

Your mum died of a heart attack while fleeing her home in northern gaza begin November 2023. She was carrying her most prized possessions, family photo albums, pots and pans and blankets made by her own great great grandmother. In her arms she was carrying one of her 2 year old grandchildren, your niece, the youngest daughter of your brother. Current whereabouts unknown. Your mum collapsed and with her last strength prevented her granddaughter from hitting her head on the ground. She went without saying a word.

So the last thing you remember her saying was hours before her death: ‘What about Kareem’s birthday cake?’ She had prepared a cake for your brother and when people started rushing to the south she realized she couldn’t take it with her.

So now you are in a tent with your two kids and your niece. Your sister in law is also dead. She got hit by a sniper right above the knee and bled to death in little truck used to transport poultry before October 7th. A tourniquet could have saved her life, but in the chaos nobody had the reflex to perform this simple procedure. Her last words were: ‘Please treat my little girl as if she was your own.’ Your niece will have not even one memory of her own mother, so yeah, you will indeed be the only mum she will ever know.

You had some hope when the ceasefire was announced, but today Israel has announced that no goods will be coming in. The doctors have told you that your baby girl is in critical need of pure water and antibiotics. All expected to come in on lorries, now held up near the Egyptian border.

The few times you get to go online with your phone distant relatives abroad think it’s a good idea to send you some of the mocking videos Israelis are making. Thanks to posts on telegramme you know that a burned Palestinian child is a ‘hotdog’ and what happened to your husband Israelis call ‘making a Palestinian pancake’.

On social media you also see plenty of users with no profile pictures repeat and again and again that ‘winning a war you didn’t start, is not a war crime.’ And when babies die here, those people will write ‘Palestinians should take better care of their children.’ Salt in open wounds, because everyone here is fighting round the clock to keep their children alive.

In the tent next to you lives a family and their three year old girl has lost both legs. She crawls around as if she’s never known anything else. Initially she had lost only her feet when the flat they were in was bombed, but because of the dire situation in the healthcare system that Israel targets she got infected again and again until she lost both of her little legs. At night you can hear her mum wail and beat herself with a leather belt. Usually she screams that she should have kept the girl in the bath tub. The mum has heard that babies who were kept under a flipped over bath tub survived some bombardments unscathed. Sometimes the father stares at you and mutters: ‘I don’t know why she tortures herself like that. We didn’t even have a bath tub in our flat, we only had a shower installed.’

Your baby girl will die in the course of next week, because no aid will reach you on time. So the war gave you an extra daughter and will take one daughter away.

Today you hear ten year old boys talk about the situation. One says: ‘As soon as Hamas turns over all the hostages, the Israelis will resume their offensive. It will be worse than before. They can’t defeat our warriors, but they can kill all the rest of us. They will cut Gaza down the middle again. Their ships will bombard the coast line, their air force will pummel us, their tanks and artillery will randomly shoot at tents and we will all be forced to flee to the Egyptian border. Then Trump will threaten Egypt with economic sanctions and they will have to take in those that survive.’ An other boy asks: ‘So why don’t we go to the Egyptian border right now and be the first ones in?’ The answer: ‘Don’t be silly, if we start moving to the Egyptian border now the Israelis will shoot us because they will think we will try to smuggle in aid.’ The other boy nods as if he should have known that himself.

The war has turned kids into military and political analysts.

But not your baby girl. She is a shivering leaf of a little human, any fluids you manage to put in, her cramped up body flushes out. You can see she’s losing the strength to even cry about her situation. Her color is fading. She has your husband’s eyes and they look dry and glazed over, as if she’s already crossing the threshold to some other world.

A dwindling autumn leaf before she could fully enjoy her first spring.

With her will die the tree she grew on. Though the tree will keep standing and will have some leaves left, inside the tree will be dead and petrified.

The newspapers will not print your girl’s name and no tower will be lit up to match the color of her first curls, because this is not a regrettable death in the eyes of the ruling class, this is an execution.

[Raashi's Reflections @RaashisReflect]

Attending the opening night of the Time of 6he Writer Festival in Durban. Inspirational panelists, esteemed authors Njabulo Ndebele and Antjie Krog facilitated by Bra Fred Khumalo - who needs no introduction.

[Raashi's Reflections @RaashisReflect]

It's all happening at Dassenhoek Library in KZN, for thr OneCity OneBook event. I think it's so cool that the first winner was Long Walk to Freedom by Ntate Nelson Mandela and my boo, The Cursed Touch is the tenth winner! Thanks to KZN Libraries for the honour.

[Raashi's Reflections @RaashisReflect]

@ClubSTEPHENKING @StephenKing Happy birthday Tabitha

[Raashi's Reflections @RaashisReflect]

@SiyafundaSA @Ntokozo_Books @Siviwe_G @DBE_KZN @DBE_SA 😪

[Raashi's Reflections @RaashisReflect]

@zoomafrika1 @IamMzilikazi An absolute hero. A remarkable life cut too short by imperialist colonialists.

[Raashi's Reflections @RaashisReflect]

@Nnedi @naacpimageaward Congratulations ���� 👏🏾 💐 🥳

[Raashi's Reflections @RaashisReflect]

@NinaSimone49 @FranceskAlbs We all love you, Francesca. Keep standing for truth, justice and humanity. We are behind, are proud of you and inspired by you. FREE Palestine 🇵🇸

[Raashi's Reflections @RaashisReflect]

@SiyafundaSA Looking forward to joining you there tomorrow 😀

[Raashi's Reflections @RaashisReflect]

@AlanNWhelan All the best Alan

[Raashi's Reflections @RaashisReflect]

I had the honour of meeting and hearing Diana Ferrus recite her poetry in Soweto a few years back. She was phenomenal, and a beautiful soul too.
The literary world has lost a stalwart. Rest in peace, dearest Diana. Your words will live on. Deepest condolences to the family.

[Hala Jaber @HalaJaber]

⚠️ Reuters has now confirmed what many suspected.

In early 2024, U.S. diplomats blocked internal cables describing northern Gaza as an “Apocalyptic Wasteland.” The reports included harrowing details: human bones scattered in the streets, bodies left abandoned in cars, & a total collapse of access to food, clean water, and medical aid.

These cables were not speculation. They were based on first-hand field observations from U.N. agencies & humanitarian workers on the ground.

So why were they blocked?

Because they were considered “too graphic.”
Because they “lacked balance.”
Because they might make Israel look bad.

Senior officials at the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, including Ambassador Jack Lew & Deputy Chief Stephanie Hallett, stopped the reports from reaching higher levels of the U.S. government. They feared the cables would contradict the administration’s public narrative & disrupt ongoing political cover for Israel’s actions in Gaza.

According to former officials, humanitarian experts were sidelined, ignored, & outright dismissed. Inside meetings, the question from officials was not how to respond to starvation, but reportedly, “Where are all the skinny kids?”

This was not merely policy misjudgment, but complicity on a grand scale.

The Biden administration had access to concrete evidence of mass death, starvation, & social collapse. Instead of sounding the alarm, it chose to suppress the truth to preserve its political position.

They did not just ignore the warnings. They buried them.

Let that sink in.

An exclusive by @mokhbersahafi
https://t.co/YXvrDs1EG7