Saima صائمہ

Psychotherapist looking for peace, soulful conversations, and insight on all things under the sun.

[Zohran Kwame Mamdani @ZohranKMamdani]

The dream of every Muslim is simply to be treated the same as any other New Yorker.

And yet, for too long, we have been told to ask for less than that, and endure hatred and bigotry in the shadows.

No more.

[Asad🗽🍎 @AsadFromNYC]

Cuomo's cynical attempt to pit "Sunni Muslims" against Zohran (who is Shia) is utterly despicable. I have never seen any NYC elected official promote a sectarian divide within the Muslim community like this. Andrew Cuomo has crossed a very sensitive red line. May it be his last.

[jasper nathaniel @infinite_jaz]

Brutal settler attack in Turmus’ayya olive fields. Many injuries, including a woman knocked unconscious with a club and beaten repeatedly (2nd photo). The IDF lured us into an ambush, I have it all on video. Will upload as soon as I have good service.

[Eman Abdelhadi @emanabdelhadi]

Without full access to food & medicine, there's still a genocide in Gaza.
Without full repair of water, electricity, sanitation infrastructure there's still a genocide in Gaza.
Without full repair of the hospital system, there's still a genocide in Gaza.

[Asad🗽🍎 @AsadFromNYC]

They asked about Israel 20 minutes into the debate, and asked about groceries and housing 50 minutes into the debate. The problem with elite media priorities in a nutshell.

[Eric Thor @ericedwardthor]

I made a thing a few weeks ago! Now the campaign is officially launching it!

[David Sirota @davidsirota]

It's extremely disturbing to see the killing of children being turned into a comedic punchline, and it's equally disturbing that the audience is laughing along with it.

[Dr. Ezzideen @ezzingaza]

What darkens our tragedy is not only the hunger, not only the bombs, not only the little shoes of children found in the rubble, but that our real story is not being told. The world does not want the truth. No, the truth would demand too much of them. They want a fable that lets them sleep, a tale where we are noble martyrs, where we die by choice and therefore no one is guilty. They want to believe our deaths are holy, so that their hands stay clean. And so our story is rewritten, polished, sanctified, not for us, not for the dead, but for them, so they may remain innocent.

Look at the world’s great stage: it blooms with the images they love. Slogans of “steadfastness,” chants of “resistance,” smiling portraits of defiance, all arranged like theater scenery. Those who recite the script are rewarded with followers, with applause, with coins tossed at their feet like to street performers. But it is not resistance they are selling, it is comfort, it is anesthesia for distant spectators. And each time the myth is applauded, each time the spectacle is paid for, another scream is swallowed, another grave is dug, another child is left to die unheard.

And look beyond, to the Arab world, they, too, believed their own lies. They swore they could shield us, they swore they carried the honor of the Ummah. Where is that honor now? Go, look at the women lying in the streets with no one to cover them. Go, listen to the children crying in the ruins. Go, see the old men dying with no water to wash their faces. Still they speak of dignity, still they mouth the same words, but the words are hollow, the dignity rotted away, the lie repeated until it became their only truth.

And yet, the heaviest curse is not on them alone. No, the heaviest curse is on us. On me. On all of us who are still breathing and yet remain silent, who nod to the story that comforts the powerful, who accept the lie because the truth would break us.

But the truth, still waits, and it is terrible. It lies naked in Gaza’s streets. It cries out like blood from the earth: “Come and see me. Come and look without flinching.” Stop swallowing the performances. Stop believing the comfortable fairy tales that say we will never leave, that our death is our choice, that our cats and our coffee mugs are symbols of some eternal, noble defiance. No, they are only mugs and cats, and we are only human, and we are cold and barefoot at three in the morning.

If you still have a soul, cast away the illusions. Tear the lies from your heart. Demand the truth, not the truth that flatters you, but the truth that burns you. Look upon the faces on the pavement. Hear the mothers who do not ask for poetry but for bread, for a tent that does not leak, for a road that actually leads somewhere.

And then decide: will you watch Gaza die like an audience watches a tragedy, applauding at the end? Or will you throw down the curtain, stop the play, and step into the blood and dust to do something, anything, to keep us alive?

#GazaGenocide

[Saima صائمہ @saimaah]

@ZohranKMamdani As a therapist and Roosevelt Island resident, I love this!!! Thank you, @ZohranKMamdani, for visiting our beloved neighborhood !

[Maria Kari @mariakari1414]

Today I learned my client in Gaza was killed. Earlier this year, the @USCIS denied her humanitarian parole application bc her case wasn’t “urgent” enough.
We recently had a meeting in person with a congressperson who offered to support us if we refiled, so we had some hope.
Like the cowards they are, the IOF targeted this young mother from behind using a missile with blades, which tore her body apart. She could have been safe with her family in the U.S. Instead, she bled out for 12 hours alone, leaving behind her husband and children. I ask that you make a special prayer for this family today.

[Nerdeen Kiswani @NerdeenKiswani]

Becoming a mother has radically expanded my perspective. It makes me struggle to understand how people who’ve had kids can be okay with what’s happening in Gaza. How can you witness children starved, bombed, buried alive at this rate and not be terrified this is the new normal?

[Mosab Abu Toha @MosabAbuToha]

Israel has orphaned 44,000 children in Gaza in the past 22 months.

[Saima صائمہ @saimaah]

@elizamclamb This is too gorgeous. Manifesting this home office for future me.

[أنس الشريف Anas Al-Sharif @AnasAlSharif0]

This is my will and my final message. If these words reach you, know that Israel has succeeded in killing me and silencing my voice. First, peace be upon you and Allah’s mercy and blessings.

Allah knows I gave every effort and all my strength to be a support and a voice for my people, ever since I opened my eyes to life in the alleys and streets of the Jabalia refugee camp. My hope was that Allah would extend my life so I could return with my family and loved ones to our original town of occupied Asqalan (Al-Majdal). But Allah’s will came first, and His decree is final. I have lived through pain in all its details, tasted suffering and loss many times, yet I never once hesitated to convey the truth as it is, without distortion or falsification—so that Allah may bear witness against those who stayed silent, those who accepted our killing, those who choked our breath, and whose hearts were unmoved by the scattered remains of our children and women, doing nothing to stop the massacre that our people have faced for more than a year and a half.

I entrust you with Palestine—the jewel in the crown of the Muslim world, the heartbeat of every free person in this world. I entrust you with its people, with its wronged and innocent children who never had the time to dream or live in safety and peace. Their pure bodies were crushed under thousands of tons of Israeli bombs and missiles, torn apart and scattered across the walls.

I urge you not to let chains silence you, nor borders restrain you. Be bridges toward the liberation of the land and its people, until the sun of dignity and freedom rises over our stolen homeland. I entrust you to take care of my family. I entrust you with my beloved daughter Sham, the light of my eyes, whom I never got the chance to watch grow up as I had dreamed.

I entrust you with my dear son Salah, whom I had wished to support and accompany through life until he grew strong enough to carry my burden and continue the mission.

I entrust you with my beloved mother, whose blessed prayers brought me to where I am, whose supplications were my fortress and whose light guided my path. I pray that Allah grants her strength and rewards her on my behalf with the best of rewards.

I also entrust you with my lifelong companion, my beloved wife, Umm Salah (Bayan), from whom the war separated me for many long days and months. Yet she remained faithful to our bond, steadfast as the trunk of an olive tree that does not bend—patient, trusting in Allah, and carrying the responsibility in my absence with all her strength and faith.

I urge you to stand by them, to be their support after Allah Almighty. If I die, I die steadfast upon my principles. I testify before Allah that I am content with His decree, certain of meeting Him, and assured that what is with Allah is better and everlasting.

O Allah, accept me among the martyrs, forgive my past and future sins, and make my blood a light that illuminates the path of freedom for my people and my family. Forgive me if I have fallen short, and pray for me with mercy, for I kept my promise and never changed or betrayed it.

Do not forget Gaza… And do not forget me in your sincere prayers for forgiveness and acceptance.

Anas Jamal Al-Sharif
06.04.2025

This is what our beloved Anas requested to be published upon his martyrdom.

[Andrew Feinstein @andrewfeinstein]

Israel is starving Gaza. As in the Bengal Famine, it's by design: Britain starved millions in Bengal to preserve empire. Israel has revived that same logic and sharpened it into a weapon against Gaza, says ⁦⁦@vijayprashad⁩ https://t.co/QgUL02fAmi

[The Washington Post @washingtonpost]

Palestinian children have been killed at a rate of more than one child per hour during Israel's war in Gaza.

“A whole classroom of children killed every day for nearly two years,” UNICEF’s executive director said.

Here are some of their stories: https://t.co/Z0qPQHviJb

[Mohammed R. Mhawish @mrmhawish]

I wrote about Gaza’s mental health crisis. I spoke with therapists and psychologists still trying to help others through relentless trauma, while they themselves are displaced, grieving, and surviving day by day. @NewYorker

https://t.co/3vvlCcSJTa

[Fiona @FiMelb99]

“My scrub nurse that I was working with every single day was followed home by a quad copter drone, and it didn’t kill him on the way home… it waiting until he was home, in his tent, and greeted his three children and killed them all”

[Prem Thakker @prem_thakker]

85% of young men support Zohran Mamdani.
79% of young women support Zohran Mamdani.
67% of Jewish people aged 18-44 support Zohran Mamdani.
65% of Black people aged 18-44 support Zohran Mamdani.

Would you have guessed *any* of that with how the media has covered all this?

[Aaron Maté @aaronjmate]

The Washington Post has published the known names of the 18,500 children killed by Israel in Gaza since Oct. 7th. At every 500th child, the Post tells you how many names of dead children you've read.
https://t.co/ibKBJnirFM