“Israel’s war on Gaza, now in its fifth month, has killed at least 29,878 Palestinians, most of them women and children. Many of the survivors are dying a painful death because of the lack of food and drinking water and health care system.”
Humra Quraishi
Extremely disturbing and distressing news reports of a high percentage of the Palestinians sitting in the grip of starvation. With ruined lives and livelihoods, the bleak scenario is getting further compounded for the Palestinians by the severe shortage of clean drinking water and that daily bread. Quite obviously, death stares in the face.
Yet, the so called world leaders are not even bothering to have food packets air dropped for the severely malnourished and starving hapless Palestinians. Even if the ceasefire does come through at some later stage, it could be too late for the hundreds of the Palestinians and their families languishing in camps and tents and also in prisons.
Fears and apprehensions of famine like situation are breaking out in Gaza. It is officially estimated that 576,000 people in Gaza to be “one step away from famine”. According to news reports, officials from the United Nations have accused Israel of “systematically” blocking aid from reaching desperate Palestinians in Gaza, warning that at least one-quarter of the enclave’s population was a step away from famine without urgent action.
One in six children under the age of two in northern Gaza suffers from acute malnutrition and wasting. Practically, all the 2.3 million people in the Palestinian enclave rely on “woefully inadequate” food aid to survive.
Israel’s war on Gaza, now in its fifth month, has killed at least 29,878 Palestinians, most of them women and children. Many of the survivors are dying a painful death because of the lack of food and drinking water and health care system. Topped by the ongoing targeted strikes and killings by the Israeli forces. Ruthlessness is spreading out, unsparing even the exit border points, where the fleeing Palestinians could somehow get away from the dying conditions.
No, no escape seems possible for the besieged Palestinians, as targeted killings are continuing… forcing one to query: What developed world we are living in, where thousands and thousands of human beings are killed or subjected to worst forms of torture and abuse, yet there seems no one to halt the ongoing disasters!
Ground realities do hit: Olive trees and olives, that for centuries nourished the Palestinians in their homeland, are also affected in the all-round destruction going about in the fiercest possible way. Yes, natural resources not able to withstand that destruction of mankind and nature. But one can’t hear the cries of the environmentalists!
Where are the Child Rights forums and commissions and ministries? Can’t they see Palestinian children queueing up for food. Some are able to get a bowlful, others coming up with emptiness spreading out! Yet we are not reacting. Not sending food parcels and water containers to the besieged children. Why?
The Arab masses are quite obviously and most definitely jolted and affected by the sheer human disaster taking place right in their front yard, yet a majority of the Arab rulers are perhaps not jolted enough. Otherwise, by now hundreds and thousands of the dying Palestinians would have been saved from starvation by getting some level of support in the form of packets of dates and olives and bread. Yes, even the basics would prevent deaths. If only there was that willpower to save lives.
Needless to mention the horror details coming from the prison hell holes, where hundreds of the Palestinians are held and detained. We are not even speaking up for their survival. Why this quiet!
Leaving you to ponder and introspect on this verse of Faiz Ahmad Faiz whose birth day just went past by (he was born on 13th of February 1911, in Sialkot, Pakistan). Chances of hope not getting buried if anthems of resistance do come up in these dark times. As of now speak up… along these lines of Faiz Ahmad Faiz:
“Speak Up! /
Speak up, for your lips are not sealed /
and your words are still your own./
This upright body is yours –/
speak while your soul is still your own./
Look there, in that smithy,/
its red oven, fierce flames,/
the padlocks are already opening their mouths /
and each fetter is skirting around./
Speak up now, for time’s running out,/
Before your body and mind fade away,/
tell us, for truth is not yet dead./
Speak/
Whatever you have to say!”
*****
New Delhi based writer-poet SEEME QASIM’s latest poetry book – Corona And Gulmohars (Har-Anand)
This week I’ve been reading New Delhi based writer- poet Seeme Qasim’s verse from her recently launched book – Corona And Gulmohars. Catchy cover design by her opens up to a diverse range of verse, which only a sensitive observant poet could, perhaps, portray cum unleash in that rather too spontaneous way.
As she writes in the preface to her book, “This book first began with poems written sporadically. I jotted them down as they came to me – on napkins in cafes, in the waiting rooms of doctors and functionaries. Some were keyed into my mobile, others were developed from outline fragments. Many were written on my walks. I did not seek them, they happened. Especially during the intense summer of Delhi, where I live, I wrote about love, memory, health issues, fear, pain, and nostalgia…”
Leaving you with this verse of Seeme Qasim from her his latest book:
“All around there are reminders/
All around/
there are reminders/
of what will come./
Like the beads of sweat/
on the faces of jaded men/
staring glassily,
waiting for the night/
to appear./
Or that corner
near the flaking pillar/
where patient bronze/
sentinels stand/
in solitude/
on the edge of a wall/
decked with marigold./
Or on pitted footpaths,/
on road dividers
where sad bundles/
are left overnight/
by the homeless,/
minded by smiling/
politicians/
from huge hoardings/
above./
Why does all this/
make me long/
for your hands,/
voices/
and the moon?”
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