 Welcome, everyone. I'd like to welcome everyone who's here in the room and those who've joined us via livestream. My name is Julia Pitner. I'm the executive director of the Institute for Palestine Studies. It's the Preeminent Institute for Research, Information, and Analysis on the Question of Palestine. We publish books and monographs and do events like this one today. The Institute is pleased to partner with the American Friends Service Committee, who has brought our main speaker here today. They've been on tour throughout the US and also with Carnegie, who's hosting this event today. I'll give you a brief background of the situation into which the Great March of Return was born. Gaza has been under a blockade or siege since the early 1990s, shortly after the commencement of the Oslo negotiations. That siege has varied. The blockade has varied in its intensity over time with an intensification of it right after the takeover of Gaza by Hamas in 2007. It eased a bit in 2010. But since 2013, it has been almost a total blockade of people and goods moving into and out of Gaza. The blockade incorporates the land, the sea, and the air. The population of Gaza is 1.8 million people. It's basically locked in with restrictions on freedom of movement into and out of the Gaza Strip. The blockade has also undermined the living conditions now in Gaza. It has been growing worse and worse throughout the, actually since 2007, it's gotten worse. So that today, the World Bank and the UN are worried and setting the alarm that it may be unlivable by 2020. 70% of Gaza's 1.8 million population are refugees who fled or were forced from their homes in 1948. The majority of Gaza youth under the age of 11 have been through three major conflicts. Those who are under the age of 18, the majority have never even left Gaza to visit family in the West Bank or to Jerusalem. Although the literacy rate in Gaza is 96.9%, the unemployment rate among the Gaza youth is 70% today. Among the general population, it's 56.9% unemployment. The poverty rate now exceeds 80% into this situation, this movement was born. Today, we'll be hearing first from Jihad Abusalim, who's the program coordinator on Israel and Palestine for the American Friends Service Committee. He's also from Gaza, and he will talk a little bit about the work that they do. And he will also occasionally translate for Ahmed Abutame, who's a writer and a peace activist, and is very much involved in this nonviolent protest that's going on in Gaza today. Then we'll also hear from Zayna Hassan, who's a human rights lawyer and a visiting fellow here at Carnegie. She will lead us in the discussion. Then we'll open it up to the audience for questions. We only ask that you keep to the questions, because we're not going to have enough time. I hope we get to everyone who has a question, but we want to be able to make sure that we can. And then the last thing I ask out of respect for the speakers, please put your phones on silent. Thank you. Jihad, you want to start us up? Sure. Thank you, Julia. Good afternoon. I'd like first to thank the great organizers of this event, the Institute for Palestine Studies and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace for hosting us today and giving us the space to have this conversation. My name is Jihad Abu Saleem. I'm Palestinian from a small town six miles south of Gaza City called Deir el-Balah. I moved to the US five years ago to start a PhD in history and Hebrew and Judaic studies at New York University. My research focuses on Arab and Palestinian intellectual works and writings specifically on Zionism and the plight of the Jewish people in Europe before the establishment of the state of Israel in the first half of the 20th century. More than a year ago, I left the Big Apple and I moved to Chicago in pursuit of love. My wife is from Chicago. And shortly after I moved there, I was lucky to join the Palestine-Israel program of the American Friends Service Committee that is there. And at AFSC, I joined a wonderful team of organizers and activists and a team that extends from the Bay Area where we have our economic activism program to Chicago through Philly and to Amman, Jerusalem, and Gaza. The Chicago-Palestine-Israel program provides resources, mentorship, and training to activists engaged in educational and advocacy slash policy change campaigns related to Palestine-Israel peace and justice issues. AFSC works to change US understanding of and in support for current injustice in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory in order to bring about social and political changes that will contribute to ending the Israeli occupation, guaranteeing Palestinian human rights, and building equality for Palestinians and Israelis. Our campaign, No Way to Treat a Child, one of the campaigns that we work on from the Chicago office, led to the first proactive bill in US history in support of Palestinian human rights, H.R. 4391 of Congresswoman Bittima Cullum from Minnesota. And the other campaign we have is called Gaza Unlocked. And this campaign seeks to raise awareness in the United States on the situation in the Gaza Strip and to advocate to end the brutal blockade that rendered the Strip unlivable, as Julia mentioned. In 1948, AFSC agreed to the urgent request from the United Nations to take a 15-month engagement supporting displaced Palestinians from January 1, 1949 until March 31, 1950. Prior to that, AFSC staff were in the region on a journey to explore the possibility of helping to facilitate reconciliation between Arabs and Jews. So this shows that AFSC has been in the region for enough time since the beginning and unfolding of the current situation. And our staff and our institutional memory has been very rich and very informing in terms of informing our work today. Early on, AFSC understood the centrality of the issue of return to the Palestinian plight. AFSC holds the position that Palestinian refugees' right of return must be recognized and justly addressed if the conflict is to be resolved. Ending the occupation is not enough. If the international community is serious about resolving the conflict, it must also recognize the central importance of justly addressing the issue of Palestinian's right of return. Anything less is a denial of justice and will not resolve the conflict. Ladies and gentlemen, when I started working at AFSC last year, I started working there around the same time the great march of return in Gaza unfolded. And my experience doing this work has been defined by addressing what was happening on the ground and trying to raise awareness on the great march of return and the situation in Gaza. And as the march was unfolding, my colleagues and I were left with many questions about what the march meant and still means for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and in Palestine and the diaspora in general and for the Palestine rights movement here in the US. In July of 2018, I wrote an article for the Journal for Palestine Studies exploring questions about what the march meant for Palestinians as it unfolded and especially that it happened in a context of fragmented Palestinian body politic, blockade, and occupation. The great march of return highlighted the Palestinian refugee plight and the decade-long blockade on Gaza. The march was a rare opening for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip to reclaim a factionally controlled political sphere. What was special about that piece I wrote to JPS is that it was based on an interview that I did with our special guest today. I interviewed Ahmed Abortema, the Palestinian writer whose writings inspired the march back in July. And as I was talking to him, I realized that the march as a moment of Palestinian mass popular mobilization is a product of a compelling conversation that is taking place in Palestine in general and in Gaza in particular, especially amongst a generation of young people who hope to move beyond the stalemates of our time and their time. Our guest tonight is part of this conversation and one of the main contributors to it. At AFSC, when the march was unfolding in Gaza, we realized how important it is to bring this conversation here because how can we, as a Palestine rights movement, as friends and foes, as everybody, how can we move on with the discussion without relating an understanding and being aware of the conversations that are taking place in Palestine in general and in the Gaza Strip in particular, especially in light of the current blockade from Gaza that prevents Palestinians from leaving the Gaza Strip and prevents those who are out from easily accessing it. I haven't been back since 2013 since I left Gaza. So in July at AFSC, we had a dream. And our dream was to invite Ahmed to come to the US. Generally, when people want to connect with Gaza, they do that either through Skype or video conference. But we aimed for the stars and we're lucky to have Ahmed here today. Ahmed is an intellectual and a writer and an activist in the true sense of the world. He writes about the people and for the people. His message is universal. He believes in peace and justice for everyone. He writes in a very poetic but yet accessible language about faith, social issues, social change, and political subjects. His writing is a mirror that helps us Palestinians reflect on our reality and aspire for a better future. His voice, like many voices, is unfortunately under blockade. It sounded like a dream in the beginning, inviting him here. But especially also that planning to invite Palestinians from Gaza in the Trump era is also a whole different level of hardship. Ahmed arrived in the US in January of this year. And since then, he learned so much about the various struggles that are taking place, movements and histories in this land and of this land. He visited Detroit and spoke to black activists and organizers. He witnessed the impact of deindustrialization and the development of Detroit. We just came from New Mexico after he had met with indigenous people and pueblos there. And our tour has been a very informative and rich experience for him. Before New Mexico, we went to the US-Mexico border. We participated in a service where people prayed on both sides of the wall. And we witnessed the impact of fences and walls here in the US, and we related to that. In every stop of our tour, we met with Palestinian American community members, Jewish community members, and spoke at universities, churches, synagogues, and at people's houses, we had honest conversations, and we addressed the hard questions, and that's why we're here today. We have been really also overwhelmed by the love and support we received since we went on the tour. We visited nine US cities so far, and we have two more to go. So allow me to introduce Ahmed. Ahmed, he's a Palestinian writer and activist who believes in civil, nonviolent struggle to achieve justice, freedom, and equality. His family was expelled from their home in the Ramallah district in 1948, and he was born in 1984 in Rafah, south of Gaza, where he now lives with his wife and four children. As an independent journalist and writer in Gaza, he has written for dozens of publications and authored a book in Arabic called Organized Chaos. He has also contributed to several documentaries, including Al-Jazeera film documentary titled, Which Rafah Are You From, about the tragic separation of Rafah following the Camp David Accords and its impact of displacing thousands of families across the border, including his own family. In 2018, he was featured in a documentary film by Karim Shah, produced by Al-Jazeera News Network, Gaza Between Fire and Sea. His visionary writings about nonviolence inspired the Great Munch of Return in 2018, and his writings about the march have appeared in the New York Times, The Nation, Middle East Eye, and other news outlets. So without further ado, I invite Ahmed and I invite you to join the conversation. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your presence, and thank you for the organizers of this event, and thank you for AFSC to organize my tour here in the United States. Ladies and gentlemen, I come to you from the Gaza Strip, which is a small part of Palestine. It's a narrow strip of land. You can drive through all of Gaza in only half an hour. If you are driving on the main street, Salah al-Din, that connects Gaza's southern region with its northern region, and look to your right, you can see the barbed wire fences. If you look to your left, you can see the Israeli gunships, that restrict the Gaza's beaches and access to the wide sea. Imagine being confined to that much space. In this small territory, 2.2 million Palestinians live there, making it one of the highest population density territories in the world. The third of the residents of the Gaza Strip are Palestinian refugees, expelled by Israel in 1948. That means their families are from town and villages on the other side of the fence. And what is now called Israel? They are native to that land. I am one of those refugees whose family was expelled from our home in Ramallah district in 1948. My town was captured by Israel and the original residents were forced out. Many died along the way. My family settled in Rafah in Gaza Strip. Gaza is isolated from the rest of the world and there one feels the denial of basic freedom. Most of Gaza's residents, especially Jews of my generation, have never been able to leave Gaza. They don't know what freedom feels like. My first thought after I left Gaza was how heavy I felt that I was able to travel freely at last. It felt great to travel in the car without reading a sign that says the area in which you are allowed to move has ended. It was a beautiful feeling to move freely without seeing fences or walls. The Israeli government claims it withdrew from Gaza in 2005, but the reality tells another story. Israel controls our movement. Israel denies us the ability to rebuild our seaport and our airport which was destroyed by Israel warplanes and tanks in 2001, only three years after it was built. Ladies and gentlemen, on the 9th of December 2017, three days after President Trump announced he's going to move the embassy to occupy Jerusalem. I went for a walk with my friend Hassan near the fence separating the Gaza Strip from Israel. My friend Hassan pointed towards the east saying, look, this is the fence separating us from our villages from which our families were expelled. I was amazed that this fence imprisons 2.2 million people in the narrow Gaza Strip. Reventing them from a freedom of movement and a normal life. That night, I posted on my Facebook. It was the moment before sunset. I looked at the birds and I saw them moving between the trees on both sides of the fence and no one stopped them. How easy the matter is. Birds decide to fly so they fly. What if one of us sees himself a bird and then decides to reach a tree beyond the fence? If that person was Palestinian, once they reach the fence, a bullet will hit their body. Why do we complicate simple matters? Isn't it the right of humans to move freely like birds? What danger toward peace would a human create if he or she decided to wander in nature? On that day, I discovered the real reason to hate the occupation. I hate it because it disrupts my evening walk because it's against the laws of nature. It eclipse my wings. It kills my dreams. At the beginning of 2018, the Israeli blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip was making life for Palestinians worse than ever. The destruction of health services, the cutting of employees' salaries, the paralyzed economy and the continuation of the closure made life impossible. I wrote another Facebook post where I suggested that 200,000 Palestinians gather peacefully near the fence to demand a life with dignity and to demand the application of United Nations Resolution 194, which has enshrined in international law the right of return of the Palestinian refugees to their homelands. In this post, I said that we are people who want life and nothing but life. We are dying in our besieged narrow strip. So why don't we take action before we all die? I ended this post with a proposed hashtag the Great March of Return. The post was received very well by Palestinians in Gaza, and it went viral. The idea spread so much that it became a social movement within the Gaza Strip. Why did the people decide to join the Great March of Return? Men and women, old and young, all participated in these peaceful marches because their dream of return still remains. Even after 70 years, our people still hold onto the keys and deeds to the homes we were forced to flee from. We pass them from generation to generation. And they prove our ownership of our lands and homes. People joined the peacefully Great March of Return because they love life. Because they love life. And because Gaza is no longer a place where human beings can live. According to the reports, according to reports by the United Nations, Gaza will become unlivable by 2020. But if you go to Gaza, you will see we have already passed that point. In Gaza, food is running out. Our homes only get 6 hours of electricity per day and then the electricity is cut off for 16 hours straight. Because Israel restricts the amount of energy we consume. 95% of water in Gaza is un-drinkable and not suitable for human consumption. Gaza's Ministry of Health reports that it only has 55% of Gaza's medical needs. Out of Gaza's 2 million residents, Israel only allows a couple thousand people to leave Gaza through the Earth's crossing every year. Many cancer patients die waiting for Israel to give them a permit to receive a treatment at a hospital. We have experienced complete economic collapse because Israel has enforced strict sanctions on Palestinian businessmen in Gaza. In 2008, 2012, and 2014, Israel destroyed the majority of Gaza's factories and production facilities. In the ring, Gaza a complete wasteland. Gaza's unemployment rate is one of the highest in the world at 43%. And more than 65% of Gaza's families are living in abject poverty. These are not just numbers. They represent real stories of pain and suffering of families in every home in Gaza. The situation is beyond urgent. Would you accept a life like this? Or would you demand better? That is why Palestinians in Gaza went out to demand our right to live a dignified life and to let the world hear our voices. We can no longer live in this prison. Slowly and painfully dying, we started the great March of Return because we have no other choice but to shout and hope that the conscience of humanity hears us. Palestinians participated in the March of Return because they love life. A great March represented a scream for life and an oak on the walls of the prison after this we decided not to accept the slow death. On the 20th of February 2018 my friends and I published a set of organizing principles for the Great March of Return. Among these principles were that this march was a peaceful people's movement. This movement did not belong to factions but to all of the people. They also stated that the march is rooted in international law and especially United Nations Resolution 194 and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Our demands were simple and honorable. We want to return. We want a dignified life. We want human rights like the rest of all people and nations of the world. On March 30 last year the day the Great March of Return was launched tens of thousands of Palestinians peacefully protested near the fence. On that day women, men the elderly and the children participated in the march together and raised the keys of their homes in Israel. Early one year later Palestinians in Gaza still protest every Friday. Ladies and gentlemen in the three months leading up to the Great March of Return there was immense energy and a high level of participation in this new form of struggle for Palestinian freedom. This project brought all Palestinians from different political and ideological backgrounds together. Youth groups, writers, artists, human and women's rights organizations human and women's rights organizations and journalists expressed to us their full commitment to the ideals and peaceful principles of the Great March. Even those who are part of Palestinian factions who engage in armed resistance began to understand how effective peaceful struggle can be. The idea of the Great March of Return became a perfect opportunity to encourage the Palestinian people to fully embrace the concept of peaceful movements in word and deed. In art and education it made me so happy to see how accepting people had become of this concept considering I had been writing about this for more than ten years. Israel had the opportunity from the beginning to capture this peaceful movement and encourage it. However Israel decided to meet people's cries with explosive bullets and peaceful gatherings with brutal violence. Since the launch of the Great March of Return on the 30th of March 2018 Israel has killed more than 250 people and injured tens of thousands. Many people lost limbs and are now disabled. Sadly Israel's violent response to the peaceful march added to the challenges organizers faced in the context of Palestinian political division. Israel took many lives and Palestinians were shocked by the brutality of Israel's response. After months and years of advocating for the idea of peaceful marching we struggled. Don't we have a right to peaceful protest? A right to suppress our silvers without being killed? Ladies and gentlemen maybe some of you have heard the story of the paramedic Razaan Najjar. Israeli snipers shot her in the chest as she was caring for the wounded. Razaan, a kind young woman, volunteered to help the wounded at the protests. When she was killed she was wearing her paramedic uniform. It was clear for all to see she thought that her uniform would protect her. But the Israeli military targeted her anyway. The Israeli army killed Razaan Najjar and killed her dream of a human world where peace prevails. I visited Razaan's mother who told me about her daughter. She told me that she once asked Razaan, what if you saw an injured Israeli soldier while you are helping the wounded Palestinians? Razaan answered, I will help him with no hesitation. My mission is a human and doesn't distinguish between people. Ladies and gentlemen, the March of Return sends a message that millions of refugees must return simply because this is their right. The return of refugees is not a theoretical question. It's also practically achievable. According to a study conducted by an Israeli organization, most of the land on which refugees lived before Israel expelled them in 1948 is still either empty or has low population density. If the world had the will it would be able to put an end to the tragedy of those millions of refugees and compensate for their losses, making it possible for them to live in peace with their Jewish neighbors. We want a solution based on the foundation of justice, equality and humanity. A country where indigenous Palestinians coexist with their Jewish neighbors according to the values of citizenship equal rights and the implementation of international justice. While the Jewish people have a right to live in peace and security it's not fair or just to solve a tragedy by creating a new one. When freedom and justice prevail security for all is an literal result. Ladies and gentlemen, can you imagine how people live in Gaza? If you were a young person in Gaza you may turn 35 years old without ever getting a job a place of your own to live or be able to get married. To be a father in Gaza often means you feel ashamed because you are unable to live for your family. To be a young person in Gaza means you spend your whole life without seeing a river or a mountain or a lake, you won't take the train or connect with people from different countries who speak different languages. You won't even see a civilian plane in the sky carrying passengers. In Gaza we see planes in the sky but only Israeli military planes. The sound of the plane is linked in the hearts of people to death and horror. It's hard for us to imagine that planes are symbols of life and human progress. Israeli claims the blockade of the Gaza Strip punishes a certain faction. But in fact it's a policy of a collective punishment against 2.2 million human beings. We are struggling for justice, equality and human rights. Netanyahu just a few days ago said Israel is a state just for Jewish people not for all its citizens. Of course we respect Jewish people. We live together we live together in peace before and we can do it again. Our problem is with discrimination our problem is with expulsion and occupation. The solution is simple. We need a country based on humanity Palestinians should have their basic rights including the right of return for refugees and Israelis like Palestinians should have safety, security and peace. This all goes hand in hand. I met a lot of Jewish people on my tour and I respect them. Some of them said to me there is a deep fear if the Palestinian refugees go back to their homes. I said to them that if you want security we can achieve that through justice not with injustice. This solution will liberate Palestinians from occupation and liberate Israelis from fear. You cannot stay inside prisons and inside walls forever. Let us end this before things get worse. This problem was created by policies and can be solved by policies. The solution is very simple. The solution is to achieve justice and equality for all people because they are humans because of their religions or their race or their or other things. Ladies and gentlemen we can use our resources to build a better life for all instead of wasting them on war and aggression. A world where people live connected and safe is much better than a world of fences, walls and fear. Let us stand on the right side of history. For a better future for our children we struggle today for freedom, dignity and justice for all people. Thank you. Thank you for being here today and I want to share with you some thoughts from Gaza. Gaza has been in the news a lot in the last few days and I want to get to all these recent developments on the ground but I wanted to get more from you about how the organizing unfolded. When you wrote that Facebook post you had to converge on the perimeter fence and breach it that you didn't think anyone maybe was out there listening or maybe you have a lot of Facebook friends, I don't know but in fact between 40 and 50,000 people showed up on March 30th but there had to be a lot of organizing that came about before you got to that point and that unfolded. How did your idea transfer into this national committee that organized this massive demonstration that has lasted now for a year? I don't think the issue had to do with the power of the post itself or with me personally but what made that moment possible were the surrounding conditions and the broader context that we had in the past and in the future and in the future and the conditions and the broader context that was then Palestinians pursued this option because they had no other options When someone is looked up and lacks food and medicine what do we expect from this person but to try to escape and knock on the walls and the doors of his prison People did not take action because I wrote a post people took action because of the conditions that existed around the time where the post was written and now there are huge losses as a result of the Israeli brutal crackdown on the protest and despite that people continue to protest People do that because they have no other options it's impossible to adapt with the current reality in the Gaza Strip it's impossible to adapt with this reality So the message of the people who participated in the Great March of Return was to knock on these walls and doors of their prison and raise their voice high and that they wanted to say we want life I want to read something for you that was written by an Israeli journalist His name is Yossi Klein-Halevi and he wrote this in the Wall Street Journal and I want you to comment on it He says, this is a quote from the article The March of Return is an explicit negation of the Jewish state solution with a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza coexisting beside Israel If Palestinians living in Gaza apart of Palestine under Hamas rule still see themselves as refugees intent on returning to the Jewish state then the only concession they can satisfy their aspirations is Israel's national suicide The real message of the protests is that the conflict is not about undoing the consequences of 1967 when the West Bank and Gaza came under Israeli rule during the Six-Day War but about overturning 1948 when Israel was born The goal is the creation of a Palestinian state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea Erasing Israel Is the Great March of Return about erasing Israel? You understood? It is the return of the Palestinian state and it is the capital of millions of people so it cannot be over The right of return is the essence of the Palestinian cause and it's enshrined and deep in the hearts and souls of millions of Palestinians On my way to the United States I visited Jordan there was a meeting with the United Nations Human Rights Council and there I sat with the tens of Palestinian refugees I visited the Palestinian refugees' camps and I found a couple of issues that I would like to talk about with the Algerians, with the refugees with the pictures, with the names of the shops and everything The issue is not secondary to the Palestinian issue On my way to the United States I visited Jordan as I was invited to meet with the United Nations Human Rights Council and there I met with dozens of Palestinian refugees I went to Palestinian refugee camps and I was fascinated by how much the issue of return and people's connection to their land is still very present You can find that in graffiti on the wall in names of shops and markets and also in the daily conversation and the daily discourse that people have there the issue of the right of return is very present in the Palestinian awareness and consciousness And I also met hundreds of Palestinians in the US and I witnessed how the vitality of the issue of the right of return also within the conversations we were having and people were talking about return as if the expulsion happened yesterday It's only possible to surpass the right of return only in one case If Palestinians if millions of Palestinians their descendants and their grandsons and daughters vanished from existence that's why it's not necessary to see the right of return because it's their right We are looking for a way to get everyone out of it and they don't rely on money or losses where everybody will be winning and a formula that is not based on a side winning and another side losing That Israelis and Palestinians live on the basis of their humanity and not on the basis of a dynamic where one side is an oppressor and an occupier and another side is oppressed and deprived of their rights Our struggle is about liberating Palestinians of course but it's also about liberating Israelis from fear and from living behind walls forever Is that possible? Is that possible? Yes, for example we look here in the U.S Many cultures and ethnicities and religions coexist together on the basis of citizenship on the basis of human rights and there are Jewish people and Palestinians in the U.S who also live close to each other and it's working here This isn't only a proposed solution this is actually the only solution to guarantee justice and fairness for everyone What could the other solution be? A two state solution? Okay, but what about millions of refugees who want to go back and seek to go back to their lands, villages and towns from which they were expelled? No solution We can keep postponing the problem without addressing it but postponing the problem will not solve it but actually it will increase the complexity of it Thank you I wanted to ask as well about the ability of the National Committee for the Great March of Return it's ability to keep in place of non-violence so we've seen some incidents where there have been incendiary kites and more recently where there's been explosives on kites that is violating that unifying principle. What is the National Committee doing to try to prevent those kinds of activities and to keep the protests non-violent? I want to speak on my behalf but this isn't the point of beginning of the problem So I wanted to speak on my behalf and I personally called upon people on my own Facebook page not to use burning tires and any of these methods But this isn't the point of beginning of the problem I want to speak on my behalf but I'm not sure how I will understand what we are doing but I want to speak on my behalf but this isn't the point of beginning of the problem I want to speak on my behalf but this isn't the point of beginning of the problem of the public of the discussions We should start from this point here. These young people all participated in the return march. And when the violence and crimes of the Israeli people, especially in the 14th of May, when we killed 60 people, they were forced to be able to continue only in peace negotiations. Those young people who were excited and participated in the Great March of Return, they witnessed the brutality of the Israeli crackdown on the protests. And when the brutality reached its zenith on May 14, when 60 people were killed in one day, people's faith in the feasibility of using nonviolent methods against Israel was on the decline in light of the brutality and the losses that people witnessed. That's why these young people in these conditions came to express their anger in some ways, which are symbolic, and it's symbolic, like the Silek story, which represents the collapse of the regime and the brutality of the terrorists. So to express their anger, some of these young people sought to use those methods which are symbolic in the way they express anger, like trying to cut the fence or set tires on fire. The Palestinians, to this day, killed more than 250 people in the protests of the Silek Revolution, thousands and many of them lost their lives. In contrast, what is the number of Israeli victims of all these actions that the Palestinians have, whether they do it in a official way or in a criminal way. Since the beginning of the March of Return, more than 250 Palestinians were killed, thousands have been injured, many of whom lost their limbs and were rendered disabled. But yet on the other side, how many Israelis were harmed by any of these tools and methods that you mentioned. Fairness requires that we do not focus on one aspect of the problem, but to actually delve deeply into the roots of the problem and understand why things are happening the way they are. So just this month, the UN came out with a report. There was an investigation done by the U.S. and the U.N. came out with a report. There was an investigation done of the protests. And in fact, the findings were, as you say, I mean, protesters were being shot while 300 meters away from the perimeter fence. Now, I need a visual when I think about meters, since I'm a girl that grew up with yards and inches, so I thought about the size of a football field which is about 109 meters. It's about the length of three football fields away that the majority of the protesters who were killed were shot. So you're right. It's the use of force against the protesters far outweighs any of the kites and these kinds of things and the burning tires that have been utilized during the protests in terms of injuries and deaths. But knowing from that very first Friday when the protests started on my 30th and knowing how many people were killed on that very first day, does it weigh heavy on you and others that are involved in the protests knowing that every time you go out there, you're going to experience this kind of reaction from the military? I feel deeply sad when there is a new victim falling as a result of the Israeli crackdown. Because their death and departure of our world is not only a loss for us, but it's also a loss for humanity. I feel deeply sad when there is a new victim falling as a result of the Israeli crackdown. Because their death and departure of our world are a loss for us, but it's also a loss for humanity. Those people who are being shot and killed are people who have dreams and who have ambitions and who seek a better life and education and a decent life. So I feel deeply sad and I feel deeply sorry when I see those young people depart our world. The killing of us and the losses of us hasn't started since the 30th of March. We have been killing Israel many times. We have been killing Israel when it fled from our lands. We have been killing Israel when it occupied us. We have been killing Israel when it killed and killed dozens of thousands of us through the last coup and we have been killing Israel through the last coup and we have been killing And what's happening to the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip is a reminder of the heavy cost of the occupation that we are rendered to pay. People in the Gaza Strip and in Palestine haven't only been killed since March 30. People in the Gaza Strip and in Palestine have been killed since Israel, when Israel expelled them from their lands. They have been killed when Israel occupied their lands. They have been killed when Israel arrested tens of thousands of Palestinians and rendered them prisoners in the dungeons of its presence. Palestinians have been dying also because of the blockade, the slow death of living under blockade in the Gaza Strip. So what's happening did not start on March 30. It's part of the heavy and brutal cost of being under occupation for that long time. This loss of power is a must for us because it is against humanity and a must for the people to be free and respect for humanity. These losses make us more determined and deepen our understanding that the occupation must end because as it continues it incurs more losses on our part and we end up paying the heaviest of prices from our lives, from our dignity and from our future. We're not asking for too much. All we want, all we seek is to live in freedom and dignity like the rest of people in the world. We love peace and we want to live in peace and justice and dignity. Egypt has been trying to broker a piece of some sort or an end to the protests in exchange for some concessions by Israel, including lessening the restrictions on Gaza, allowing more truck loads in and trucks out of Gaza, increasing the amount of electricity in Gaza. So this is a negotiation between Egypt's Hamas and Israel. And the idea is that Hamas can stop the protests if it wants to. The Great March of Return is a popular choice and not the choice of a specific faction by itself. The Great March of Return started as a product of an initiative by young people. And we, the young people who started the march, we put forward a set of principles that we called on those who want to participate in the march from the Palestinian political factions and from the Palestinian civil society to commit to those and consider those principles. And because the Great March of Return is a popular option, it is logical and natural that all the components of the Palestinian political scene participate and take part in the march. Some think that the participation of the Palestinian political factions in the march is a negative thing. But in my opinion, it's a positive thing and that we, and I think it's important to look at this positively. Because the Great March of Return and its principles encourage the Palestinian people to take part in nonviolent and peaceful struggle. And when the Palestinian factions consider participating in a peaceful struggle, I think the world needs to capture that moment and encourage that it's happening. Because those political factions will never vanish from existence. Whether we agree or disagree with them, they will always remain major components of the Palestinian political scene and of the Palestinian people. Unfortunately, Israel's behavior seemed as if Israel was sending a message that you Palestinians don't take part in peaceful and nonviolent struggle through the violent crackdown it launched against the march. And that Israel actually prefers to remain in the, that Israel prefers that the cycle of violence remains and continues. So I'll just one more question and then I'll open it up to the floor. Ahmed, you had said that, I'm sorry, I lost my train of thought for a second there. Right now we're seeing Hamas, or I'm sorry, now I know. You had mentioned that the whole purpose behind the blockade was to encourage Palestinians and Gaza to rise up against Hamas and overthrow the Hamas Authority in Gaza. So they utilize collective punishment in order to see that affected. And now recently we're seeing, in fact, protesters protesting Hamas rule and protesting the hike in taxes and in the economic situation that people in Gaza are living under. So do you see this now as sort of challenging a continuation of the nonviolent protests and now a diversion of the energy in Gaza towards Hamas? Or do you think this is just a momentary situation that we're dealing with here? I think these are two separate issues in the Great March of Return. All components of the Palestinian civil society, families participated in the march because they know that the main contradiction is with the occupation. And when it comes to the protests that are happening in Gaza today, it is natural that not all Palestinians support Hamas and that there are people in the Gaza Strip who oppose Hamas. And there are factors and there is a context that surrounds the current protest in the Gaza Strip. And this includes the harsh reality in which people live, the difficult conditions people are experiencing. And many mistakes that Hamas committed in its administration of the Gaza Strip, that the combination of all those factors would lead to a part of the Palestinian people to oppose Hamas and take part in such protests. I would like to raise our attention to an important point. Most of all of the disagreements that people have with Hamas are focused on disagreements on administration and governance and they do not mean that those disagreements are not about the contradiction that we have with the occupation. So even when it comes to those who disagree with Hamas, when we talk about the larger issues and the important issues like Jerusalem, like the prisoners, and like the right of return, we find everyone having the same stance. I was present in the early hours of the Great March of Return on March 30th last year. I was in the Malacca part of Gaza, east of Gaza, and I saw a scene that will never abandon me. I saw the people on the horizon, all of them rising up to Palestine alone, and they are raising their backs, raising their minds, we want the return, and we want life. And I saw a miracle that we could not walk, and we cut a kilometer or two kilometers walking in a difficult way in order to participate in this great national event. I saw an endless stream of people that reached to the horizon, people from all backgrounds and from all components of the Palestinian society, raising only Palestinian flags in a nonpartisan spirit, raising their keys of return and embracing signs that called for the right to return to their lands. And I saw all people who were barely capable of walking, who walked for many, for long distances in order to come and be present in the protest and express their wish to return to their homes and be part of the march. So the disagreements of Palestinians amongst themselves and their opposition to each other should not make us forget about the root of the problem, addressing the root of the problem, that the Palestinians seek freedom and dignity and liberation. I'd like to open it up now for your questions. Thank you. English or Arabic? English, I think. So thank you very much for your talk. My question is specific about organizing. Following up on Zaha's question, you said that you attributed the march because of the situation, but the situation was the same in 2016 and 2015 and 2014. And I know that you did try to do similar protests before, but you faced a lot of challenges and you failed. So can you talk a bit more about the many times you tried to make this march and the failures that you had, what were the challenges, and what was the lessons you learned from that that made it successful in 2017? Yeah. Thank you. Yes, the idea of the March of Return didn't start in 2018. We, as youth, as activists, in 2011, we called the people to share in the march in that time. And actually the people answered. And we saw in May 15, 2011, we saw tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees, Gaza, West Bank, Syria, Julaan, and Lebanon, Marona Ross, and inside Israel, tens of thousands, shared in the March of Return in 2011. And tens of them, of the refugees, were killed by Israeli bullets, especially in Syria and in Lebanon. So, yeah, there are some conditions strengthening this choice in a time and maybe we can it in other times. I think, as I said in my speech in 2018, because of a mixture of conditions in Gaza mixed between the right of return and the worry about Trump's plan. And from other side, the hard conditions inside Gaza and the blockade inside Gaza. So Bush be able to work this decision. But I want to say something that this decision is strategic. It will not end because the reasons behind this choice still present continue. Because we are people in the diaspora. We want to return to our homes. And this is our normal right. And this is our human right. And this is our right based on the international law. So we didn't forget this right since 70 years. So it's not expectable to forget it in next years. Maybe sometimes the methods will change. This is normally. Maybe sometimes we come down as Palestinian people. But this right and this struggle will continue until we get our freedom and our dignity and our return. I wanted to note quickly that there will also be a program tomorrow night at the Plymouth church in DC, Plymouth congregational church with some other speakers. So people might want to go to that. I wondered when you were talking the FSC representative about the children's lives being cut off. It sort of reminded me of child soldiers in Africa or even in North Korea where children throughout their lives live in the gulag. Is there any way that you can draw a parallel between the lives of children in Gaza and some of those other causes that are clearly have support? Yeah, I mean definitely the experience of Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip has been characterized by continuous trauma, by growing up and witnessing extreme moments of violence. In fact, there is a discussion now within the Palestinian psychiatrist and those who work on psychological issues, community about whether it's proper to use P before post when we talk about the trauma that people experience. Most of the young people who participated in the Great March of Return, those who were 18, 19 and 20, they were 10 years old in 2007 when the blockade started. And those young people, since 2007 they witnessed three major operations, 2008, 2009, 2012 and 2014. So it's really hard to imagine what that means for children to grow up and to live under such conditions. But we can find parallels, unfortunately Gaza is a place that we can find many parallels with different tragedies and issues all over the world. But in terms of how crowded the list is, Gaza perhaps is perhaps home to a long list of issues and challenges that children face. In addition to PTSD, there is no access to good education. Now in 2018 we started hearing about a new episode of the blockade where we're starting to hear issues about malnutrition and lack of nutritious food because of the cuts in salaries and because of the deterioration of the economic cycle. As the World Bank described it, Gaza's economy has been in free fall and the feeling of confinement. I left Gaza in 2013 to the U.S. and I haven't been able to leave throughout my entire life there. And like Ahmed said, I witnessed his moments of excitement here being in the U.S. as he was experiencing travel and the train, on the bus, on the plane. And I remember that about myself as someone who came to this country after living in Gaza's isolation for long years and imagine what happens to the psyche and to the ideas that people can have and build about the outside world. There is so much thirst for the outside world in Gaza. People have been yearning for a long time to leave, to experience, to hear other languages, to see things that they can see on social media and on TV now, but they're told every day that they can't do this because of who they are. I really can't, you know, I can't go like for on and on talking about what it feels like to be a child in Gaza, but I might just sum this up by something very personal to me. My sister, a few months ago, she had an Instagram account and in her bio, she wrote, my name is Hala, I'm 17 and I survived three wars. This is how, this is the lexicon they have, they know. The words that are, that talk about war and misery and tragedy and people, these kids don't even get the chance to reflect on their issues. I mean, thankfully we have few organizations addressing PTSD and trauma, but trauma continues and the blockade is every minute of the blockade that passes is violent. You know, sometimes people talk about seasons of violence in Gaza when Israel mows the lawn using the words of the Israeli military, but every moment that passes in Gaza without electricity, without water, without dignity is a moment of violence. So, yeah, it's hard. Hi, I'm Jim Covey, my surgeon. I've been working in Gaza during surgery last July and August. I need your help. We only know, by the way, the only way to stop the demonstrations is to change the government of Israel. That's the ultimate thing. We have a major lawsuit against people supporting the settlements. I'll give you my card. I need you to give me names of people who have been injured and then keep in contact with me so I can work on this. I have to run. My question is about the tour. I found what I was able and had the privilege of hearing today to be so important and it makes me desperate and sad to think of how few people in the United States have heard the things you said today and how important they are. And my question about the tour is it is extraordinary that you've been able to come here and speak in all the venues you've talked about. What coverage has there been, particularly in what we might broadly think of as mainstream media? You quoted from that dreadful opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, but has the tour gotten any kind of coverage in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, or even in Left Press? Like the nation, so that there's a further uptake, a further circulation of the extremely important words and information we had the privilege of hearing today? Yeah, thank you. So Ahmed was interviewed by Amy Goodman and his interview I think will be broadcasted on March 30th and the first anniversary of the Great March of Return. And Ahmed already has written for the New York Times and the nation and many other outlets when he was in Gaza. So that actually, you know, like his writings that made it to the some of these mainstream outlets and left wing outlets in the US exposed us to the importance of the vision and the story he's telling. During the tour, we mostly had coverage from local media and the places we visited. But let me tell you something about the tour. We went to Boston, Madison, Bay Area, San Diego, New Mexico, New York City, and we are today in DC. And since the tour started, we have witnessed a lot of support, a lot of people were coming to all the events. We all always have full houses, people even like standing up on sitting on the floor. And there is a growing interest in addressing this and when people hear hearts and minds change. Part of our, the campaign on Gaza that we have at AFSC, Gaza Unlocked, which you can read more about when if you visit GazaUnlocked.org is to educate the public here in the US, to shift policy in the future. Gaza Unlocked provides fact sheets, provides important information on what's going on. And we recently started a blog and we, for example, we did a writing contest few months ago when we invited young Palestinians from Gaza to submit essays in English, which we had to grade as the bombs were falling in one of the cycles of violence that took place. And soon we will publish a booklet based on the top essays that will be called Life Under Blockade. So what we're trying to do in Gaza Unlocked is to build bridges between here and there. We're trying to break the blockade by overcoming not only the physical fences that exist between us as Palestinians and as supporters and as humans, and those people who live there, but also break the psychological fences and walls, and the fences and walls that exist in the discourse, in the media, in the daily conversation. So we're working on that, and we tried our best to connect him with many activists, and he was invited to many podcasts, and his words will reach a wide audience in the weeks to come. Go in the back. Hi, Ahmed, I wonder if you can jump back to something you mentioned earlier about in the context of the start of the demonstrations, Palestinians in Gaza were thinking about Trump and the proposed peace plan. Now that we're just a few weeks away from when the administration says the plan will land, can you talk about your response to that and generally what you're hearing from people in Gaza about it? Yes, one of the main reasons behind the Great March of Retain was Trump's plan, because the organization and the planning for the march started after Trump declared that he would move the embassy to Jerusalem, and what members of his administration said about the right of refugees. So the Palestinian people feel worried about this plan, and so this feed the idea of the March of Retain. Nothing was changed, so we demand our human rights, so this human rights is unnegotiable. We want our freedom and we want our dignity, and we say for everyone that if you want peace and stability in the world, the way to achieve peace and stability by supporting the human rights, supporting the people's rights. We cannot accept any deal that doesn't give us our human rights because it's our human right to live freely, to move freely, to refugees return to their homes. We haven't other choices. We're at time, but I wanted to give you both an opportunity to sort of have some last thoughts before we conclude today. Would you like to go first, Jihad? Sure. I would like to thank you all for being here today and for listening to us. And there's one thing, you know, I have a minute to talk. I think when it comes to the situation in the Gaza Strip, I mean the situation in Palestine in general is terrible. Nation state law was passed, settlements are being built in the West Bank, land confiscation, and the negative Palestinians are still in the diaspora. But when it comes to the Gaza Strip, there is a sense of urgency. You know, the UN report that said that Gaza will be unlivable was issued in 2012. And that's the time of the siege, the time of the blockade is very heavy and very tiring time for us to witness passing. Today we're talking about a reality in the Gaza Strip where people are on the verge of starvation, where people are on, you know, like they lack access to medicine. We keep talking about these things, but you know, I personally have been trying to make the case for why 2.2 million people shouldn't be under blockade, for why me personally need to be able to go see my family, for why Ahmed's children need not to live in a reality where they witness bombs falling and things like that. So we are in the nation's capital and, you know, I'm sure most of you do work on policy and, you know, take part in decision making or in effecting decision making. And this is an important moment to think of the people of Gaza, our families, our friends, people who are like us, you know, they want a decent life and they want to think of the blockade as a fast event that they really wouldn't want to remember most of the time. So with your efforts and with your work we could together highlight the stories and the pain of the people in Gaza, but also work together to put an end to this brutal and shameful blockade that rendered us under siege, cut from the outside of the world, you know, deprived us of our rights and dignity and made us really suffer. So those are my words and I really hope that what matters is not coming today, I mean it's important to come today and hear from Ahmed. But what really matters is what do we do with the words we hear and the words entail responsibility and once we hear them we have to be up to that responsibility. I want to say something, there are two powers in the world. Power believe in walls and fences and the Cubation and discrimination and the other popular power who believe in equality for everyone, justice for everyone, peace for everyone. So what can we choose? What can we choose? Now we are in the 21st century. Can we imagine in this era of communication and internet and the planes and dialogue between cultures and coexistence? Can we imagine there are states until now they build more fences, more walls and imprison a whole people inside these prisons. When I arrived here to United States to Chicago, I met hundreds of people, trains and activities and other places. So I wrote at that time, so the people are very similar. So why we build the walls between them? The people are very similar. When the people be closer each other then they can understand each other, then they can feel empathy each other, then can be love each other. Then it will be more peace and more stability in this world. So when you imprison a whole people inside the prisons and walls, you feed the hatred and the aggressions. Let us form a new reality, create a world better. This is not just for Palestinians, this is for all the people. The world based on equality, based on freedom for everyone, based on dignity for everyone, no discrimination, no walls will be more peace, will be more stability. So our struggle is one and we have one enemy. Our enemy is the occupation, our enemy is the discrimination. Our enemy is the racism and the discrimination between people based on their color or their religion. Let us create a new world based on justice and we can do this. Thank you. Great way to end that, thank you. Thank you all for coming.