 Welcome everybody. And especially welcome to Asma and Aziz, our guests today from Gaza from the ground. Just to give a quick update, though I imagine people tuning in are aware that Israel is now launching in the midst of another major military assault, another major massacre in Gaza. The death toll is rising continuously, including the death toll of children. And so we're so lucky to have our guests from Gaza from the ground where bombs are continuously dropping and internet even before that was already scarce. And I see that Aziz has popped off and I imagine he'll be trying to get back on. And there he is getting back on. So I just want to introduce both of our guests today before we get started. Asma Tayyye is a bright young woman living in Gaza who sees herself as having a bright future, no matter how negatively in the unemployment rate is around her and all of the other horrific things that happen that are going on because of Israel's now 14 year long siege on Gaza. After studying English literature at El Azhar University, Asma first volunteered and then was hired as the social media coordinator for We Are Not Numbers, who is the co-host of this webinar. Asma was later promoted to the operations manager of We Are Not Numbers. Communications and writing are the strongest tools for storytelling, she said, a mission to which she has dedicated herself. She also works as a manager for a rock band in Gaza called Osprey V and a social media consultant for a variety of NGOs. Aziz Abusid sees himself as an unbeatable old soul. He's a freelance translator and educator of English with the ultimate goal of becoming an ambassador to represent and assist Palestinians everywhere. He identifies as a Bedouin Palestinian Egyptian refugee with absolute pride in all of his different roots. He was an exchange student in the US and loves traveling and exploring the world. So if you could just start either one of you with your own description of what's going on right now and what life is like in Gaza at this moment, how are people coping and struggling. And I see Aziz has popped off again so Asma, if we can start with you. Okay, sure. So first of all, thank you for hosting me and doing this for Palestine. I actually was trying to think of what to say today because I have, I have been invited by some friends to be interviewed and talk to, and different lives and I was thinking what should I say because there's so much to say and I don't know how to make some sentences or ideas to share. So I would just try to tell you what's going on from the beginning when it all started in Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood. So the, the story began when the Israeli Commission forces started to break into houses Palestinians, and it tried to give these places are actually houses for the Israeli settlers and they never had the right to do that. But they could do that only because of the protection of the Israeli forces. And actually, such actions has been has been happening for so long since 1948, but we never realized that or they actually didn't have that much of the needed the needed the needed attention in the mainstream media because they were kind of happening slowly and this time they're happening in a more fierce or intense way because they have been stealing houses gradually and now they are thinking of doing it in a good way in a more, more inhuman let me say way, because this time they are not stealing houses they're stealing neighborhoods and especially neighborhoods in Jerusalem. So this time, it sounds like, or actually it seems like a big part or a big step and let me say cleansing plan that they're working on and it's all started in one neighborhood but it's going to come to other neighborhoods if the Palestinians surrender to that and give them some places. And we think that they're doing this so they can later call Jerusalem as their own capital instead of ours because if they if we don't we surrender and give them the right to take our homes, then later they will take over so many other neighborhoods until they have felt control over the Jerusalem and then we will not have any right to even reclaim. So, and then so many protests started to erupt, especially because, and this time it was actually going viral, only because of two reasons in my opinion. The first one is that the people of the neighborhood were really smart this time to use the social media power to tell more people about what's going on and to actually take some good videos of the events there and trying to be as resilient as they can while asking the help of everyone else around them, not only in Jerusalem but in other cities around the West Bank and even Palestinians all over the world. So they started to collect people and tell them about what's going on so others can push over to tell more people about these violations. And then the second reason is that it's happening this time in a in a more fierce way as they were trying to take, like I said, huge amounts of homes and neighborhoods not only some houses around the city, especially like, especially a neighborhood like Jerusalem, it's really close to close to al-Aqsa mosque and al-Aqsa compound. So it would be easy for them to also control the al-Aqsa compound itself and prevent so many more people from going there. And at the same time it was happening something else was happening, which is that during the whole amount of Ramadan, the Israeli occupation forces didn't allow so many people to go to actually perform their prayers there inside al-Aqsa mosque. So all of these actions were coming all together and all people wanted to just say no together and started to protest. And then the attack started on the al-Aqsa strip only because they tried to stand by their families in the West Bank. We wanted to say no to them trying to take other homes, trying to kill people around the West Bank of Jerusalem. And it was our way of saying no to send some rockets. And as you all know, these rockets are nothing compared to how destructive their rockets can be. These are just like warnings and so we can tell them that we're here and we won't surrender to what you want and we will just do our best and whatever we can so we can say no to whatever you're doing and to prevent you from taking hours. And after that, the Israeli occupation started this attack over the Gaza Strip and this is the fourth day. And there's so much actually to say if I want to just describe the situation here in Gaza, but to just tell you, or give you an image going on, you can imagine that in four days, only in four days, at least 130 war planes were ready and were working day and night to kill more Palestinian people and they managed to kill at least 130 people including 28 children and around 20 men, women. And I'm sure you can imagine how all of this has been happening so fast, so quickly, that we couldn't even realize what's going on. So many has been going on at the same time and we were just trying to process being attacked and also seeing what's going on in the Shik Jarrah neighborhood, neighborhood, what's going on inside the loxah and later what's going on, the protests all around Palestine and even inside the 1948 territories and even all around the world from people who are supporting us like you and also from Palestinians living outside in diaspora. So it's really hard to just process all of that and to have even time to tell you the stories behind all of these numbers that I've just told you and this is where our mission comes. We are trying our best to work day and night on our team so we can look for and search for more information about the people who were killed. So we can find out how did they used to live before they were killed, how their lives would be if they were not killed. So we've been doing our best to collect all of these information so we can write some stories about them. And I'm sure if you're following us on our social media websites you would see some of the stories that we collected and published and promoted and you would be sure that all of these, you would be sure two things. One thing is that the Israeli occupation is not, is just killing people with no regard to any human rights to the international law or anything. They only care about just killing people and doing so many more massacres without thinking of human rights or anything. And at the same time you would be so sure that these people are just humans, civilians, trying to live and while trying to live they just were killed. So with all of the dehumanization we've been living in during just every day of our lives we were so tired that we wouldn't even be so much more, I mean Israeli attacks or whatever. We were actually before that too tired of the crises of electricity, water, pollution, everything that you can think of and all what we wanted is just to, for Ramadan to end so we can celebrate Eid together. Because Eid as you know is a happy occasion for us Muslims and we wanted to just spend a good day, especially for those people who were suffering from COVID-19, like my family for example. My family got infected and I was the only one with my brother who were not so we were doing our best to work day and night at home, doing housework, trying to take care of our parents and trying our best to not get infected. So we don't all be sick together and need someone's help. And it was really, really stressful, especially as we lost our uncle due to all the COVID-19 because of the bad medical treatment that they couldn't give him. So he died and we were just trying to process all of that and then all of a sudden we're being attacked. And now you'll be all the time thinking about, oh, I might be so, I might be dead soon. I might even die before I even realize that I'm going to die. So as I said, I can't just, I can't stop talking so much to say. So I will just give Aziz the floor so he can tell you about what's going on right now on the ground and how maybe last night was. Well, Aziz, you know, the New York Times and other media outlets are reporting today that yesterday Israel tricked the people of Gaza and the international media into thinking that they were already launching a ground invasion. I was one of those who absolutely thought a ground invasion was being launched. Al Jazeera was reporting it. And most importantly, you on the ground must have thought that a ground invasion was underway. What was that feeling like? Aside from the absolute horror that Israel thinks it's okay to, you know, play around with people who already have such trauma from so many. What was that like yesterday? Thank you, Ariel. I believe we've lost your sound or you've frozen for a moment. Asma, do you want to talk a bit about what that was like yesterday to, and then as Aziz comes back, we will switch over to him. I can do that. So. Are you here, Aziz? I'm here. Okay, then go on. I think we lost him again. I think so. If you want to continue until we get it back. Until he has table internet. It's fine. So, as you know, this is the fourth day of the Israeli attack and we've been hoping for a ceasefire from both sides because even though we really want the resistance movement to let me say, teach them a lesson and tell them that we're not going to stay to keep silent and just stay in our homes without protesting, without saying anything. But at the same time, we want this to stop because we don't want to lose so many people. We don't want to live in such fear and live in such fears so much more time. And although, like you said, we've been given through so many Israeli attacks and for people like me and Aziz in our 20s, we've been through at least three to four words. They're not words, by the way. We're used to use the word war in Arabic, but it's not what it's an attack. It's a genocide. It's nothing. It's nothing less than an attack. So, I was just saying that we were hoping for a ceasefire. We were wishing for that. We were praying for that and asking for that. At the same time, we really want the occupation forces to realize that we will not keep silent anymore. So, with all of that said, we were hoping that they would stop and suddenly at night around 10 o'clock, we were just hearing all over the Gaza Strip so many airstrikes at the same time. They would be hearing at least five to eight airstrikes in less than 30 seconds. They would be like bup, bup, bup, bup, all around at the same time. And you would be thinking, we'd be hearing them so close around you. One time they would be hearing them from the north and at the second time from the west, the second time from the east. And you would feel like they are all around you and just this random shot. They are hitting people randomly and we will be next. And before we even hear the shelling, before we even realize or hear or see the airstrike, it will be on our head and we will die. And what made this really so much difficult to realize and understand and even believe is that we didn't have any news. We were checking social media websites. We were checking every news agency so we can realize what's going on from person to medical teams or whatever. And we were not able to find any news that would explain what's going on. And we were, I mean, my family, we were sitting in the middle of ours. A spot of thought is a bit dangerous. And you were thinking maybe this is just random and maybe hitting and we will be killed so soon. And you can, I'm not sure if you can, but I can say you can imagine the fear, especially that we were trying to stay strong around our kids for three days now. And last night we couldn't stay strong ourselves and they saw in our eyes. So they were just crying all over the place and saying, you will die soon, we will die. And every day it would never keep them calm or help them realize that they're not going to die soon. Especially that it's the first day, I mean Eid is a happy family, especially for children. They would expect a happy day in which they can visit friends, play with friends. They would go to relatives, have some build after passing and all of that. And then they had to stay home. They had to be hearing all of these airstrikes all the time. And then just when they wanted to go to sleep, it was such a horror. So, and then we heard that these are just agricultural lands from some news agencies. And we started to count on a bit, but at the same time the sound wouldn't even tell you that this is true. The sounds were getting so much closer. And to be honest, I just started to talk to my God thinking like, if you're going to take me, please take me fast. Because I'm not going to endure so much of that feeling or horror. And I'm the one who has been thinking all the time, like, I'm strong, I can go do this. I've never felt afraid during these attacks. And one fact is that most people, I'm not sure if you know that. I'm sorry, Aziz, this is taking too much, but I have so much to say. Okay, this is the last thing I promise. So, I'm not sure if you know this, this fact about the Palestinian people here in Gaza. During Israeli attacks, they would be getting ready for leaving if they have to evacuate. So you would have your bag ready, in which you can put some, not clothes, of course, but the most valuable belongings, like some money, some gold, some, I don't know, anything that you might need, your laptop, your mobile, your things. And then get, and most importantly, your documents, like your identity card, your passport and all of that. And you would get that bag ready by the door. So when you have to evacuate, you would just take that bag and run for your life. Okay, and leaving everything that you love in your house behind. So, during all of these Israeli attacks that I went through, I never thought of doing that. But this time, yesterday, before that horror that I'm telling you about, I was talking to my mother saying, like, why are we feeling kind of safe thinking that we were not to get bombed tonight? Maybe we will. So we have to get this bag ready. And she agreed for the first time, like, normally she would say, no, we're fine. We're not harming Israel. So why would they hit us and all of that. But this time she was like, yes, they could kill us this time. Let's get this ready. So I got my bags ready down by the way they are here. At my desk, I can take them quickly. I had two bags. And then I had everything. And then when I left that hour of horror, the first thing that came to my mind. I'm so glad I got my bag ready. I can leave. It's fine if I have to leave, I can leave. Before this hour was done, I was so relieved that, okay, I'm staying calm a bit and trying to calm myself saying that it's fine. I'm not going to die tonight. I hope it's not tonight. But at least I'm ready for that. I think I'm ready for that. I've never been ready and I've always been thinking like I don't want to stay. I don't want to die alone. I don't want to die so young. I don't want to die here in Gaza. I don't want to die killed by this re-occupation and all of these things. But when you live such moment, you'd be thinking like, okay, God, take me. Take me. I can't live so much more than this. Okay, I can stop now. Go ahead, Aziz. Aziz, how are you holding up in these horrible moments? And I heard Asma talking about, you know, trying to get media just from Twitter and so on. And Israel has been bombing buildings with media outlets and intentional blackout and intentional means of silencing reporting of their war crimes. How is this for you and your family right now? Well, so Ariel, I think Israeli occupation as a colonial power. They care much more about leaving an impact in destruction and leaving a long trail of things to fix rather than just go and execute like specific targets as they claim. We've seen lately in the in the West Bank before if the whole attack on Gaza starts in the West Bank, every time a Palestinian does any active resistance and we refuse to call it terrorism because it's defending our lands because also it happens on occupied territory as per international laws. So every time that happens, not the perpetrator himself or the resistance himself or herself suffers, but their family as well, which is considered collective punishment and can amount to war crime. They punish the whole family, they punish the whole neighborhood, they punish the whole city, the whole nation. If I go and stab a soldier, stab a settler who is squatting on my land stealing my home, like giving me a hard time going through checkpoints and coming out of checkpoints and asking me to take or to make a or to apply for a special permit to see my own aunts who are living in occupied Rahat, which is a city in northern Palestine near Berserba. My own aunts are there and I cannot see them because I need to get a permit. So if I do anything to because out of frustration out of anger out of all of the, the rage that is building up inside of me, like as a result of occupation as a result of like devastation and besiegement for 14 years, 14 continuous years. So if I decide to do that. Not only do I suffer as Aziz, but also my family suffers, my friends suffer and not by the meaning of suffering that they will be sad over my death, but they will get their houses demolished, they will get arrested, they will get interrogated. They will get harassed by settlers by the occupation army by everyone else. So the collective punishment policy that Israel takes into action is very disgusting and it's very like horrendous. When you think about an Israeli occupation that does not only attack the office that they consider a threat to them, but they blow up the whole building and maybe containing more than 60 or 70 apartments. Most of them have nothing to do whatsoever or even do not know of the existence of the alleged like terrorist or whatever, which is also a resistance person and it is legitimate under international law. So even if they don't know of the existence of that person in the building, they have to suffer. They have to lose their businesses. They have to lose their homes. They have to lose everything that they have worked their entire lives for. And not only that, next to Al-Saray Square in the middle of Gaza, they even blew up the streets. They cut the streets and this happened before in 2008. It happened in 2014. They blew up the whole, the only bridge that connects Gaza with the middle and south areas of the Gaza Strip. So there is no contact whatsoever between Gaza and let's say, which is important in these times because, for example, the Egyptian government decided to allow injured Palestinians to be treated at Egyptian hospitals. Let's think of a scenario where Israelis decide or, and I think it will happen if the fighting kept going on for a little bit longer, if they decided to blow up the bridge that connects between Gaza and the middle area. So if that happens and the Palestinian hospitals are all filled up because of COVID-19, because of the growing inefficiency of the health system in Gaza because of the continued siege, the lack of resources, even the internal political division, which is affecting also the health system. So all of that, all of these layers together on top of each other, we end up in a kind of like, I can't say a prison because a prison has an academic, it has a doctor, which is enough for all the inmates. But here, we don't have that. Even doctors, even those people who are supposed to be helping us, they're not receiving salaries, they're not receiving their rights, they are deprived of opportunities to train abroad to learn about new medicine. I mean, it's an ongoing genocide. Maybe it's not as fast as what the definition of a genocide is, but it is. It's a slow killing of a whole nation, of whole people. It's either you die here or we drive you out. And that's what they want. They want us either not here or in graveyards, like their leaders. One of the founding fathers of Israel once said, a good Palestinian is a dead Palestinian. So, like, sorry, they didn't mention Palestinian. They do not, they never mentioned Palestinian. They say, I would Arab is a dead Arab. So to think about dealing with a mentality like that. It just blows your mind. And as a person who studied in the United States before, and I've been in contact in touch with American people. They could do better with the leadership that they have. First Trump cutting all the AIDS to Palestinians and keeping that of Israel and changing the status quo that consecutive administrations have been keeping up for the past, I don't know, 22 years. I mean, it's frustrating on all levels. It's frustrating. So we're reaching the end of our half hour, which is fine. We're going to go a bit over. As as Israel works so hard to silence the Palestinian struggle and to silence just the humanity of Palestinians. It's so hard to keep the world from recognizing that Palestinians are human beings with the full same humanity as everybody else. Would you talk about your work with if not, if, sorry, we are not numbers, what your organization is and what it has done for you. Yeah, so we are not numbers is a collective of youth like we are a small group of youth which are expanding we are growing from a small number we used to be about 10 people. And now we are we have over 100 writers all over the world. We started in Gaza. Now we have writers in Gaza. The West Bank occupied Palestine. That's Boracatar Europe by the United States, Canada, Chile, many places around the world where Palestinians have stories to tell. And they're not just stories about death and killing and misery and the occupation and it's, we don't want to give them the satisfaction that our life is all about them, but we have other aspects of our lives. So, we also try to write about falafel. We write about going to our grandmother's house we write about. Beirut about Ramadan we write about different things that could be culturally inspiring to Western audiences and maybe a little bit eye opening to help the world realize that we have been here and we have a collective or we have formulated a kind of culture that doesn't spring up out of nowhere, as they claim that we we have or we are. We are not numbers is not only a platform for us to write. It's also a, let's say a club where we meet, we play PlayStation, we tell jokes. Believe it or not, I'm the silly guy in the office so like we go there as a kind of treatment as a kind of therapy to deal with or to be able to vent out the the the injustice that happens around us the the complex layers of oppression that Palestinians are exposed to for like, let's imagine a black woman who is a Muslim and Palestinian and lives in Gaza strip under Israeli occupation. So you can imagine a the layers of oppression of minority that these people live in and like, let's say there are different shades of that minority groups inside of Gaza that we feel layers oppression and violence and the cycle of the cycle of violence that starts with occupation and ends with domestic violence where violence against women gender based violence. But violence against men. I mean, aren't we are large cry. So these these kind of things. They happen here and they we suffer from them on a daily basis and there's one thing I wanted to add Ariel to what asthma said in the beginning. This is like, this is not a sudden surge of events that happened just these days. This whole situation has been going on for four years for like 73 years and what whatever happened different this time is a collective of layers that held this like spark the the violence that happened. Netanyahu is in very big trouble in politics in his in his own party and in Israel. And also, like the very different events that happened like we have Ramadan we have Jewish celebrations we have the month of May which is full of the full of anniversaries and and bad memories like tomorrow is the next by day. So the whole collective of things with a spark a single spark with a Palestinian American man, deciding that he's got enough of the occupation and he decided to shoot the settlers that are sitting on his land. That sparked the international outcry, not us, not our suffering the death of Israelis, the death of settlers the death of religious school students. This is this is what happened that sparked them that the international outcry and then everyone is suddenly looking at Palestinians as terrorists. Everybody is looking at the situation as a provocation by Palestinians and then Israel has to retaliate. And now we have the, the, the, like the, the cycle where one side reciprocates to the other. If you hit me I will hit you it's like, it's like a child play, you know, except in a child play that you would have to equal sides to two children. But in our side in our case, we have small projectiles that they call rockets, and they have multi ton American made missiles that can destroy a whole neighborhood. So, who am I to judge. Absolutely. So I want to give our viewers a few things that we can do here in the United States. So if you go to code pink.org, you will see, we have a number of petitions we have one asking President Biden and Secretary of State Blinken to end, or at least suspend US military assistance to Israel. I'm also joining with representative Ilhan Omar to call for a congressional hearing on the situation of Palestinian human rights and how US tax dollars US military assistance to Israel is contributing to human rights abuses. I'm going to put those in the chat. And we encourage folks to sign on to those. And again you can find them on code pink.org. If you have any disease, do you have any final thoughts messages you want to send out to people here in the United States and across the world. Yeah, and we'd also love to have you back on soon, hopefully this will in the next couple days hopefully this will be over, hopefully yesterday, inshallah. We'd like to continue to have you on. But please, if you have any final thoughts before we end for today. Yeah, sure. I would like to add something, which is that most people around the world, especially the rest of the members who are in favor of the Palestinians rights and clothes and they are trying the best to support our codes and our human rights and stand for whatever cases we might have. I do it well and working with numbers or as friends they have always been that asking us about what to do, and how they can help and how they can support us. And for that we have so many answers but a quick one would be don't. This is just my personal. Don't please don't think of us as heroes don't think of us as people who are used to be resilient and strong because sometimes we're not and sometimes we have to be weak so you can support us and find a way to support us. We're tired of being all the time, think, thought of as heroes and strong people that they can manage whatever they want by themselves. No, we need you, we need your help and we need your support. And we need everything that you can do so we can stand up together against the Israeli crimes to expose them to stop them and to get our human rights back. And a part of that would be supporting the Palestinian cause during some, I mean through some projects for Palestinians they are doing, I mean through news agencies they are doing so they can, so you can support the news and their media to be stronger than the Israeli or maybe I mean, maybe through partnering with them to solve some problems they are dealing with some to solve some crises. And for sure you can always keep us in your prayers and share our content especially at your members because we're doing our best to show you the stories behind the numbers that you're always reading about in the news. And they would always be hearing news about some numbers in the mainstream media and they would mean nothing unless we are best to tell you some stories behind them so they are not dehumanized like usually. So please try your best to share these stories to understand them to read them to share them with your circles and educate the people around you about the Palestinian cause. Most of the people who are against the Palestinian cause are in a huge need for education and you can do that and help us do that. So please support us by following us also on social media websites so you can read more of our stories, you can sign to our newsletter so you can know more about our work and our activities here in Gaza and in the West Bank and you can always also donate to us so we can help more Palestinian Palestinian writers to write more stories and have more jobs so they can keep going and help their families. You can do so much. You just need to start by understanding that we need you and we need your support and sometimes we're not that strong. And second, do something. Take action because it's not enough to just say some comments on social media. We truly appreciate that and we love that and that's what's helped us to keep going and be strong all the time. But please we are just asking you to do more and to show us some action because we need it. Thank you so much. Of course, thank you so much for doing all of this for us. We'd love to have you back on in the next couple days for update and further conversation and just solidarity with you. Thank you so much.