For the fourth consecutive week hundreds of Philadelphians gathered in opposition to the Israeli assault on the people of Gaza.
At this week’s rally Liberation News spoke with Ayman Najim, a Palestinian man studying in the United States whose wife and two children still remain in Gaza. He spoke about life under occupation.
“You don’t have electricity anymore. You are besieged in a small enclave of land. You are living in a concentration camp.”
Gaza is the one of the most densely populated places on earth, and the ongoing brutal and criminal Israeli assault on the city has already cost over 1,500 Palestinian lives.
Despite the violence, Najim plans to return to Gaza in five days. He fears for his family. “It is hard. You are trying to get in touch with them and you cannot. There is no electricity.”
Days ago IDF forces bombed the city’s largest power plant, cutting off water and power to the over 1 million people that live there. “It is a slow motion genocide,” Najim said.
But Najim finds hope in the growth of the world movement in solidarity with Palestine and notes a definite shift in the American perception of the Palestinian struggle. He said that the value of protests in the United States is to demand and end to funding for Israel and to show the Israeli government that people here are against their actions in Palestine. He sends a message to the thousands of people mobilizing from across the country to the protest in front of the White House on August 2, and to the tens of thousands continuing to mobilize around the world: “Please, do the best you can for Palestine, because Palestine loves you…Your work, your action will make a difference. It is not meaningless. It is not a drop in the bucket. We will make a difference.”
Long live Palestine!
