Candles in the Darkness

Last night I joined a vigil for Gaza outside the BBC on Oxford Road in Manchester. Feelings of helplessness often overtake me in the face of such injustice and misuse of power. But holding a candle in the cold and dark last night, with around a hundred other people who shared by feelings of outrage, sadness and disgust, and hoped for an end to the killing and a peaceful future felt powerful.



Other people I knew had turned up, including a friend of Nick's who I had never met before. He is Gazan, studying for an MD in Manchester. His parents had come to visit him recently and were still with him, but the rest of his family remained in Gaza. I struggled to imagine what that must feel like. He had had some contact with them, and everyone was okay so far. Then he introduced us to his friend, M. M had a pale and sad face, that seemed somehow familiar. I wondered if I had met him before. A told us that one of M's family members had been killed today in the raids. I was speechless. I didn't know what to say. M said that he had just spoken with his family on the phone a few minutes ago, he said the bombs were falling now. All four of us were silent. The reality of this was speaking to us in the silence. Our candles kept being blown out by the passing buses, but we always found someone else's candle to re-light from. I thought about just how similar to campaigning and fighting for justice holding a lit candle on the street in wintertime is.

End the Killing in Gaza

Things you can do:

1) Write to your MP - they're on their Christmas holidays (conveniently), but still write to them, phone them and generally pester them. Find out their contact details on the Write to Them website.

2) Write to the Foreign Secretary on this email address - private.office@fco.gov.uk

3) Fax the Prime Minister +442079250918

4) Write to the Labour Party - fill in this form online http://www.labour.org.uk/contact

5) Go to to a Protest:

LONDON
Tuesday 30 December, 2 - 4pm
Outside Israeli Embassy, Kensington High Street, London, W4.
Nearest tube Kensingston High Street (turn right out of tube station and walk along the main road.
Wednesday 31 December, 2 - 4pm outside Israeli Embassy
Thursday 1 January 2 - 4pm outside Israeli Embassy
SATURDAY 3 JANUARY. DEMONSTRATION AND RALLY. Assemble 2pm Parliament Square, W1. Nearest tube Westminster

MANCHESTER
Tuesday 30 5pm, BBC Oxford Road, there will be vigils all week and a protest on Saturday 3rd January.

GLASGOW
Saturday 3rd January 12noon
Outside Lloyds TSB, St Vincent Street and then assemble for demo at Blytheswood Square, 2pm

EDINBURGH
Foot of the Mound, Princes Street
Saturday 3rd January, 12noon.

CARDIFF
Tuesday 30 December 12 to 1pm. Outside Cardiff Market/ St John’s Church, the Hayes
Wednesday 31 December New Year Vigil. Nye Bevan Statue, Queen Street

LEEDS
Tuesday 30 4.30pm-6pm, Outside art gallery, Headrow

BRISTOL
Centre, opposite the Hippodrome, Tuesday - Friday 5.00 - 6.00 and Saturday 3.00 - 4.00.

NOTTINGHAM
Tuesday 30 December 12 noon, Market Square

SOUTHAMPTON
Tuesday 30 December 12 to 2pm, West Quay Entrance, High Street

HULL
Saturday 3 January, 11am. Queen Victoria Square.

BRADFORD
Monday 29 December 2pm, Centenary Square. We will provide leaflets please bring placards, banners etc or bring with you marker pens and large size paper.

PORTSMOUTH
Saturday 3 January 11am, Guildhall Square

Slaughter in Gaza

The western world was sitting back after a big turkey dinner and too many glasses of wine. They reached for the remote to find another cheesey Christmas special to help them through the digestion of too many excesses. I'm not sure how many of them flicked to the news channel for a moment and discovered the horror that was being unleashed on a tiny overcrowded strip of land, far away somewhere hot and dusty where Santa doesn't go.

But it was happening. The raids began on Saturday morning, the 27th of December. Israeli bomber and helicopter gunships targeted police stations, Khan Younis and Rafah refugee camps, the Gaza city port and civilian targets. The first wave killed 200 people. Today is the fourth day of the massacre. At least 364 Palestinians have died so far. Thousands more have been injured, lost loved ones and their homes.

The justification that Israel gives for attacking Gaza is the rockets that have been fired from within Gaza into Israel. 9 Israelis have been killed by Gazan rockets since September 2005. In the same period at least 1400 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces. I will never believe that there is justification for violence. It will never be right for Palestinians to fire rockets into Israel, even if they kill fewer people than are killed by Israeli forces. An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind. But in this case it's not even an eye for an eye. My friend calculated that 3 Israelis were killed by Palestinians in 2008, and then Israel killed 345 Palestinians in 3 days. Therefore 1 Israeli = 115 Palestinians. When it comes to the Palestinians trying to rise against the Israeli oppressor, I come closer to understanding the motivation for violence than I ever thought I could.

So with this justification you would be expecting that Israel would be very sure that they could definitely catch the bad guys who've been firing rockets into their territory. But the dead are old men, old women, children... Innocents who have no affiliation to any militant groups. I guess they have to pay the price for falling under the same catgetory as those who fire rockets. It's just a pity it's such a broad category: Palestinian.



A home was destroyed while eleven family members slept inside. Five of the daughters died when the house collapsed on them. They were Tahrir 17, Ikram 15, Samer 13, Dina 8 and Jawahar, 4 years old. The Guardian Newspaper wrote this about their father:

Anwar, 40, sat in another house where a mourning tent had been set up. He was pale and still suffering from serious injuries to his head, his shoulder and his hands. But like many other patients in Gaza he had been made to leave an overcrowded hospital to make way for the dying. Yesterday his house was a pile of rubble: collapsed walls and the occasional piece of furniture exposed to the sky. He spoke bitterly of his daughters' deaths. "We are civilians. I don't belong to any faction, I don't support Fatah or Hamas, I'm just a Palestinian. They are punishing us all, civilians and militants. What is the guilt of the civilian?" Like many men in Gaza, Anwar has no job, and like all in the camp he relies on food handouts from the UN and other charity support to survive.

"If the dead here were Israelis, you would see the whole world condemning and responding. But why is no one condemning this action? Aren't we human beings?" he said. "We are living in our land, we didn't take it from the Israelis. We are fighting for our rights. One day we will get them back."

This latest Israeli atrocity comes after 18 months of the Israeli siege and blockade of Gaza, which has crippled the Gazan economy and caused starvation and malnourishment throughout Gaza. The Israeli blockade has brought to a virtual halt food, fuel, medical supplies and other necessities and prevented UN and medical personnel from entering Gaza. This is the current situation in a local hospital, as reported by the organisation Medical Aid for Palestinians:

There were mothers, fathers looking for children, looking for relatives. Everyone was confused and seeking support. Mothers were crying, people were asking about relatives, the medical team was confused.

Some people were just lying there, some were screaming, some were very, very angry. There were a lot of injured arriving, ambulances coming in and out. The injured were coming by private cars and they were being left wherever. You could see blood here and there.

There is talk [the Israeli air strikes] were targeting the police and security forces but in Shifa hospital, I saw many, many civilians, some dead, some injured, some were children, some were women, some were elderly people.

There are people without their legs in very severe pain. The doctors and nurses were trying to give them painkillers and to keep them alive. Patients are lying there knowing they've lost their legs. Some were asking God if they could die. They were in a terrible psychological state.

The doctors and nurses were trying to do their best. They discharged all the patients from the chronic diseases ward and from the oncology ward to make way for the injured. They were using whatever they could.

There's no gauze so they are using cotton, which sticks to the wounds. They can't sterilise clothes for the operating theatre. They're using wrong sized syringes. They're working 24 hours. They're referring cases from one hospital to the next. One hospital was running out of anaesthesia. They're also drawing blood and there's no alcohol. This is a disaster.

Already this post is too long. But there are still so many things I haven't covered. The media coverage of these matters is inexcusably biased. The BBC and other mainstream media clearly show bias to the Israeli side by portraying these atrocities as the justifiable retaliation of a sovereign state against terrorists attacking it. I have been closely following the media coverage over the past few days and am sickened that whenever airtime is given to a Gazan reporting on the deaths, casualties and humanitarian situation resulting from these bombings it must be followed by a report from Israel about the dreadful situation Israelis are living. As if this was equal suffering. I do not mean to belittle the fear felt by Israelis living close to Gaza. The fear that a rocket may strike them. But this is not equal and parallel suffering to that the Palestinians are facing in Gaza.

Meanwhile, the most read article on the Guardian website is about Steven Gerrard's assault charges.