redphilistine:

After yesterday, the 15th day of the massacre of Gaza, the death count stood at 695, an average of 46 Palestinians murdered per day. Today 102 people were killed, including those who had taken refuge in a UN shelter. The figures have now jumped to 797 and 49 per day. 

I know statisticking Palestinian deaths is macabre and inappropriate, but it’s really the only way I have been able to make sense of what’s happening to my people. For the last 16 days, Israel has killed an average of 49 Palestinians everyday, all of them civilians and the vast majority of them unarmed. UNRWA also reported today that for the past two days Israel has killed one Palestinian child every hour. This is the horror that they live. This is why the people of Gaza fight back.

In 2009 and 2012, when the last two massacres of Gaza took place, Palestinians in the West Bank — and beyond the West Bank, to be fair — did not protest as loudly as they should have, mainly because the Palestinian Authority led by Mahmoud Abbas made sure to clamp down on any sign of unrest. This is the function of the PA as the subsidiary of the Israeli occupation machine. This time, however, after 5 years of no progress despite countless hours of negotiation with the Israeli occupiers and in the face of yet another Gaza massacre, the PA seems to have lost control.

The 48K march (Maan fwiw is reporting more 10,000 protesters — the number 48 represents 1948, the year of the Nakba) is the largest protest that the West Bank has seen in years. And the Israeli response was predictable. As pax-arabica who took part in it reported, no one was armed, but the occupation soldiers killed three Palestinians and injured scores more anyway. The reality is that should this protest develop into a wider uprising against Israeli oppression, there are more deaths to come. 

Despite this barbaric onslaught of zionist aggression, in which entire families are exterminated in one second and people exercising their political rights are cut down, the Palestinian people are remaining steadfast صامدين. Even as our hearts break for their pain, I and so many other Palestinians in the exiled diaspora are so proud and in awe of their strength.