WE’RE ACCUSTOMED TO THIS

By Eva Bartlett

Yawaadna, she said. We’re used to this.

My young friend, in her early twenties and about 5 months pregnant, called me this evening, after I’d spoken with her husband earlier.

Her voice was tired, at times hard to hear, but she was quietly defiant…as are most in Gaza.
They live in central Gaza, in the same town as the Aqsa hospital which was savagely bombed earlier today, killing at least 4 Palestinians. RT reported:

Four Palestinians have been killed and dozens wounded after an Israeli tank shell hit the third floor of Al-Aqsa hospital in central Gaza, according to a Health Ministry spokesman.

Ashraf Al-Qidra said that the third floor housed an intensive care unit and operating theaters. Other shells had fallen around the hospital, he added, with officials calling on the Red Cross to help evacuate patients.
A doctor at the hospital, Fayez Zidane, told the station that shells hit the third and fourth floor as well as the reception area.
“There is still shelling against the hospital,” he said speaking to AP. He said he found bits of a rocket, presumably from one of the projectiles.
Zidane appealed to the Red Cross and a nearby hospital to send help.
There have been conflicting reports about the number of people injured following the attack. Reuters has put the figure at 16, while AP says 60 have been wounded, including 30 medics.

My lines blur, between activist and freelancer and human being who has loved ones in Gaza. In the Nov 2012 war on Gaza, I was in that very hospital with a dear one, documenting the criminal massacre. And while this documentation is imperative, and there are many Palestinians and some internationals doing so, I selfishly say thank goodness my friend stayed home… although that means little in the end, the Zionist war machine tearing down homes with entire families in them.

The lines which do not blur and which have become more focused are the absolute obligation to support Resistance, who are fighting against foreigners, occupiers, and for the very lives of Palestinians, and in Syria, Syrians, against largely foreign insurgents whose “revolutionary” tactics include: car-bombing civilian areas, mortaring (with insidious mortars packed with bits of jagged metal, glass… whatever will inflict as much pain and damage as possible upon their civilian targets), cutting–often sawing, not enough the luxury of a swift stroke, but instead a jagged blade, a slow and brutal death, stoning to death, using chemical weapons, and if not murdering flogging, cutting off hands…


It’s time to really bring Resistance to the forefront and erode the stigma corporate media and Western governments have tagged them with. They have a legitimate and legally-lauded right to resist.

The countless Syrians I met in Syria, Lebanon and Canada were uniform in their unwavering support of Palestine. Hezbollah has again come out with statements of unwavering support for Palestine.

These, the Resistance, and the medics/rescuers, and the Palestinians resisting in so many ways throughout occupied Palestine and proxy-warred Syria are my heroes and inspiration.