My grandmother Naifa al-Sawada was born in June 1932.
A beautiful girl with blue eyes, she was the only daughter to her parents. They were originally from Gaza but moved to nearby Bir al-Saba, where Naifa’s father Rizq worked as a merchant.
She did well at school and in 1947 obtained the necessary certificate from the British – then the rulers of Palestine – to attend university.
She did not do so, however. Her father was fearful about what could happen to her at a time when war in Palestine appeared imminent.
At a young age, she married my grandfather Salman al-Nawaty and went to live in Gaza.
Between 1947 and 1949, Zionist forces expelled approximately 800,000 Palestinians from their homes.
Among those directly affected by the Nakba – Arabic for catastrophe – were Naifa’s own parents, who fled their home in Bir al-Saba for Gaza.
Having witnessed the Nakba, Naifa encouraged her own children to defend Palestine.
Naifa gave birth to four girls and six boys.Like so many mothers in Gaza, she experienced great loss.
Her son Moataz went missing while traveling to Jerusalem in 1982. It is still not known what happened to him.
Another son Moheeb, a journalist, left Palestine for Norway in 2007. Three years later he traveled to Syria.
In January 2011, he went missing.
The Syrian authorities subsequently confirmed to the Norwegian diplomatic service that he was imprisoned. But he has not been allowed to contact his family.We do not know his current whereabouts or even if he is alive or dead.
My grandmother witnessed the first intifada from 1987 and 1993.
On the streets around her, youngsters with stones and slingshots rose up against armed Israeli soldiers in tanks and military jeeps.
During that time, her son Moheeb – the aforementioned journalist – was held for more than a year without charge or trial. That infamous practice is called administrative detention.
My grandmother lived close to al-Shifa, Gaza’s largest hospital.
She took great care of arranging everything in her home with her delicate hands. She used those same hands to comb her hair into braids.
She memorized the Quran and took great interest in the education of her children and grandchildren.
On 21 March this year, Israeli troops broke into my grandmother’s home.
The soldiers displayed immense brutality.
They ordered the women in our family to evacuate on foot and arrested the men. They would not allow the women to take my grandmother, who had Alzheimer’s disease, with them.
The soldiers claimed that my grandmother would be safe. That was a lie.
The invasion of my grandmother’s house took place amid Israel’s siege on al-Shifa hospital.
My grandmother’s house was destroyed during that siege and she was killed. Her remains were found days after the Israeli troops eventually withdrew from the hospital earlier this month.
She was killed – alone – in the same house where she had lived since 1955.
We do not know if she suffered or if she died quickly.
We do know that she was older than Israel’s merciless occupation.
i love joedoughboi's remake of the 2011 sonic.exe game & i'm also hopped up on monster so i did this!! i personally think it turned out great!
i made the edit myself, but the artwork is by joedoughboi and the background is from the og game iirc. the music is also by mihealkyeah ksjn on youtube!
based on an interpretation of the tails doll i wrote up. (read from left to right, context under the cut)
basically, a little boy named jacob wished he was real so much that the tails doll actually became real. he acted as a guardian to jacob, but the his mom found out that the tails doll could move by itself...scared to death that he was a malevolent poltergeist, she wanted to protect her son and burned the tails doll. it left the jacob devastated to the point where he isolated himself for weeks...
eventually, tails doll's body reassembled from the ashes. the first thing he did was check on his owner through his window to see him sobbing his heart out...this made the tails doll resolve to kill jacob's mother for making him so miserable. that's only a little bit of the story but i hope you guys like it so far!!
An all-in-one, fully interactive, faux retro desktop theme with a tiny built-in audio player.
Features:
60+ options
All-in-one theme including an inbox with an optional FAQ section, a navigation page with up to 15 custom links, a profile page, a blogroll and a plain custom tab
the most minimal “windows” theme i made. i made super cool captions, along with asks & audio posts. example in previews. lots of color options for those who are particular about certain areas of your theme. 3 links & redirect option. optional 250px or 400px. there’s lots of options in this theme. extra notes in the theme code! enjoy if you use, and message as always for issues.
here's reimi sugimoto from jjba with a sign, feel free to put whatever you want on it (as long as it's not racist, homophobic, transphobic, proship, etc.)
i think i did an amazing job at blending my style with araki's, it was my first attempt, too!