Here’s what you’re not being told: The most pressing threats to our safety as Jewish students do not come from tents on campus. Instead, they come from the Columbia administration inviting police onto campus, certain faculty members, and third-party organizations that dox undergraduates. Frankly, I regret the fact that writing to confirm the safety of Jewish Ivy League students feels justified in the first place. I have not seen many pundits hand-wringing over the safety of my Palestinian colleagues mourning the deaths of family members, or the destruction of Gaza’s cherished universities.
Please remember Rafah as you talk about US protests for Palestine, the news I'm hearing from people there is nervewracking and it is bringing to mind the early days of the genocide. Please, please remember to focus on them.
When I made this post just ten days ago, it was about mass graves discovered at Al Shifa hospital and now we have learned that the same had happened at Nasser hospital in Gaza. The same genocidal pattern: a hospital is put under siege, patients and medical staff are abducted, tortured and buried in mass graves.
But to build on the last point I wanted to bring attention to in the previous post, it is very crucial to also keep in mind is that the Palestinian Civil Defence have reported that Israel had deliberately concealed the identities of those it killed and buried in these mass graves. Close to 400 bodies have been buried in these mass graves, 58% of the recovered bodies have not been identified.
In a press conference, a spokesperson of the civil defence in Gaza said that Israel had intentionally disfigured the bodies postmortem in order to remove any identifying markers such as birthmarks. He also mentioned that they suspect that the bodies have been placed in body bags that expedited the decomposition process, destroying any possibility of them being identified.
One of the main and only ways families have been able to identify the bodies of their loved ones is through the clothes they remember them wearing the last time they saw them. I saw a video of a mother identifying her son by his striped jacket. You can see the grief mixed with relief that she will be able to give her son proper burial.
Remember when months ago I said that to be identified and buried in Gaza has become a luxury? This is very much still the case.
a15 bail and legal defense fund (supporting community members criminalized in the us for solidarity with palestine)
university of texas at austin students bail fund venmo @ psc_atx (livestream)
columbia students bail fund venmo @ bcabolitioncollective
as of april 15 ct dissenters (new york and connecticut) need bail funs for arrested activists: zelle: [email protected] cashapp: $BristolAntiRacism (use "april gift" in your memo so contributions can be tracked)
the palestine legal defense fund supports acitvists across the united states
palestine legal defence also supplies free legal support for activists
the national bail fund network may update with local bail fund efforts as events continue to unfold
this list is updated as of 24 april 10pm EST. i'll try to update as i find further bail funds and legal supports: if you know of other funds or if information shared here is incorrect, please reblog with updated info (+ a timestamp) so people can give and access support.
i love when tragedies are like “the love was there. it didnt change anything. it didnt save anyone. there were just too many forces against it. but it still matters that the love was there”