Monday, March 24, 2025

Special Feature: Selected Poems on 50,000 DEATHS in GAZA

(FYI: EuroNews, March 31: Bodies of 15 aid workers discovered in southern Gaza mass grave

Haaretz, April 1UN Recovers 15 Aid Workers' Bodies in Gaza, Say Some Found Bound and Shot

Rescue teams say some victims had their hands tied and were shot at close range, suggesting they were executed.

please bury me
with no casket, no prayers
face down, away
from this shrapnel-filled world:
the note in an aid worker's hand


Haaretz, April 3: Israeli Strike on Gaza City School Leaves 27 Dead, at Least 70 Wounded

a girl convulsing 
on the bloodstained classroom floor
smell of Gaza's  air


slanted moonlight
on a half-collapsed school wall
chalk poppies bloom


FYI: "The Palestinian poppy (Anemone coronaria) is a non-official but more recognizable national symbol of Palestine

And Haaretz, April 8: The killing of 15 humanitarian workers in Rafah sparked global outrage – but on Israeli TV, the real tragedy was the damage to Israel's public image

Following the global uproar, a few Israeli channels grudgingly mentioned the incident, tucking it into the margins of their broadcasts. The focus, of course, wasn't the possibility that Israeli soldiers had committed a horrific war crime, but rather the "damage to Israel's image" caused by the IDF's shifting accounts.


Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CLXXII: "aid workers bound and shot")

anything new 
on the other side of this wall
of indifference ...
15 aid workers bound
and shot at close range)


My Dear Readers:


Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CLXX: "Gaza's are Humans?"

too much to ask YOU 
to see Gazans as humans? 
50, 000 deaths
silenced, forgotten, buried
under the weight of daily life

Haaretz, March 24: Announcement That Death Toll Surpassed 50,000 Didn't Faze Anyone, Not Even in Gaza

Even Gazans aren't preoccupied by the number of dead these days. They're busy with questions of day-to-day survival: Will Israeli attacks become as widespread as they were before the cease-fire? Will all of Gaza be reoccupied? And who will die today or tomorrow?


XVIII: "Rafah"

attacks on Rafah ...
will the sound of bombings 
echo, echoing
in the ears of the World
thousands of miles away



LXXXIX: "smeared sun"

anything new
under Gaza's smeared sun?
smoky rubble
beyond smoky rubble, and yet
again smoky rubble


Haaretz, March 23: Eyal Zamir Is the Israeli Army's First Kahanist Chief of Staff

Zamir even told Israel's ministers that he's capable of bringing about the complete destruction of Hamas' rule in Gaza and its military capabilities – or, in other words, the "total victory" Netanyahu promised.

Haaretz, March 23: Israeli Government Approves Bureau for 'Voluntary Emigration' of Palestinians From Gaza

Defense Minister Katz said the bureau will act to facilitate 'safe and supervised passage' of Gazans to target countries. Ministers also approved the separation of 13 neighborhoods in West Bank settlements, granting them independent settlement status


LXXVI: "Gaza's safe zone"

mule-drawn wagons
wind past one mound of rubble
after another ...
across the bottom of my screen
scrolls the text: from here to nowhere



CXIII: "preparing for settlement in Gaza"

each bombed-out house:
an album with no photos
but with people
living, wounded and dead
pressed between its pages


Haaretz, March 23: A Country That Dehumanizes Millions in Gaza Will Do the Same to Its Own People
Even if it's too late for tens of thousands of Palestinians who were killed, it's still possible to change our ways. This time, not just for the hostages – but to end the slaughter of our neighbors


To conclude today's Special Feature post, I would like to share with you the following poem excerpt :

In the dark times
Will there also be singing?
Yes, there will be singing
About the dark times.

-- Bertolt Brecht (tr. John Willett), "Motto", written during his exile in Denmark in the late 1930s. 


Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CLXXI: "crowded shelter"

crowded shelter
layer within layer 
of hushed silence


FYI: Haaretz, March 27: In One of the Gaza War's Most Horrifying Nights, the Israeli Army Killed Nearly 300 Women and Children

the IDF and the Shin Bet focused this time on civilian and political targets and less on the military wing of Hamas.

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