Mohammed’s tent in Gaza got drenched in the rain and nobody is contributing to his and his family’s welfare. His rent is due and he has no job, and he can’t pay his rent without overseas contributions.
Perhaps we don’t contribute because we can’t afford to. Fuel prices have gone up, but our wages remain the same. Iran takes precedence. The invasions Israel is currently perpetrating go, in order of importance, Iran, then Lebanon, then Gaza.
Iran is among the top 10 stories; the prime minister of Australia even addressed the nation about it. Lebanon is the number two invasion, but it’s not in the news because the media doesn’t have a spine.
Gaza has tertiary status, even though Israel’s war is continuing.
I went to a Coles supermarket yesterday; it has installed surveillance from Palantir, the same company that scanned Mohammed two years ago and jailed and tortured him. I needed some things for dinner and, while I was trying not to get extra stuff for my camping trips, the little tins of tuna were discounted and I got two.
I’m a demon at the self check-out. I even scan my groceries in order of weight and robustness, so my bag is packed for minimal damage to the coriander on the trip home. I’m a pro. Too much so.
Yesterday, I threw the last of my groceries into my bag — the two tins of tuna — and a notice came on the screen.
I was ready to pay but I couldn’t because the red light was on and an assistant needed to take the notice off my screen with her touch card. We both reviewed that little video of me scanning the last two things in my bag, which were my two tins of tuna.
We watched it in full view of everybody else. It was like having your work queried by the teacher in front of the whole class. It was a humiliation ritual. I know about these.
I wrote about Mohammed’s experiences in Gaza. Mohammed is a clinical nutritionist. He helps people unclog their arteries by eating better food. He’s all about fresh fruit and vegetables. He used to have his own mango and guava orchard in Beit Hanoun, before it got bulldozed by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).
The IDF is known to target medical personnel as part of its genocide in Gaza. If you want to destroy a country, or an occupied territory in the case of Gaza, kill the journalists and doctors. This is what the Israelis did. But you don’t read much about it here anymore.
Mohammed, his wife, kids and two disabled sisters were displaced by the IDF 11 times.
You might wonder why the IDF moved people such a lot; it was humiliating people. It was forcing starving people to do hard, physical labour to further weaken them. It was making people leave their possessions so they had less to sustain them. But the main reason was to force everyone to walk through checkpoints.
Not dissimilar to the checkout at Coles, the checkpoint Mohamed and his family went through had Palantir systems scanning people.
Mohammed was singled out and carved off from the group. His wife, kids and sisters emerged on the other side of the checkpoint, but he didn’t, as he was detained. He was beaten, had his shoulder broken and his back injured; he was starved, deprived of light and sound, terrified (the guy next to him died when he was blindfolded), sexually humiliated, held without charge and eventually, after five weeks, released back to his family with a thick beard and a bad case of post-traumatic stress disorder.
You don’t want that to happen to anyone.
Three years ago, Mohammed was living in a four-storey house with a massive orchard. Today, he’s in a wet tent with his rent due.
I’ll leave you with a quote from him: “It happened to me. It happened to me, and it can happen to you, too.”
That is why, in spite of everything, you should care about what is happening to the people in Gaza.
[If you can contribute to Mohammed’s Chuffed account, this is the link.]