“I want to win this season”
The evil and intimidating snail:
Please do not pass. Stop, watch and post. I need your help and support for me. If you cannot donate, post to your friends. We need you. We are in Gaza. Our situation is catastrophic. We no longer have a home 🏚or a source of livelihood.You have destroyed all our hopes and the dreams of my children. Please help me spread the donation campaign..
Amidst all the images coming out of palestine of death and destruction created by the zionist occupation, i think it is important that we take a moment to remember palestine as it was- seen and captured through the eyes of talented photographers like Shahed @shahednhall and remember exactly what was senselessly lost in the past few months.
This is Al-Azhar university, where Shahed used to study. She was an exemplary student, and used to get regularly invited by her teachers to give lectures.
Since the university was bombed and destroyed by the IOF, all she has left are these pictures. Even through all the violence and death around her though, she still makes sure to keep up with her studies through the university's online programme.
This is a shop Shahed had visited only some time before october. She told me it was run by an artist who painted these beautiful home items, and engraved them by hand with customers names. Shahed had photographed them because they were so eye-catching and beautiful, and had sent the woman her photos so she could use them to promote the shop.
Shahed has told me this shop isnt there any more. She is currently trying to get in touch with the woman who used to run this shop again, but shahed doesn't know if she is even alive or not.
Shahed has an eye for beauty in all things, and it shows in her work and in conversation. It has taken on a different meaning now when so much of everything she knows has been stolen by the occupation from her and other palestinians like her.
In her own words:
"As you know, I like to photograph a lot, everyone liked my photography. I was filming everything because a memory can never come back again. This sentence is not understood by many. I am happy because I photograph everything."
What had been a hobby of collecting moments for her has now become something of an archive of all the things in Palestine that have been lost to the zionist occupation.
Shahed's outlook on her photography tends to colour our conversation as well. She finds it is more productive to talk to me about her hope for a better future, rather than all the bleakness around her right now.
"Yes, because I see inside every picture of new hope, I feel a great motivation that I will survive to see that life is more beautiful than what I live at the moment. I seek to return to a life that is more beautiful than the one we live now, a very difficult life because it has turned black and white."
I don't know how anyone can look at her photos and think of anything but hope
The mainstream media in the west and elsewhere can lie all they like- but we will know always that palestine was and is a land full of beautiful people. Never forget that the death, illness and destruction in palestine today was something imposed upon them by the colonizers, and has been imposed upon them for decades.
Shahed doesn't like to share images of misery with me, but please remember that she and her family are suffering right now. The happy children in the pictures, her little sisters, are suffering from severe hepatitis and are no longer recieving treatment due to overcrowding at what hospitals are left in gaza. Shahed herself has been weak and ill for days, narrowly surviving multiple massacres in just the past few days while trying to get food for her family. They all got displaced just last week due to the intense bombing in khan younis, and in doing so have lost precious funds that could have gone into food and clean water. They are starving.
Shahed is only 21 years old but the responsibility of taking care of all 17 of her family members rests solely on her shoulders.
This gfm was verified and appears on hussein @/el-shab-hussein and nairuz @/nabulsi list of vetted fundraisers (#224) so please dont hesitate to donate whatever you can, and please keep sharing!!!
Take this as a call to action, please repost her her fundraiser in your discord servers, in your whatsapp groups. Repost her photgraphy and share her story on whatever social media you have reach, so that people can help because i really cant get her to her goal in time alone.
Hello dears I hope you are all well please help me!!!
I am Ahmed Halas from the besieged North Gaza, I have created my campaign to help my family and save them from the suffering they are living. Our lives, hopes and ambitions have been destroyed, our livelihood has been destroyed, we have lost dear friends and many relatives, our house has been completely destroyed, we live in a plastic tent in the middle of an UNRWA school and we suffer from the heat of the sun which causes headaches, migraines, body allergies and many diseases. There is no food, water, medicine or basic life requirements and the prices are terribly high, we cannot afford to buy anything.
In the meantime, this fundraising campaign has been started so that people can donate so that we can regain momentum in case the unfortunate circumstances cannot be fixed. Ahmed Halas and his family have already registered and are likely to be called to leave soon. This money is for their evacuation. Let's aim to evacuate them all together!!!
Ahmed's message:
Hello, I am Ahmed from the Gaza Strip, I am still alive after ten months of war. This is my fifth war too. But this war is unlike any other. I am trying to raise money for me and my family, as we are determined to leave to safety while this disaster continues. We want to leave the Gaza Strip towards Egypt through the Rafah crossing and Hala Company.
This was a very difficult decision for me, but this is my fate and the fate of my family. I feel ashamed to ask you to donate enough to save me and my family of 20, most of whom are young children, by raising enough money to reach safety. "Hala Company details are at the bottom of the article." Please participate, even if it is a small part. Donate any small amount, share my photos, share your story, anything that makes a difference. I have complete hope in you and your generosity.
Father Fathi suffers from heart disease, diabetes and high blood pressure, and son Mahmoud suffers from back and cartilage pain, which is why he does not have a medical mattress due to sleeping on the floor, which makes him feel severe pain.
Oh my God, what happened to us, I lost my memories and dreams that I have dreamed of for a long time, my house where I lived my childhood, nothing remained inside it, it was a pile of fire, and I lost my source of livelihood and my baby clothes store was completely destroyed, which led to the accumulation of debts that I was committed to from merchants that I obtained a few days before the current wave of war.
Note: Ahmed will try, when the circumstances are complete and I collect a sufficient amount and I am able to reunite the entire family here in Gaza, by moving my family to a safe place and regaining some comfort or trying to go to Egypt, knowing that the cost per person now is $ 5,000 for an adult and $ 2,500 for a child. The price may fluctuate. Please help us by donating even the simplest things or by participating in our campaign, and I will be grateful to you
no offense but money would solve literally every single one of my problems. like all of them. i dont have a single problem that money wouldnt immediately solve
Dude has a death wish
ok last thing. but what people fundamentally need to get through their heads is the significance of gaza fundraisers not being the same as like mutual aid when you're helping someone get groceries, because it is a genocide. there is insane deliberate scarcity and prices are unmanageable, because there is nowhere nearly enough for everyone, so only people who can pay can eat. and what positioning individual fundraisers as the only course of action does is quite simply give a tiny percentage of random people whose fundraisers take off the ability to pay those prices while thousands of others can't. and every one of those thousands of people without a fundraiser is suffering through the same inconceivably horrific reality. it is giving a few completely desperate people out of hundreds of thousands a slightly more favorable position in a horrific war economy of imposed scarcity. and what grassroots community kitchens do is try to mitigate in some small way that inconceivable hierarchy of who can pay and who can't, by stretching ingredients as far as they can last to cook meals at large scale and give them out at no cost. and obviously people are still going to send money to their friends and families because this is hell what else are we supposed to do but please just think about that before promoting endless individual fundraisers as somehow the most ethical way to help
It's chrimsissmsusms here have a treat
And a little Lunakko on the side since they were the first to get a Christmas episode
Once a little boy went to school. One morning The teacher said: “Today we are going to make a picture.” “Good!” thought the little boy. He liked to make all kinds; Lions and tigers, Chickens and cows, Trains and boats; And he took out his box of crayons And began to draw.
But the teacher said, “Wait!” “It is not time to begin!” And she waited until everyone looked ready. “Now,” said the teacher, “We are going to make flowers.” “Good!” thought the little boy, He liked to make beautiful ones With his pink and orange and blue crayons. But the teacher said “Wait!” “And I will show you how.” And it was red, with a green stem. “There,” said the teacher, “Now you may begin.”
The little boy looked at his teacher’s flower Then he looked at his own flower. He liked his flower better than the teacher’s But he did not say this. He just turned his paper over, And made a flower like the teacher’s. It was red, with a green stem.
On another day The teacher said: “Today we are going to make something with clay.” “Good!” thought the little boy; He liked clay. He could make all kinds of things with clay: Snakes and snowmen, Elephants and mice, Cars and trucks And he began to pull and pinch His ball of clay.
But the teacher said, “Wait!” “It is not time to begin!” And she waited until everyone looked ready. “Now,” said the teacher, “We are going to make a dish.” “Good!” thought the little boy, He liked to make dishes. And he began to make some That were all shapes and sizes.
But the teacher said “Wait!” “And I will show you how.” And she showed everyone how to make One deep dish. “There,” said the teacher, “Now you may begin.”
The little boy looked at the teacher’s dish; Then he looked at his own. He liked his better than the teacher’s But he did not say this. He just rolled his clay into a big ball again And made a dish like the teacher’s. It was a deep dish.
And pretty soon The little boy learned to wait, And to watch And to make things just like the teacher. And pretty soon He didn’t make things of his own anymore.
Then it happened That the little boy and his family Moved to another house, In another city, And the little boy Had to go to another school.
The teacher said: “Today we are going to make a picture.” “Good!” thought the little boy. And he waited for the teacher To tell what to do. But the teacher didn’t say anything. She just walked around the room.
When she came to the little boy She asked, “Don’t you want to make a picture?” “Yes,” said the little boy. “What are we going to make?” “I don’t know until you make it,” said the teacher. “How shall I make it?” asked the little boy. “Why, anyway you like,” said the teacher. “And any color?” asked the little boy. “Any color,” said the teacher. And he began to make a red flower with a green stem.
~Helen Buckley, The Little Boy