October 19, 2023

Several hundreds of us gathered at the Vancouver City Hall for a vigil tonight to mark the thousands of lives lost in the current assault on Gaza by Israeli forces.We gathered together, without the thought of our differences, but in the unified understanding that humanity is at risk with every Palestinian who loses their life caught within an endless cycle of state-led madness. We gathered to confront our government and all of those other allies of Israel, who wish to turn away from the war crimes that are currently and have been continually perpetrated by Israel against Palestinian lives. We gathered because earlier this week it was reported that a bomb fell on the Al Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza killing hundreds, and just before then the UNRWA school in Al Maghazi refugee camp was bombed, leading the UN to declare that these crimes against humanity are escalating to full scale ethnic cleansing. We gathered because we are all witnessing a genocide take place as our governments are standing lock step with Israel. While our media news outlets tell us other stories about an equivalence of violence, the rights for the Israeli state to defend itself, at the same time this media does not tell us that the fuel shortage in Gaza is so extreme that the ambulances are unable to carry injured and dying away, Palestinians are without food to eat, without electricity and without running water.  We gathered today because we can’t just be at home watching the unravelling of our world alone, we witness together, we stand together, we chant together. We gather because our governments misrepresent our voices, they do not speak for us. We gathered because as each of the speakers at tonight’s vigil reminds us “Palestine will be Free from the River to the Sea!”

Davina Bhandar