5 Names to Remember

I have adopted a personal spiritual discipline in this time of genocide: Every day I call to mind and heart the names of 5 Gazans, and vow to remember them. I chose these particular Gazans because their stories moved me deeply, and because they represent and symbolize thousands just like them. Remembering their names and their stories keeps me from succumbing to psychic numbing. Choosing to remember them keeps me from losing my humanity in a haze of forgetting. Remembering them helps me hold the crushing sadness and terrible injustice of what happened to them and thousands upon thousands of others. As overwhelming as this is, I ask you to bear with me as I briefly recount their stories, and invite you to join with me in remembering them.

Hind Rajab – a 5-yr-old girl in the Gaza Strip who was killed on January 29, 2024 by the Israeli military, along with six members of her family and the two paramedics who attempted to came to her rescue. Hind and her family were fleeing Gaza City when their vehicle was shelled. Her aunt and uncle and three cousins were killed in the initial attack. Her surviving cousin contacted the Palestinian Red Crescent Society pleading for their help. An Israeli tank attacked the car again, killing Hind’s cousin, and leaving Hind stranded in the vehicle for hours on the phone. Her plaintive, increasingly desperate cries for help can be heard on the recording, but help did not arrive in time to save her. Forensic analysis showed that 355 Israeli tank rounds were fired on the family’s vehicle, with tank operators able to see that the vehicle had children in it. I will remember Hind Rajab. She is one of over 17,000 children who have been killed by the Israeli military using American weapons. This horrific incident was a war crime, one of multiple war crimes committed by the state of Israel against innocent children, not to mention the emotional scars and shattered psyches the surviving children will have to live with for the rest of their lives, many of them without surviving family to support them.

Prof. Refaat Alareer – was murdered by Israeli invaders in Shujaiya, in northern Gaza on December 6, 2023. Refaat was an author and a professor who taught English Literature at Islamic University in Gaza. Refaat was an amazing teacher, introducing his students to Hebrew poetry and challenging them to make use of the world’s great literature to give meaning to the violent, chaotic lives forced upon them, to keep the external violence “from consuming them internally.” I will remember Refaat Alareer. He is emblematic of the heroic resistance of so many Gazans, their longing for their freedom, and their deep humanity. He also stands as a reminder of the Palestinian love of education, and their high literacy rate (98%). Israel has destroyed all 12 universities in Gaza and over 80% of the schools. The term for this war crime is “scholasticide.” Refusing to be silenced, preschool, elementary, and secondary teachers, as well as university scholars, continue teaching in tents. Days before the bombing that took his life, Alareer penned the following poem:

If I must die,

you must live

to tell my story

to sell my things

to buy a piece of cloth

and some strings,

(make it white with a long tail)

so that a child, somewhere in Gaza

while looking heaven in the eye

awaiting his dad who left in a blaze –

and bid no one farewell

not even to his flesh

not even to himself –

sees the kite, my kite you made, flying up

above

and thinks for a moment an angel is there

bringing back love

If I must die

let it bring hope

let it be a tale

Hussam Abu Safiya – was the medical director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza. For weeks, the hospital was bombed and shelled, and yet Dr. Abu Safiya, a pediatrician, dubbed “the hero in scrubs,” refused to abandon his patients and medical staff. He sustained severe injuries, and lost his young son who was deliberately targeted by the Israelis because Dr. Abu Safiya would not leave his patients. On December 27, 2024, Israeli forces stormed the hospital one last time, starting a fire and burning it down. The Israeli soldiers emptied the hospital, ordering all the patients and medical personnel out of the hospital. An iconic photograph was widely circulated, showing Dr. Abu Safiya in his white lab coat walking alone through the hospital ruins approaching an Israeli tank. At gunpoint, the doctors and nurses were ordered to strip naked in the cold. Dr. Abu Safiya was abducted and taken to Israel’s notorious Sde Teiman prison, notorious for its brutality and torture. Dr. Abu Safiya’s fate is currently unknown, and there is an international campaign to save him. Dr. Abu Safiya’s harrowing story underscores the fact that Israel is systematically dismantling the health infrastructure of the Gaza Strip. Most of the hospitals have been destroyed or rendered inoperative, leaving only two or three partially functioning hospitals remain to serve over 2 million people, thousands of them injured or sick with disease, and virtually all of them hungry and homeless. According to the World Health Organization, over 1,000 Palestinian health care workers have been murdered since October 2023. Destroying hospitals and killing healthcare workers are grave violations of international humanitarian law. I will remember Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya.

Wael Dahdouh – Al Jazeera bureau chief Wael Dahdouh is the journalist who was reporting live from Gaza on October 28, 2023, when he learned an Israeli airstrike had killed his wife, son, daughter, grandson, and at least eight other relatives. Astoundingly, he kept reporting. Due to the fact that American and western media outlets have been prohibited by the government of Israel from reporting from within Gaza, millions of Americans and Europeans have no idea of the immense suffering, the scale of the death and destruction that the families of Gaza have been experiencing for over 450 days. It is largely Palestinian journalists who have risked their lives daily to bring accurate reporting from the epicenter of the cataclysmic violence. We owe them an immeasurable debt of gratitude for getting the truth out for the world to see. Determined to hide the truth, Israel has killed over 180 journalists, many of them deliberately targeted while wearing their PRESS vests. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, this is an unprecedented number. This is another staggering violation of international humanitarian law. I will remember Wael Dahdouh.

Shaban al-Dalou – was a 19-yr.-old software engineering student at Al-Azhar University in Gaza. He and his family had been displaced from their home and were struggling to survive. He filmed videos of himself, his family, and their dire circumstances, and posted them online in hopes of raising enough money to get his family out of Gaza. Shaban’s final moments were filmed on October 15, 2024. Connected to an IV drip, he was burned alive along with his mother after Israeli forces bombed the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah. Shaban’s endearing smile and bright eyes showed a young Palestinian man full of talent and dreams tragically cut short by genocidal violence. Shaban symbolizes the boundless potential of the Palestinian people and their relentless thirst for life and dignity. I will remember Shaban al-Dalou.