The Holocaust in Gaza
will **never** be forgotten!
Lyrics Regev Baruch
I remember exactly where I was,
what I was doing,
when Yarden Bibas came home.
An Israeli man, all bottled up.
One of the only times I’ve cried in my life
was that day.
I lay on the couch in Kiryat Shalom
and the tears just came.
I broke at the thought of someone
who, after a year and a half in captivity,
a year and a half of fearing death,
gets his freedom back
but not his life.
His home destroyed.
His family murdered.
Nothing will ever be the way it was.
An Israeli man, I’m wired like everyone else.
Wired to feel more easily
for someone from my own tribe,
whose language is my language,
whose history looks like mine.
Shani Louk, Inbar Haiman, Eli Sharabi.
Names, faces, stories
burned into memory.
If they’re the right kind.
There are thousands of Yarden Bibases in Gaza today.
People left as the only survivors
of their entire families.
There are two million Holocaust survivors in Gaza today,
probably fewer by now.
People whose homes were destroyed,
whose loved ones were murdered.
For two years they’ve endured hunger,
bombs,
the constant terror of death.
Waking up every morning knowing
this could be your last day.
Two million men and women,
probably fewer by now,
each with a Holocaust story of their own.
Imad Malak left home
with his wife and children,
left a whole life behind
that will never come back.
Thirty members of his family
were bombed to death.
Lily Loka recorded a podcast in Hebrew
from her tent in a displacement camp,
speaking Hebrew
to the only Israelis willing to listen,
trying to reach out
from the depths of annihilation.
Dr. Adnan Ahmad al-Bursh
was raped to death
in Israel’s detention and torture camps
after being abducted
from al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza.
The charge:
treating sick and wounded Palestinians in Gaza.
Abd al-Muna al-Amr
gathered what was left of his son.
Twenty-three kilos
of mangled human remains
in a bag.
Every person has a name.
Every person has a life story.
And these stories won’t disappear.
They’ll be kept.
They’ll be remembered.
And my taxes,
which today pay for the bombs destroying Gaza,
will one day pay
to build a Palestinian Yad Vashem.
And my children will go there on a school trip
and feel so ashamed.
They won’t understand
how we let it happen.
And how do you explain
what it’s like to live somewhere
where madness has become normal?
How do you explain
that all this time
I pictured myself taking action,
starting things,
making a difference,
when for two years
mostly what I did
was sit at home
and scroll
and scroll,
as if this next swipe
would finally bring the headline
saying the nightmare was over.
The politicians, the generals,
the judges, the journalists,
the pilots, the inciters,
all these criminals
will have to answer for it yet.
His children will be so ashamed.
The Holocaust in Gaza
will **never** be forgotten!
