It/Its, He/Him | I haven't been here for long, but if there's anything I could possibly share, I want it to be love and fear.
36 posts
Israel is setting up a complex system of checkpoints that will prevent men of “military age” from fleeing Rafah in preparation for its offensive on the southern Gaza border city, a senior western official familiar with Israel’s plans has told Middle East Eye on condition of anonymity. The checkpoints are designed to allow some women and children to leave Rafah ahead of an expected Israeli offensive, but unarmed, civilian Palestinian men will likely be separated from their families and remain trapped in Rafah during an expected Israeli assault. The previously unreported disclosure of Israel’s construction of a ring of checkpoints around Rafah underscores how Israel is pushing ahead with plans to attack the city where over one million displaced Palestinians are sheltering in tents and makeshift camps. The creation of gender-based checkpoints around Rafah would put a spotlight back on Israel’s practice of stripping and forcibly detaining male Palestinian men and children, as it faces rising scrutiny in the West of its conduct in the war. The rounding up of Palestinian males in Gaza and photographing them stripped to their underwear drew condemnation in December, with the US calling the images “deeply disturbing”. Relatives of many of the men photographed recognised them and said they had nothing to do with Hamas. Israel's military was later accused of staging footage of men surrounding weapons. “Israel considers every male a Hamas fighter until proven otherwise,” Abbas Dahouk, a former senior military advisor at the State Department and military attache in the Middle East told Middle East Eye. “It’s not a sound move. Cordoning Rafah is a daunting task and good luck separating fathers and sons from their families.”
$3,064/$30,000
This campaign was started by @/atute_insp on tiktok and her team Mutual Aim to collect money for the DRC, Sudan, and Tigray. The donations will be divided between the three causes. If you would like do donate but don't have the funds to donate to multiple campaigns, this is a great way to help both the Congo, Sudan, and Tigray.
Idk how to write this, but I got caught in the south Brazil floods. My partner and I have been homeless since last Saturday, we've stayed until this Thursday at a shelter, but things were getting worse and worse, and my partner's company paid a hotel stay in another town till the next week or two.
Thursday/Friday on the week before the last (may 2nd and 3rd) we were housing two friends, who were already homeless due to the flood which had just started. They're also both trans and have no family to support them.
Friday morning the power went out and our friends left for a shelter. In the evening, my partner and i went for a walk to check how bad things were, and it was already flooding a mere 3 and a half blocks from our house. On the time it took for us to walk across that block, the water was already covering our feet.
We rushed back home and the street in front of where we live was starting to get covered in water. We carried everything we could to the attic, mostly my art stuff, computer, etc. We originally planned to stay home and survive a couple days until it got better. I barely slept that night because I knew the water was coming, so my brain was on maximum alert. I woke up after 3 hours of sleep, from a dream that I was trying to escape the flood.
When I woke up, we organized a bit more and ate lunch for breakfast. On the time it took for us to eat, the water was already at our doorstep, and we rushed to pack. I had a panic attack as the water rushed into our house, and a police officer rescued us and carried our bags inside a barrel. I only got a few clothes, medication for two weeks, basic hygiene stuff, plushies and some food. My partner got clothes and their laptop. I regret not picking my computer.
We had to swim and waddle through 1.60m+ (5'3") deep water for two blocks. On some places it was probably close to 2m. It felt like an eternity passed while we found our way through the cold water. Some neighbours who were also helping us recommended us a place for shelter. After we crossed a bridge, some person gave us a ride, so at least we didn't have to walk 3km to the shelter.
We got there really early on Saturday, the university which was one of the places being used as a shelter had just opened, so we were able to shower and eat. They also gave us new clothes. As it got more packed, we got help from volunteer psychologists, who gave us a separate room in another floor, since both my partner and I have autism.
I had more panic attacks but we got some help from other volunteers. Things were otherwise fine throughout Sunday and Monday, we managed to shower once more. Stuff started getting worse on Tuesday, as the place went from sheltering some 100-200 people to around 700. We were seeing the psychologists only once a day for a couple minutes and food started getting delayed for hours. Water was also scarce and we started having power outages.
Wednesday we were without food til 4pm, and since we also had pretty much lost access to the psychologists, we accepted the offer from my partner's company to take us to a hotel in another town. Thursday we left for the hotel, I showered for the first time since in four days, had lunch and finally changed my patreon password so I can post from my phone, as I do pretty much everything from my computer. Yesterday and today (friday/saturday, one week later), i finally managed to have computer access on my partner's laptop and log in to tumblr, cohost and so on.
I'm still not sure what we'll do about the future. Our place was rented and all the furniture that belonged to the house will be lost. Our landlord lives in another country and it's almost impossible to contact her. The kitchen and laundry appliances are still underwater and I guess we'll lose all of these. We can't afford to renew a house that isn't ours, and buy new appliances on top of that. We have nowhere to go that's nearby after this is over, no family, and our few friends are worse off. I'm not even sure I'll be able to recover my computer since the roof on the attic is leaky, and there'll be even more rain this weekend.
I feel absolutely crushed inside. Some people have tried to get me art supplies and I did draw a bit on a whiteboard in the classroom we were staying at in the shelter, but it's not the same thing. I can't feel any kind of inspiration knowing I might be completely homeless in two weeks, knowing the only two friends we have here might also be homeless, knowing I might have lost more than 15 years of art and music that were on my computer, that I might have lost thousands of physical drawings and so on. But I'm just trying my best to not think about any of that, so I just feel numb, occasionally I cry and feel anxious. My partner has also been trying to cheer me up since we got to the hotel, but i still feel pretty terrible. I haven't slept more than 5 hours straight in some 10 days. A lot of the time I dissociate and everything feels surreal.
I'll leave my ko-fi here in case anyone wants to donate. I also want to help our two friends with at least 100usd if possible, since they're even more vulnerable than my partner and I. If you have me on discord, please dm me instead and I'll give you my paypal address.
More than 60% of the global population that are classified as the Phase 5 famine/catastrophe level of food insecurity and starvation are in the Gaza Strip right now, and that percentage is projected to increase to 95% by Februrary
"A Child’s View from Gaza" was an art exhibition showcasing drawings created by the children of Gaza.
"The captioned illustrations were created by Palestinian children who lived through the Israeli bombardment of Gaza in 2008-09. The pictures were drawn as part of an effort to help children deal with the horrors they had experienced. A Bay Area nonprofit, Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA), arranged to display a collection of these pictures at the Museum of Children’s Art in Oakland, California. However, under pressure from the Jewish Federation of the East Bay and other organizations, the museum backed out of the agreement at the last minute."
lavender - poecilotheria metallica sling | pink - grammostola porteri | red - grammostola rosea “red” | orange - brachypelma boehmi | yellow - pterinochilus murinus | green - avicularia sp. | turquoise - caribena versicolor sling | blue - lampropelma violaceopes | purple - thrixopelma ockerti