An impassioned plea for common humanity that will not make tonight's BBC news
The main political parties and religions were represented at 'Remembering Gaza' at St John's Church in London, but it was somehow not deemed newsworthy
A significant event took place this evening that, seeing as no national newspaper or broadcasting organisation chose to attend, you are unlikely to see reported on the BBC Ten 0’Clock News or in your papers tomorrow. Still, all the major faiths and political parties were represented — albeit no one from the Government as the minister Lord Khan of Burnley, listed in the programme, pulled out at the last minute — and it amounted to an impassioned cry for common humanity.
The event was entitled ‘Remembering Gaza: a National Commemoration,’ organised by the British Palestinian Families Network, and it was held at the 200-year-old St John’s Church, just across the road from Waterloo Station in London. Attendees included Lord Tariq Ahmad, the Tory peer; the Labour MP Richard Burgon; the Lib Dem Layla Moran; Baroness Warsi, the former Tory cabinet minister who now sits as an independent; in addition to others such as Oxfam’s CEO Halima Begum.
Among the speakers was Khitam Elian who related how a single missile fired by the Israelis into a residential area in Gaza wiped out her entire family. Photographs of those killed — laughing and playful at family events, exuding charm, full of life — were projected onto the screens around the church. ‘How is it you are supposed to cope,’ Khitam asked, ‘with losing your entire family in this way?’
Dr Waseem Sayeed recounted how he had worked with teams of surgeons in what now pass for hospitals in Gaza trying to save the lives of victims and horrific images of some of those he treated were projected. He talked of the ‘courage and strength and the dignity’ of the patients he had attempted, sometimes in vain, to save and concluded his testimony by observing simply: ‘I cannot get how we can accept even one child can be slaughtered in this way.’
‘How could it take months for the British government to call for a ceasefire and even now agree to only a partial suspension of weapon sales to Israel?’
Rabbi Frank Dabba Smith then spoke of how during the First Palestinian Intifada in the Eighties he had been travelling through Gaza on business when his Jeep broke down and a group of Palestinian youths had approached. He spoke of his fear for his safety, but, in the event, the young men fixed his Jeep for him, and, when he offered them money, they smiled and refused. He said he realised that day Islam was ‘a religion of peace’ and he found himself wondering whether the men who had shown him such kindness that day were now still alive.
In her address, Layla Moran said she would make no apology for being political and spoke of how she could not understand how it took months for the British government to call for a ceasefire and even now there has only been a partial suspension of weapon sales to Israel. She added it was no time to despair, but to demand action, including the immediate recognition of the State of Palestine. She wondered how many lives might have been saved — how different things would now be — if politicians around the world had not allowed it to happen.
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