What to say when you’ve run out of words?

It’s relatively easy to report on the news in Gaza: this is today’s death toll, that is the number of injured. This hospital is under attack, that university campus was blown to smithereens. Here is a genocidal statement from a high-ranking member of Israel’s government, there is brutal attack on a humanitarian aid delivery. The percentage of Gazan homes destroyed, the percentage of Gazan children with acute malnutrition, the number of days people have been eating animal feed or bird seed. Another delivery of weapons from the US, another demand for Israel to “exercise restraint.”

I try to maintain a professional distance as I report on these daily occurrences – inside, I’m seething, enraged, but outside, I’m stone-faced. Get through the day. Write the report.

Once I hit “Publish” and shrug off my writer persona, then the really hard work begins.

I check in with my nephew Musa via WhatsApp. “How are you doing? How is the family? I read that there was an attack on Nuseirat overnight” (the refugee camp where they live).

He sends me photos and videos like this:

This is what happened overnight, a block or two away.

A week or two back, his mother narrowly escaped being crushed in this house, where she was visiting:

Everyone else in the house was killed.

Musa told me the other day that Israel bombed a warehouse that was used to distribute aid. Immediately people rushed inside, some to help the wounded or remove the martyrs, others to steal the food – because they were literally starving.

Once he sent me this video of him making a meal:

Three cans of beans and one can of stewed tomatoes for twenty-five people.

I check with my niece, Horea. She used to be talkative and enthusiastic. She was finishing up her Master’s thesis when the war started. Her university is rubble now. I ask her on if she is okay. Many days, she has nothing to say – she just responds with a heart emoji.

One day, she just sent me a list of the names of all 133 Palestinian journalists who have been killed.

A few days ago, she opened up:

“We are nine family members living in one room. We sleep, eat, wash the dishes, and prepare food in the same room. The most important thing is that we be together, because if we die, we will die together. This brutal war has exhausted us greatly. We have become old.”

And in these moments, I have no words. What can I say? “I hope the war ends soon”? “Be safe”? “I’m sorry your whole family is starving, and your life has been shattered, and your future has been obliterated”?

What would you say? No, really. What would you say if a loved one told you what Horea told me? I have trouble coming up with much more than broken heart emojis.

Here’s someone else who has no words – but for a different reason:

Why can’t he answer the question?

Why do we even have to ask the question?

And…how many other people feel this way? Do you feel this way?

Would Jesus have trouble answering this question?

How would it feel to be a Palestinian watching this scene unfold?

Two more groups that can’t usually won’t stop talking, but on this topic, can’t seem to find words: politicians and lobbyists. When they do have words, they’re irrelevant. This is three minutes of must-see videos from our nation’s capitol.

"I'm the daughter of a Holocaust survivor… it anguishes me that my people are pursuing a genocide."

This @AIPAC lobbyist all but ignored us and asked the cops to stop us from talking to him. pic.twitter.com/yu7m7NsYR3

— CODEPINK (@codepink) March 12, 2024

At lunch, we asked @AIPAC lobbyists to think about the children in Gaza who Israel is intentionally starving.

When we showed them photos, they tore them up.

It must be uncomfortable to be confronted with the war crimes you're supporting. pic.twitter.com/JZMB1VuQfR

— CODEPINK (@codepink) March 12, 2024

If you have words to share with your political representatives – words like “ceasefire,” perhaps, or “stop the genocide” – please contact them:

Reach your Representative here 

Reach your Senator here.

Email President Biden and VP Harris here.

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READ MORE ABOUT PALESTINE ON PATHEOS:

Posts about my Gazan family (in chronological order):