The greatest tribute we can pay to Hind Rajab and the 14,000 other Palestinian children slaughtered in Gaza these past 10 months is to sustain the powerful international solidarity movement for Palestine that has emerged in countries across the world, calling for a ceasefire.
There have been three broad responses to the genocide in Gaza. The first is the craven complicity of western states in supplying arms and finance to Israel and providing diplomatic cover. The second is the silent complicity of the handwringers who have looked away from, and refused to condemn or oppose, the daily atrocities enveloping Gaza, such as the killing of Hind and her family. The third has been the tireless non-violent activism in civil society across the world, such as the student encampments on campuses in the US or the trade unionists who have refused to produce and transport arms to Israel.
Reading Owen Jones’s moving tribute to Hind (Hind Rajab’s death has already been forgotten. That’s exactly what Israel wants, 18 August) reminded me of the words of the trade union organiser Mary “Mother” Jones: we must “mourn the dead, and fight like hell for the living”. Together we can end this war and ensure justice and dignity for the Palestinians.
Stephen McCloskey
Director, Centre for Global Education, Belfast
• There is no horror worse than a mother talking on the phone to her child, unable to help her as she bleeds to death after been fired on by an Israeli tank, while aid workers are delayed, then fired on and killed when they are eventually arrive at the scene of carnage. The Al Jazeera documentary The Night Won’t End documents this massacre and others, and is so disturbing that I almost implore people not watch it even as I tell them about it.
Nothing I have seen captures the hell that Gaza is at the hands of Israel Defense Forces attacks like this documentary does. Challenge anyone claiming that Israeli forces are taking care to minimise civilian casualties to watch it. If it doesn’t change their mind, nothing will. The fact that my tax dollars are supporting these horrors is sickening, but I see little hope of a shift in policy as it remains political suicide almost everywhere in the US to be openly critical of even what happened to Hind Rajab.
Gary Stewart
Laguna Beach, California, US
• Owen Jones’s article is a difficult, stark read. Benjamin Netanyahu acts with impunity while his allies remain impotent. The war will only stop when he has had his fill, leaving in his wake an unprecedented civilian death toll. The total disregard for civilian deaths from targeted strikes is a war crime. The stock Israel Defense Forces response of “we will investigate the circumstances” is an insulting lie. Netanyahu, the IDF and the Israeli government must be held to account for these atrocities, just as Hamas must answer for the October atrocities.
Joe Herd
Kilmaurs, East Ayrshire
• Ineffectual despair is how those of us aware of events such as the killing of five-year-old Hind Rajab feel. Unfortunately, these cases are not always widely publicised, or I am sure there would be a groundswell of condemnation. The UK’s refusal to end arms sales to Israel makes us complicit in these actions and destroys our standing as a civilised country. Much respect to Mark Smith, the Foreign Office diplomat who resigned over his concerns being ignored about continued arms sales to Israel.
Mary Kenny
Weobley, Herefordshire
• Owen Jones may be right that the Israeli government and its supporters have forgotten Hind Rajab, but none of us who pray, march, write, hold vigils and talk to others to raise awareness of what is happening in Palestine will ever do so. This is the placard I am still embroidering, carrying her story to the next national demonstration on 7 September, and into the future.
Nicola Grove
Warminster, Wiltshire
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