NEW: Arsenal Fired Me Over Palestine – Now I’m Suing [Subscribe now][1] Former Arsenal kit manager Mark Bonnick describes his ordeal after being sacked by Arsenal following 22 years at the club, after pro-Israel campaigners accused him of antisemitism despite the Football Association reportedly informing Arsenal that he had not breached any FA rules. Mark is joined by his legal representative, the human rights barrister at Garden Court Chambers, Franck Magennis. [1]: https://www.palestinedeepdive.com/subscribe? https://www.palestinedeepdive.com/p/new-arsenal-fired-me-over-palestine

Survival outside Gaza was a lie Abubaker Abed in Dublin, Ireland. Lying with my shaking, fragile body on a dilapidated mattress under my favourite blue blanket in our house’s guest room, I video-called my friend Abdul-Ruhman Ismail to bid farewell and make some final memories before I set foot outside Gaza for the first time in my life. He was inconsolable. Behind his cheerful façade lay an ocean of pain and loss: this was the first time we would be apart in over 12 years. “I’ll see you in an hour and a half at the roundabout [in Deir al-Balah], from where we will head off. For now, I’ll spend some time with my family and pack up my belongings,” I told him before hanging up. My mother came to sit beside me, trying to lighten the hardship of leaving. Her face blanched; her eyes burned with sadness and agony. She was no longer the same mother I had known my entire life. I held her hand tightly and said, choking with sorrow, “I am leaving because I want to see you safe and happy all the time. I don’t want to endanger you anymore. I am going to be fine and I promise we’ll meet sooner than we imagine. Please don’t shed a tear because if you do, I will stay.” She replied, with a broken expression, “May you find peace and joy in your next journey.” [Subscribe now][1] Minutes later, the sounds of explosions reverberated through the calls to the dawn prayers. I paused at the window, breathing in the gunpowder-polluted dawn breeze. I knew this would be the last time I’d hear these ugly sounds of death in Gaza for a while. The clock was ticking. My mother was rushing me to hurry up and get ready. I took my four pens, my journalistic notebook, two sets of clothes, and my personal documentation and squeezed them into my travel bag. We were only permitted to bring one small bag, although I wish I could have brought much more. I felt that possessions from home could soften the impact of this imposed exile. But the occupation wanted us stripped of everything. ### *Saying Goodbye* I dressed, performed the dawn prayers, and took photos with each member of my family and of every room of our home. I had no idea what would happen next, but I stayed hopeful. My home was pregnant with a heavy silence before we made our last, but hopefully not final, goodbye. The fear that I would be detained by the occupation ate at our hearts as I hugged everyone tight. A taxi we had reserved days in advance was waiting outside to take me to the assembly point downtown. My father, two brothers, and my two friends Khalid and Ismail came with me. I took a long, hard look at my house, my neighbourhood, and the olive and palm trees. I wanted the images fixed in my brain. I whispered to myself, “I will return. I definitely will.” My mother came downstairs barefoot, her headscarf barely hanging on her head and tears filling up her eyes. I looked at her and reiterated my promise to her: “I will return. I will see you in a short time. I want you to smile, mommy.” But I doubt she could make out my attempt at a smile with her tearful eyes peering through the cracked car windows. We met Ismail at the assembly point and took more photos. We exchanged laughs and smiles as we tried to lighten the mood and deny the enormity of what was happening. Then I boarded the bus that would take me outside Gaza for the first time in my 22 years. We travelled through historic Palestine, the first time I had seen my occupied and defiled homeland with my own eyes, to the Israeli-controlled Karm Abu-Salem border with Jordan. There, I spent the night with other Palestinians from Gaza, mostly students, who had been given the same opportunity as me to escape the genocide. The next day, I took a plane to Turkey for a layover before arriving at my final destination of Dublin, Ireland. It was 18 April 2025. ### *Forced Adaptation* The genocide was continuing at the time. I had experienced the whole horror from the beginning - and at some point I stopped feeling sane. The only time I felt my old self was for a brief moment when the October 2025 ceasefire was announced. But the process of adapting to Ireland has not been easy. In fact, adjusting to my new existence has been utterly tortuous. Speaking a foreign language all the time, meeting and trying to connect with new people, and endeavouring to understand a new and alien culture, have exhausted my emotional energy. In normal times, this would have been exciting, but with the weight of my trauma-marked brain and fears of what might happen to my family and friends still in Gaza, it has been a struggle, to say the least. In reality, my mind and my soul never left Gaza. It was just my physical body that moved. There was a brief moment at the start when I felt like I had been taken from hell to heaven, but the initial euphoria quickly dissipated. One thing that kept me going through this all was that I knew I had to continue advocating for my homeland and amplifying my people’s voices despite the innumerable obstacles. I felt this responsibility heavy on me, and there was no time to rest. But, despite throwing myself into work and immersing myself in the pro-Palestine movement in Ireland, I still always feel like an alien. In many ways I am. I am away from my family and navigating a totally new, different life. At the same time, my mission is to prove to people composed of the same blood and skin as me that my people deserve to live like them, with dignity and basic rights. This mission has never felt normal - and, of course, it should not be. Walking in the streets of Dublin, pausing by the winding Liffey river, beholding the gorgeous scenery of the city—none of it moved me or took me away from the continuing genocide of my people. I was striving to steal a moment of joy or happiness, but my heart was turned off. The overriding emotion was, and is, numbness. What I have seen in Gaza seems to have frozen the blood in my veins. But what hurt the most was observing the people around me. I couldn’t comprehend how friends would walk and laugh in the street, drinking a Coke, while tens of thousands of people were murdered in Gaza. I couldn’t understand how people went out to a McDonald’s to enjoy a meal while kids were starving to death in my hometown, or how university students would walk happily back home from their classes while all universities in the Strip were reduced to rubble. How was everyone getting on with their lives as if nothing was happening? I asked myself, “How and why can people do this? Are all the protests for Palestine on TV and social media just a façade? What if, God forbid, one of their loved ones was killed or injured? Would they be able to carry on living in such a way?” ### *Alien Life* I couldn’t answer these questions, but I was intent on understanding. As my advocacy for Gaza intensified, I was speaking at the huge Palestine marches in Dublin as well as solidarity conferences in different Irish towns. I even visited the UK and Greece while giving various addresses to people online, including Americans and Canadians. Gaza is in me - and I cannot help comparing the outside world to home. In Dublin, every morning, the streets are inundated with people rubbing the sleep from their eyes and dashing to their workplaces. There are buses and trains transporting students to their universities and schools, and seagulls screeching across the waters. Not once did I see an old man or woman carrying heavy things and someone come to help them. Never did someone in their car stop to take me back home as I was drowning in a downpour. Rarely have I observed youngsters taking care of or accompanying their parents. I haven’t witnessed parents playing with their kids or spending enough time with them either. Everyone is busy with their phones instead. The elderly are like autumn leaves here, fragile and breakable. Adults are hamsters in a wheel. Youths are exploited as robots. Children raised by screens. Everyone seemed busy surviving, but not living. All that I saw was a favour or a service in return for money. Nothing is free. These scenes broke my heart and opened my eyes to the shackles imposed by capitalism which turns people into individualistic and materialistic machines. I realised that people in the West are physically free but mentally occupied. They can’t think beyond survival and making more money. ### *Real survival* The idea of “survival” I had imagined in Gaza was incomplete. No one told me how people must work ten hours a day to survive, how they must spend years paying off their debts, how they are ensnared in invisible slavery, or how they are being dragged off to prison for criticising Israel or speaking their mind. In Gaza, I always spoke my mind: I excoriated my killers and their partners and supported my people’s right to self-defence and the resistance fighters every chance I could. I never thought twice about that despite the constant bombardment overhead. Outside Gaza, I was being warned not once or twice but countless times about what I should say or how I should act. In pre-genocide Gaza, despite the crippling blockade, one day’s work could feed my family and me the entire month, healthcare was free in hospitals, and people would voluntarily stop to help me all the time without even asking for it. This wasn’t because resources are plentiful but because we believe in community and see ourselves as one. During the genocide, I was hearing the barbarians telling me about the merits of “civilisation” and the tyrants teaching me about so-called “democracy”. The world is upside down. Nations that claim to represent democracy and civilisation engage in acts of horrific terrorism and barbarism, including genocide, while nations that are deemed uncivilised are the ones that stand up for these ideals. ### *Silent Control* Outside Gaza, my posts are monitored. My words are surveilled. At home, I didn’t fear death for saying the truth. But outside Gaza, I have to diligently choose my words and carefully curate my posts. “You can’t say that”; “Choose your words when you speak on Wednesday”; and, “Don’t ever bring the genocide into the conversation.” I still remember these different orders I received before speaking at events across the West. Even some events were not filmed or publicised in case I said something that was deemed too “risky”. Others were cancelled. I was due to travel to the US in August last year but was put on a watch list by the Trump administration and labeled as a “terror-supporting” journalist, so I had to cancel. This is all because I supported an internationally enshrined right: The right to resist an illegal occupation. So, is this actually the democracy they told me about? Wasn’t I repeatedly told that Gaza was a graveyard for freedom of speech and that it must be freed from Hamas “tyranny”? None of it adds up. [Subscribe now][2] It was a surreal experience watching the UK government lock up elderly and disabled people for holding placards opposing a genocide, then reading about hundreds of people shackled up and deported from the US over some old posts. In Germany, I saw police officers manhandling and degrading women. This was the “free” West. The “civilised” West that gives billions of dollars for Israel to continue its genocide in Gaza and mass murder of innocent civilians across the region. I no longer call them “democracies” because what they have done is more reminiscent of authoritarian dictatorships of the past. I also find it astonishing that there isn’t a single Western government that doesn’t financially or militarily back Israel. It is astounding that even though every country has a diverse political spectrum and a wide range of opinions, they never disagree on supporting Israel. The Democratic and Republican parties in the US may quarrel with each other over free health care and LGBTQ+ rights, but never on Israel. Labour and Reform politicians have been shouting at each other non-stop around the recent elections but not about stopping arms sales to Israel. There is a secret here that no one can dispute: these nations’ elections are a deceptive charade in which voters have farcical rights to cast ballots in elections where the same people win whoever is voted into power. ### *Inner War* Every trip I took on my journey was exhausting and cumbersome. Aerophobia is always present. A feeling of terror and trauma hits me whenever I even see a plane. They remind me of the warplanes that wiped out the entire families of my cousin and aunt - and razed my neighbourhood to the ground. Every time I met new people, my heart got more vulnerable and my mind got more fatigued. My heart is still beating at home. My head only thinks about my family. A minute of news on the radio has always been capable of destroying everything. The constant anxiety this produces is insurmountable. How can I even feel sane when I attend prayers in Dublin and London’s mosques and there is no mention of Gaza? How can I believe there is a Muslim ummah when they drink, eat, and have fun while an entire population is being slaughtered and caged as animals? And what can I say about the thousands of Palestinians in the diaspora who were sharing their trips and food images on social media while people were being mass murdered while queuing up for food at GHF sites in Gaza. The contradictions, the separation between two worlds, which are both still human, are driving me insane. More fundamentally, it makes me wonder if there is any hope for humanity. ### *Endless Nights* Every other day, nightmares jolt me awake — visions of bombings, of being killed, of eating pet food again, and losing the people I love. I grit my teeth whenever I watch the news. Sometimes I weep, and I weep for hours. My heart feels like a shattered jar, filled with conflicting emotions. I feel guilty whenever someone is killed or wounded in Gaza. I feel constant fear for my family. I feel ashamed when I drink pure water and eat good food. I feel homesick whenever I walk outside or behold the beauty of nature. I feel remorseful and angry that I took the agonising decision to leave my family behind. I miss my parents deeply. More than anything, I want to be with them again. This sense of longing has followed me all year. Nothing in this exhausting, superficial life—layered with fear and trauma and dehumanising work—ever relieved my pain. The promise of freedom and survival is a mirage which always disappears when I reach for it. I have been emotionally dead, which has also physically devastated me. Survival is never only physical. Freedom is also not wholly a physical condition. It is also mental. In Gaza, death may have been raining on me, but I felt like a true survivor — my mind was not colonised. In exile, I am now fighting for the dignity and freedom of my mind more than anything. [1]: https://www.palestinedeepdive.com/subscribe? [2]: https://www.palestinedeepdive.com/subscribe? https://www.palestinedeepdive.com/p/survival-outside-gaza-was-a-lie

Eid Beneath the Rubble Women gather outdoors for prayer in Gaza. (Photo: Creative Commons) In Gaza, families cling to faith and fragile moments of joy while war strips away the rituals of ordinary life. The streets that were once filled with children carrying balloons and families returning from morning prayers are now lined with rubble, tents and hungry faces. The smell that once marked Eid – grilled meat shared between neighbours and relatives – has disappeared, replaced by dust, smoke and the stench of destruction. For the third co year, many Palestinians in Gaza are being deprived not only of safety and dignity, but also of two of Islam’s most sacred traditions: Hajj and the Eid sacrifice. Across the Muslim world, millions of pilgrims are gathering in Mecca dressed in white ihram, answering the call of God with the talbiyah: “Here I am, O Allah.” They circle the Kaaba, stand on Mount Arafat and pray for forgiveness, mercy and renewal. In Gaza, we watch them through shattered phone screens under torn tents. [Subscribe now][1] Many of us do not even have enough food to survive, let alone the ability to travel for pilgrimage. Border closures, siege and war have turned what should be a religious right into an impossible dream. For years before the genocide, Palestinians in Gaza already faced severe restrictions on movement. Travelling to perform Hajj often depended on waiting lists, permits and border openings that could close without warning. Elderly people spent decades saving money for “the journey of a lifetime”, unsure if they would ever leave Gaza alive. Now, after months of relentless destruction, the idea of Hajj feels even more distant. Entire families who once hoped to perform pilgrimage together have been wiped out. Homes where relatives gathered to celebrate returning pilgrims no longer exist. Some who spent years saving for Hajj used that money instead to buy bread, medicine or tents for survival. Others were killed before their names were ever called. In Gaza today, even grief has become unfinished. **Vanished Sacrifice** Eid al-Adha is supposed to commemorate sacrifice, faith and mercy. Families traditionally slaughter sheep and distribute meat to relatives and the poor so nobody goes hungry during the holiday. But in Gaza, there are barely any sheep left to sacrifice. The war has devastated agriculture and livestock. Prices for animals that survived became impossibly high long ago. Many families have not eaten meat for months. Children who once waited excitedly to watch the Eid sacrifice now stand in endless lines for water or flour. This year, countless parents will once again invent distractions so their children do not ask why there is no meat and no celebration. The deprivation cuts deeper because Eid in Gaza was never only about food. It was about community. About neighbours exchanging meat. About grandparents gathering grandchildren after prayer. About women preparing meals together late into the night such as Sumaqiyah. About hearing takbirat echo from mosques before dawn. Now many mosques themselves lie in ruins. There is a particular cruelty in being denied not only life’s necessities, but also the rituals that make suffering bearable. Religion in Gaza has become one of the few remaining spaces where people try to hold onto meaning. Yet even worship is constantly interrupted by siege and violence. We pray beside destruction. We break our fast to the sound of drones. We celebrate Eid while counting the martyrs amid the so-called ceasefire. **Returning Life** And yet, this Eid carries something unfamiliar to Gaza after so much devastation: fragments of life returning. The streets, though scarred, are filled with movement again. Lights flicker between broken walls, laughter rises hesitantly at first, then with growing courage. The air carries contradictions — the sweetness of baked maamoul intertwined with the lingering scent of smoke, joy brushing against grief, hope threading itself through exhaustion. It is not a perfect Eid. It is something far more profound: a stubborn, defiant Eid. For the first time in what felt like a lifetime, we touched the essence of the holiday again. Not fully, not without ache — but enough to remember who we are. Markets open with fragile determination. Vendors arrange what little they have, stretching scarcity into abundance through sheer will. Families walk among the stalls calculating every coin, every purchase weighed not just in currency but in dignity. The scent of kahk and maamoul drifts through alleys and broken doorways. Women bake with hands that had known both tenderness and loss, shaping dough into memory, into continuity. Recipes passed down through generations became more than food — they became resistance. Each pastry whispers: we are still connected to what came before, and no force can sever that thread. **Family Return** This Eid carries a rare and sacred gift: the return of togetherness. Families scattered by genocide and displacement found their way back to one another. Not all, not whole — but enough to fill homes and tents with warmth again. The embrace of a loved one after months, sometimes years, of separation carried a weight words could not hold. Eid became an almost physical presence — something you can hear, smell and nearly touch. It lives in the distant echo of takbirat rising from damaged mosques, in melodies drifting through the night, in the hum of life returning, however briefly, to a familiar rhythm. Everyone expresses joy in their own way, as though each smile itself was an act of healing. Children run through shattered streets in bright clothes that defied the greyness surrounding them. Their laughter rang out — pure, unburdened, miraculous. They clutch chocolates and sweets like treasures, their happiness unfiltered, their resilience instinctive. The weight of reality never fully left us. The streets, though alive again, remain fractured. Transportation is scarce, movement limited not only by destruction but by unbearable cost. Prices have soared beyond reason, turning basic necessities into burdens. Even eidiya — the small gifts that once brought children such delight — feels painfully out of reach for many families. Gaza lives in this constant tension: between what is and what should be. Between joy and grief, presence and absence, resilience and exhaustion. Joy here is not accidental. It is deliberate. It is chosen again and again in the face of everything that argues against it. The smiles on children’s faces are not naïve — they are powerful. Family gatherings are not ordinary — they are sacred. The sharing of sweets and coffee is not simple hospitality — it is symbolism. These are acts of defiance. They are declarations that Gaza is more than its suffering. That Palestinians are more than victims. That life, even in its most fragile form, remains worthy of celebration. **Closed Borders** Faith persists, even when dignity is systematically stripped away. But faith should not require surviving starvation and bombardment. Nor should millions of Muslims accept as normal the reality that an entire population remains cut off from pilgrimage and deprived of even the ability to perform Eid sacrifices. Hajj symbolises equality among Muslims. Wealth, nationality and status disappear before Allah as pilgrims stand together in white garments. Yet Palestinians in Gaza remain isolated behind closed borders and military siege, excluded not by faith, but by politics and violence. [Subscribe now][2] There is deep pain in watching the Muslim world celebrate Eid while Gaza buries its martyrs and starves and struggles. Not because we envy others their joy, but because we remember what joy once felt like ourselves. I remember Eids before the genocide: my mother preparing food before sunrise, children wearing new clothes, families visiting one another after prayer. I remember the excitement when someone returned from Hajj carrying Zamzam water and dates from Mecca. Entire neighbourhoods would gather to welcome them home. Today, many of those neighbourhoods no longer exist. **Human Continuity** What remains in Gaza today is not only siege, displacement and death, but the slow erasure of the ordinary rituals through which people remember they are human. The destruction of homes can be counted. The number of martyrs can be counted. Even the starvation can be measured in statistics and aid reports. But there is another loss that escapes numbers entirely: the loss of continuity, of tradition, of the small sacred moments that once stitched life together. When people are denied Hajj, denied Eid, denied even the ability to offer sacrifice or gather safely for prayer, they are being denied more than religious practice. They are being denied participation in the shared rhythm of the Muslim world itself. And yet, despite everything, Gaza still whispers the talbiyah in its own way. It rises from mothers baking what little bread they can over firewood. From fathers trying to buy second-hand clothes so their children can still feel Eid arriving. From displaced families gathering beneath tents to recite takbirat over the sound of drones. From survivors who continue praying over bodies pulled from rubble because there are no cemeteries left untouched. This is what the world often fails to understand about Gaza: Palestinians are not only fighting for survival. They are fighting to preserve memory, faith and the right to remain human under conditions designed to strip all three away. **Endless Sacrifice** Eid al-Adha commemorates Prophet Ibrahim’s willingness to sacrifice what was most precious to him. But Gaza today has been forced into endless sacrifice without mercy, without relief and without end. An entire population has sacrificed homes, families, safety, futures and now even the rituals meant to help endure grief itself. Hajj teaches Muslims that no believer stands above another. Eid al-Adha teaches mercy, solidarity and the obligation to feed the hungry. Yet as pilgrims circle the Kaaba and Muslims gather around tables heavy with food, Gaza remains sealed behind rubble, hunger and mass graves. The contradiction should disturb the conscience of the world. Because what is unfolding in Gaza is not only the destruction of buildings and lives, but the forced isolation of an entire people from the collective rituals through which Muslims experience dignity, belonging and spiritual equality. Still, Palestinians continue to pray. Continue to fast. Continue to whisper the talbiyah beneath drones and bombardment. Not because life in Gaza is sacred to the world, but because it remains sacred to those forced to survive it. And perhaps that is what Israel’s war has failed to destroy: the stubborn insistence of Palestinians on remaining human, faithful and visible even as everything around them disappears. [1]: https://www.palestinedeepdive.com/subscribe? [2]: https://www.palestinedeepdive.com/subscribe? https://www.palestinedeepdive.com/p/eid-beneath-the-rubble

In Bed with Israel? Tommy Robinson and the Rise of the Far Right Ahmed Alnaouq and Hala Hanina are joined by hip hop artist, activist and journalist Lowkey and author and investigative journalist from the Electronic Intifada, Asa Winstanley. They discuss the rise of the far right in the UK and its connections to Israel, the unprecedented legal proceedings facing direct action activists and the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza. [Subscribe now][1] [1]: https://www.palestinedeepdive.com/subscribe? https://www.palestinedeepdive.com/p/in-bed-with-israel-tommy-robinson

“Without weapons, we can do anything”: The story of Rozan al-Najjar In an age of madness, war, and the rise of fascist and racist currents, the world’s need grows greater to know about inspiring individuals—people who dedicated their lives to spreading love, who possessed nothing but words and faith to resist oppression, and who left behind a legacy of light. For this reason, I share the story of Rozan al-Najjar. Rozan was a young Palestinian volunteer paramedic in Gaza. She worked tirelessly to save the lives of those injured by Israeli snipers during the Great March of Return. While trying to save others, she herself was killed by the Israeli soldiers, becoming an icon of that movement. I tell Rozan’s story not only because it is inspiring, but because the world needs more people like her. [Subscribe now][1] In Gaza, I was among those who initiated the call for the Great March of Return in 2018. What began as an idea quickly turned into a mass movement, with more than one hundred thousand Palestinians participating in nonviolent demonstrations near the separation fence over nearly two years. The protesters carried no weapons. Their tools were peaceful gathering, cultural activities, and collective presence. Their aim was to protest the slow suffocation imposed on Gaza and to demand the right of return for Palestinian refugees. ### *Protest Days* On the evening of Friday, June 1, 2018, I returned home after participating in the demonstrations for the tenth co Friday. The protests were held at five main locations along the separation fence. That day, I had been at Malaka Square, east of Gaza City. As I headed home, I felt some relief. There had been no immediate reports of casualties, and the day seemed calmer than previous Fridays, which had often been marked by deadly repression by the Israeli occupation army. But that feeling did not last. When I opened social media, I was met with a flood of posts mourning Rozan. It was the first time I had heard her name. Yet people were not writing, “A nurse was killed.” They were writing, “Rozan was killed.” It was clear she was already deeply known. That night, her words spread widely: “I am in the field to save the lives of my people. I began my journey here, and I will end it here. I work with courage and determination. I receive no salary, nor do I expect reward or thanks. It is enough that God rewards me.” [Subscribe now][2] In a previous interview, Rozan explained that she had been present in Khuzaʿa, east of Khan Younis, from the very first day of the Great March on March 30, 2018. She worked continuously from early morning until late evening, treating around 170 injuries in a single day—30 caused by live ammunition. She described one of her hardest moments: treating two critically injured people at once. After saving one, she returned to the other—only to find that he had died before she could reach him. Despite such experiences, she never left the field. ### *Relentless Courage* Rozan’s dedication was absolute. From the beginning of the protests, she remained in the field without interruption, driven by a deep sense of purpose. In another interview, she said: “I fainted from tear gas. When I woke up in the ambulance, I panicked and begged them to let me go back. I did not come to be treated—I came to treat others.” On that occasion, her wrist had been broken. Her colleagues tried to take her to the hospital so she could rest and receive treatment. She refused—even refusing to have her hand properly set—because she feared it would prevent her from continuing her work. She summarised her mission in one powerful sentence: “Without weapons, we can do anything.” These words captured the spirit of the movement—and her own belief in nonviolent resistance. The day after her killing, I attended her funeral and visited her family home in Khan Younis. Her mother stood before cameras holding Rozan’s bloodstained medical vest and said: “This is Rozan’s weapon—the one she carried, and for which Israel killed her.” Photograph: Middle East Eye/Mohammed Asad Rozan came from a poor refugee family originally from the village of Salama, from which they were forcibly displaced by Zionist militias in 1948. Her dream was to return there one day, and this dream was one of the motivations behind her participation in the March of Return. From childhood, she dreamed of becoming a doctor. Poverty prevented her from achieving this dream, but her determination to help others never faded. She enrolled in a first aid course and saved her small allowance until she could buy a medical kit. Once she had it, she went directly to the field to help the wounded. Her compassion was evident from a young age. She constantly thought about the poor and the marginalised. She once told her mother that she wished she had enough money so that no one would be in need—that she could make all poor people happy. She would cry during holidays, upset that some families could afford multiple outfits while others could not afford even one. Her sense of justice developed early. While watching a historical film, she was deeply affected by a scene showing the torture of Bilal. She asked her mother whether he was being tortured because of his faith or because he was Black—revealing a deep awareness of injustice. Her mother once asked her, half-jokingly, if she intended to solve all the world’s problems alone. Rozan replied: “Aren’t these poor people human beings just like us?” ### *Enduring Legacy* Rozan’s kindness extended into every aspect of her life. She shared everything she had. If she ate something outside the home, she would save part of it to bring back to her family. She cared for her younger siblings as if she were their mother—watching over them at the beach, giving up her own enjoyment to ensure their safety, and covering them at night while they slept. One day, as a child, she overheard her father saying he had no money to feed the family. She began to cry and then offered him her small savings—just a few dollars—insisting he take it to help support the household. She rejected gossip and judgment. If anyone spoke badly about others, she would object strongly, asking: “Are you gods to judge people?” She also avoided attention. Her mother recalled that she would cut interviews short and run back toward the sound of gunfire if she thought someone might need help. She used to say: “I do not want people to know me. I want God to know me.” After her death, I visited her Facebook page, reading her posts to understand her spirit. Her writing was sincere, sensitive, and deeply aligned with justice. She consistently expressed solidarity with the poor and rejected injustice. Her final post, written on May 31—just hours before she was killed—read: “Your conscience will be comforted as long as God knows your intention. Be good.” ## *Deep Loss* Her loss deeply affected people. Even months later, her story continued to resonate. Investigations, including one by* The New York Times* in collaboration with Forensic Architecture, concluded that she was shot by an Israeli sniper while clearly identifiable as a medic and that neither she nor those around her posed any threat. Yet even without such investigations, Palestinians know this reality intimately, having lived under decades of violence and loss. In 2019, while I was visiting the United States, I stayed with an American Jewish woman. I arranged a phone call between her and Rozan’s mother. During the call, the woman broke down in tears and asked: “Why does Israel commit these acts in our name?” Rozan’s life raises painful questions—but also offers a powerful answer. She lived a short life, but one filled with meaning. She devoted herself entirely to helping others, embodying compassion, dignity, and selflessness. She was present in this world, yet carried a spirit that seemed beyond it. Rozan is an icon of beauty and purity. Israel hates beauty because it reminds it of its ugliness. There is nothing uglier than establishing a murderous, racist, colonial regime. She showed us that even in a world torn apart by violence, injustice, and hatred, it is still possible to choose love. And in doing so, she left behind something enduring: Proof that without weapons, we can still change the world. [1]: https://www.palestinedeepdive.com/subscribe? [2]: https://www.palestinedeepdive.com/subscribe? https://www.palestinedeepdive.com/p/without-weapons-we-can-do-anything

OUTRAGE: Israel’s Execution Bill For Palestinian Prisoners Passes In the wake of Prisoners’ Day and in the shadow of the execution bill they are joined by Dr Nimer Sultany who is a leading scholar of constitutional and comparative law, who has written extensively on Israeli law’s legitimating function, the legal architecture of occupation, and the relationship between law and colonial power. Jeanine and Nihal from Palestinian Youth Movement discuss with Dr Nimer Sultany how understanding the execution bill requires tracing the legal genealogy of Israeli incarceration back through its British Mandate inheritance; the emergency regulations, the military ordinances, the administrative detention frameworks that Britain constructed across Ireland, India, and Palestine, and which the Israeli state absorbed and expanded after 1948. This Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. https://www.palestinedeepdive.com/p/outrage-israels-execution-bill-for

Justice Denied: A Law Beyond Humanity Syrians protest near the Israeli border, denouncing an Israeli law that permits the death penalty for Palestinian prisoners. Mohammad Bash / Shutterstock.com On March 30, 2026, Israel’s Knesset passed a law allowing the death penalty for Palestinian prisoners. This moment forces a critical question: Does international law still apply in Palestine? Increasingly, it feels as though the answer is no. As many hoped for international pressure to prevent such a decision, the Knesset passed the bill by 62 votes to 48. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu personally attended the vote, while far-right minister Itamar Ben-Gvir celebrated its passage. For Palestinian prisoners and their families, this vote did not mark a new beginning: it felt like an irreversible continuation of suffering. I am not shocked that Palestinians continue to be killed; they have been targeted for years. Children have died in hospitals, journalists have been killed while doing their work, and even as I write this, I receive another notification: a Palestinian woman named Rawan has been killed in central Gaza. Palestinians have been killed in their homes, in the streets, in hospitals, and in schools. And now, it seems, they will also be killed in prisons. [Subscribe now][1] Israel currently holds approximately 9,500 Palestinian prisoners, about half of whom are detained without charge. Among them are between 53 and 75 women and roughly 350 to 450 children. Since October 2023, following Israel’s genocide in Gaza, the number of detainees has risen significantly, with men arrested at checkpoints, in hospitals, and from their homes. ## *Human Stories* I feel sorrowful even mentioning prisoners as numbers, because each one carries a story, a life interrupted. Palestinian prisoners have spent years waiting to embrace freedom, to return to their families, their children, and their land. Yet this law replaces that hope with the threat of punishment and death. Since the announcement, I have found myself thinking constantly of the prisoners and their families. How do they feel? Are they afraid, or have years of imprisonment dulled their sense of fear? Has death become easier to face than life under constant control? I have written before about conditions inside Israeli prisons. I once spoke with a relative who endured months of detention, and through his account, I began to understand the reality inside: the darkness, the hunger, the deprivation of basic human needs. His story is only one among many. He is free now, but countless others remain—elderly men, women, children—living unseen lives behind prison walls, their stories unheard. [Subscribe now][2] Perhaps this decision was expected—those capable of genocide seem capable of anything—but its reality is still overwhelming. Unbelievable. Unbearable. How can someone wait years to reunite with loved ones, only to face the possibility of execution? How can the human mind absorb such a shock? If this law is implemented, it will mark not only a legal shift but a profound failure of international law. It will send a message that human rights do not apply in Palestine: that Palestinians are excluded from protections meant for all humanity. Justice, in this context, appears to depend not on law, but on identity. I still remember when Al-Ahli Arab Hospital was targeted in 2024. I told my mother, “The world will stop this—they cannot violate international law like this.” But what followed proved how wrong I was. In that moment, I understood something devastating: we exist outside the protections of human rights, as if those rights were never meant for us. ## *Legal Framework* The Third Geneva Convention establishes clear legal standards: prisoners of war must be treated humanely at all times and cannot be punished without fair and lawful trials. Articles 13, 14, 17, 87, and 99 to 108 reinforce these protections, making it evident that imposing the death penalty in such contexts is neither lawful nor acceptable. Yet despite these clear rules, reality suggests otherwise. The law itself states that the death penalty applies to those who cause the death of an Israeli citizen out of hateful motives or intent to harm Israel. But this raises an unavoidable question: why does this not apply equally to Israelis who kill Palestinians? If such a law exists, why are soldiers who have admitted to killing children—such as Hind Rajab—not subject to the same consequences? Following the vote, Itamar Ben-Gvir celebrated with champagne, declaring that anyone who takes a life would have theirs taken in return. His words framed the law as justice—but for many, it reflects something else entirely. I spent that night watching the news and scrolling through endless discussions online. My thoughts kept returning to my cousin and her young son. After much hesitation, I sent her a message, trying to reassure her: “Be strong, your husband will be okay.” She is only 22 years old. She was married just months before the war began. Her son is about to turn three. Her husband was detained in 2024 at Al-Ouda Hospital and later transferred to Ofer Prison, one of the harshest facilities since October 2023. ## *Waiting Life* She counts the days until she can see him again, holding onto hope alone. When a ceasefire was announced, she told me, “I will prepare a tent for us to live together.” She shows her husband’s photo to her son, trying to keep his memory alive. “My heart breaks when my son sees other children with their fathers—he thinks he doesn’t have one,” she told me. For nearly two years, she has lived between hope and despair, waiting for his return. Now, this law threatens to take even that hope away. Her story is just one among thousands—9,500 lives suspended in uncertainty. ## *Voices Heard* “I embrace from the womb of death, from the heart of suffering,” said Naji Al-Jafarawi, who was released in October 2025. Speaking from experience, he described the harsh reality of prison life and warned of the devastating consequences this law could bring. What deepens the sorrow is the awareness that the world may react briefly—speaking, sharing, mourning—but ultimately allowing such policies to proceed. Awareness alone is no longer enough. The world must act—must speak, protect, and take concrete measures. The law may have passed, but the prisoners, their dreams, and their families must not be silenced. Through this article, I call on countries across Europe and beyond to take action. Raise your voices, take to the streets, and demand that this law not be enforced. Justice and human rights must not be selective—they must be universal. For the sake of humanity, they must apply to all. [1]: https://www.palestinedeepdive.com/subscribe? [2]: https://www.palestinedeepdive.com/subscribe? https://www.palestinedeepdive.com/p/justice-denied-a-law-beyond-humanity

Habibi, Your Future is Being Tested in Gaza Gaza genocide survivors Haia Mohammed and Danah Bseiso speak out about Israel’s destruction of Gaza, the ongoing Nakba and the realities of surviving Israeli genocide in real time. From airstrikes and forced displacement to starvation, exile and the psychological trauma of losing home and family, they describe what life under Israeli siege and bombardment means for Palestinians and humanity at large. Danah Bseiso is a Palestinian law student specialising in Public International Law, a writer with We Are Not Numbers and part of Leiden University’s Picturing Scholasticide project d [Subscribe now][1] ocumenting Israel’s destruction of Gaza’s education system. Haia Mohammed is a Palestinian poet and artist whose work explores memory, resistance, grief and displacement. [1]: https://www.palestinedeepdive.com/subscribe? https://www.palestinedeepdive.com/p/habibi-your-future-is-being-tested