Every day we hear of more deaths in Gaza. Every single one of them deserves to be mourned, but we can’t be in a perpetual state of mourning. But when someone you know loses four family members due to the senseless Israeli violence, it really illustrates the gravity of the situation.
Here is the full press release from the Sheffield Palestine Solidarity Campaign.
SHAHD ABUSALAMA: Palestinian Activist and former Sheffield Hallam University PhD student and lecturer
Sheffield Palestine Coalition learned last week that four close relatives of Palestinian former Sheffield resident, Shahd Abusalama, had been killed in an Israeli bombardment of northern Gaza. Annie O’Gara, from the Coalition, read out a statement at their regular Friday evening rally outside Sheffield train station:
“Every single life matters and every single death is important. We have heard that Shahd Abusalama, who we all know and love from her time here in Sheffield, and for her amazing work for Palestine. Shahd has suffered deep personal loss and I would like to read you the names of some of Shahd’s family who have died recently: Marwan, Haniyya, Wasim, Ismail and baby Yousef.”
Shahd was a resident of Sheffield, a PhD student and then lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University, from 2018 to the end of 2022. Her book “Between Reality and Documentary” will be published on 20th February 2025.
She is a Palestinian activist and academic, artist and writer.
“My family, Abusalama, like all families from Gaza, have endured heart-wrenching losses as a result of Israel’s ongoing genocide.
“On 2 January, the second day of 2025, the Israeli occupation army targeted a house where 30 members of our family sought refuge. They killed 4 of my dearest ones and injured the rest. Their names are Marwan, Haniyya, their son Wasim and nephew Ismail. Another son of Marwan and Haniyya, Yousef, was killed on 1 November 2023, and after over a year of displacement, starvation, grief and torture, they followed him. RIP.”
She was born and raised in Jabalia Refugee Camp which has recently been the focus of Israel’s bombing and starvation campaign to drive all Palestinians out of the north of Gaza. She is a third generation Palestinian refugee after her grandparents were expelled from their villages, Beit Jerja and Isdud, during the 1948 Nakba [when Israel was established on Palestinian land, and 750,000 Palestinians forced to flee into refugee camps].
Shahd has written powerfully and personally in Declassified UK about the attacks on northern Gaza, and in particular Jabalia, where 23 of her relatives were killed on October 23rd 2024:
“No one is spared from Israel’s killing machines: children, women, elderly people, journalists, doctors, paramedics, fire fighters. “Nowhere in Gaza is safe: residential buildings have been levelled, UNRWA schools sheltering the displaced have been hit.
“Hospitals, churches, mosques, bakeries, universities, ambulances, too. My parents and extended family are amongst over a million people who have been forcibly displaced – nearly half of Gaza’s entire population.”
“My auntie’s son Khalil is the only survivor of his family.
“The lifeless bodies of his wife Heba (35) and children Leen (12), Jihad (10) and Sham (5) were pulled from under the rubble after six hours.
“Heba, a skilled nurse at the Indonesian hospital, and her children had left their home and sought refuge at the home of another cousin Rana, who is married to Heba’s brother Jawad.
“Jawad survived but Rana (40) was killed, alongside two of her five children, the little ones, Mohammed (5) and Naama (7), while the twin girls Jana and Jinan (12) and Husni (10), survived with wounds.”
I was born and raised in Jabalia refugee camp where Israel killed 23 of my relatives [6th November 2024]
“Israel’s choking siege has entered its third month, segregating Jabalia, Beit Lahia and Beit Hanoun from the rest of Gaza City amid horrific scenes of mass killing.
“Nearly 4,000 people have been killed there since October 2024 as Israel targets every remaining concentration of Palestinians, forcing them to either leave or die, if not by bombs, then by starvation.
“We are more scared than ever of enduring the same fate of the Nakba generation who were dispossessed and displaced in 1948 and never allowed to return.”
In northern Gaza, Israel makes death feel like mercy [16th December]
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