Eyeless in Gaza: Chapter One

On the ground in the Genocide

13 May 2025.

The UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) says that:

over 70,000 children and 17,000 pregnant or breastfeeding women will require treatment for acute malnutrition in the next 11 months.

Reacting to the IPC report, the Oxfam charity wrote that:

Gaza’s starvation is not incidental — it is deliberate, entirely engineered — and has now created the largest population facing starvation anywhere in the world — a preventable famine unfolding in real-time.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2025/05/13/ydqf-m13.html?pk_campaign=wsws-newsletter&pk_kwd=wsws-daily-newsletter

The videos are coming in from Gaza. They are very short, some no more than a minute or two, some even less. Please don’t scroll past.

This is Raghda, who was the first contact. She has two young children both under the age of three, living in what remains of her sister Umaima’s partially destroyed home. Her husband, unable to live with them as he is not a blood relative of the family, has to stay in a tent elsewhere. Translations by Diana Buzle.

Before the war, Raghda had trained to become a sports coach and was working in her brother’s shop to support her family. Her young son Anas was just one month old when the war erupted, The outbreak of violence tore the family apart, Raghda and her husband were separated from the beginning owing to forced displacement, with her husband stranded in a different area. She has been raising the children alone, navigating the daily struggles of motherhood under constant bombing. Comment from Raghda:

Yes, they want to displace us and are looking for countries to receive us, and thank God, all countries have refused, but we are steadfast in our land, thanks to God. They have used all methods: random bombing of mosques, hospitals, schools, homes, and now asylum, to starve us, and now we are in famine and waiting for relief. God willing, the negotiations will succeed this time.

If you want me to distribute any money, I will do so. May God bless you, of course, with documentation in videos and hand delivery or food baskets. Whatever you want, I will do. We are all suffering, not just me. Thank you very much for everything you have done for me, and thank you for your response to Diana’s message. Thank you.🥺🙏🤲🇵🇸

Raghda’s mother was in the UAE visiting a daughter when the genocide started. Her husband told her he would marry another woman if she didn’t return - after she had borne 11 children by him. She left the safety of the UAE and returned to Gaza.

This is Raghda’s eldest sister, her husband has been stuck in the West Bank since October 7th, looking after her children alone during the genocide.

This is Ahmed Qamar. He has faced a lifetime of hardship, born with congenital issues with his hands and feet, needs ongoing treatment. Despite being displaced multiple times he has remained steadfast in his commitment to his family. A devoted father of four (pictured below), he never let his physical limitations define his worth or dictate his future,

Just a little over a week ago, he and his children were living in a tent, but has since found a more stable location, though the rent is beyond what he can afford. With the help of others he can keep his children safe for now in a space that offers dignity and a sense of home.

His wife prefers not to be photographed for religious reasons.

Next is Amani, she is 37. She married 15 years ago, her husband was a photographer. One day, 11 months ago, she sent him to buy her some pills as she has thyroid cancer. A few hours later they found him dead. She blames herself. She now takes sedatives to keep calm but they make her sleep a lot by day. She is partially deaf and takes her hearing aid off at night to avoid hearing the bombing.

To raise money for her family, Amani does not want to rely entirely on charity. She is writing a Palestinian cook book, in English. When it is ready you will find details of how to obtain it published in a later article. Here is the proposed cover.

Now let’s turn to what the situation is like currently: from Raghda.

Here is Amani who is 16. She will show you her house.

Her father died when she was young. She has two elder siblings, Hussein, 18, who was due to go to university, he now guards what is left of their home, and Amina, 20, a medical student, studying online in their tent, when there is internet, who has exams coming up. Amani is the sole provider.

At this point I expected to show you more videos of the situation sent by the people there. I was getting promises but nothing came. I asked Diana and this is what she replied:

People are afraid to go outside…every night I get messages from them in which I’m told how scared they are and how they just need me to pray for them. last night Amani 37’s sister was messaging me constantly. Scared. Shelling and one bomb after another…Amani went to see a psychiatrist today and found her dodging bullets, had a call with her and she was crying badly. She took the pills and was somewhat better…Raghda doesn’t want to leave the house, she is in Khan Yunis and today 135 were killed in various blasts. She fears for her children and so stays indoors.

Here is Raghda briefly outside her home. You can see some of the wreckage behind her. I keep asking them to film landscape but they keep forgetting!

I wrote last week that Israel has said it would expel the inhabitants from Gaza but that Egypt and Jordan have said they will not accept refugees. However we are told that it is possible for Palestinians to flee to Egypt, they just have to pay an entry fee at the border at Rafah of $5,000 per adult and $2,500 per child: the pocket into which it settles was not disclosed.

The majority seem to be at Khan Yunis, in the south of Gaza.

Donations

Part of the reason for setting up this series is to get cash into Gaza. They need food, water and medicine, and money to pay for them and other stuff. Some have bank accounts in the West Bank, typically the Bank of Palestine in Ramallah, and they can spend balances digitally in Gaza.

I have tried to set up a separate account into which to receive donations but am getting no response from my banks. For the time being I will use a redundant currency account of mine which will be used solely to receive and to donate, 100% will go to the Gaza beneficiaries and I will publish the full statements from time to time so that you can see exactly where it is going. I have chosen a US dollar account as this seems the most likely to avoid unnecessary currency swaps as they seem to have the same, but you can pay in, in any currency.

BANK: HSBC Cebu, 08 Philamlife Center, Cardinal Rosales Avenue, Cebu Business Park, Cebu City 6000, Philippines.

ACCOUNT NAME: Walter John King

ACCOUNT NUMBER: 011 067113 131

SWIFT Address: HSBCPHMM

At present we have two beneficiary bank accounts to pay into and are looking for more. I will allow donations to accumulate somewhat while we wait for more accounts. Each will handle donations mainly for one extended family. One is for Raghda’s family, paying into her brother in law’s account, and the other is to Ahmed Qamar, also listed above, for his family and his medical treatment.

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Round up

Here is the latest on US/Israel intentions from various reliable sources.

16 May 2025

US President Donald Trump concluded his Middle East tour in Qatar Thursday by reiterating his administration’s plan to annex the Gaza Strip, on the same day that Israel massacred over 136 Palestinians. “I’d be proud to have the United States have it, take it, make it a freedom zone,” Trump said, referring to Gaza. He added, “It’s not like you’re trying to save something. There’s no buildings.” Trump did not mention the fact that this destruction had been wrought using US-provided weapons….

Last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced a plan to place Gaza under permanent military occupation and displace its population to concentration camps in preparation for their removal….

The next day, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich added, “Within a year, ... Gaza will be entirely destroyed, civilians will be sent to ... the south to a humanitarian zone ... and from there they will start to leave in great numbers to third countries.”….

According to the US-Israeli plan, after the population is entirely internally displaced, food distribution will be conducted by the US-based “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation,” with distribution operated by Pentagon contractors and with distribution points guarded by US soldiers of fortune. On Wednesday, the “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation” announced that it would begin operating by the end of the month. Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon said that food distribution “will be run by the fund itself, led by the US.” Beyond these actions, Reuters reported last week that “The United States and Israel have discussed the possibility of Washington leading a temporary post-war administration of Gaza.”….

In an interview with Al Jazeera, Israeli historian Ilan Pappé said that “The ethnic cleansing of 1948 was incomplete, although it resulted in the expulsion of half of the Palestinian population.” He added, “This is still an impulse of Israel—to try and have as much as possible with as few Palestinians as possible.” He said the Netanyahu government “believes that now is a historical opportunity to complete what has not been completed in 1948.” Pappé concluded, “We had ethnic cleansing in 1948 and now we have genocide in Gaza.”

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2025/05/16/bner-m16.html?pk_campaign=wsws-newsletter&pk_kwd=wsws-daily-newsletter

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have announced a new bombing campaign, Gideon’s Chariots, in the Gaza Strip….

https://www.rt.com/news/617747-israel-gideons-chariots-op/

17 May 2025

The administration of US President Donald Trump is working on a plan to permanently relocate up to 1 million Palestinians from Gaza to Libya, NBC has reported, citing informed sources. The White House has denied the claim.

https://www.rt.com/news/617759-libya-gaza-trump-us/

To conclude, it is necessary only to state unequivocally that this genocide is being inflicted upon the people of Gaza by the most obnoxious, vile, evil regime in the world with either the criminal assistance or the servile submission of the self-styled “free world” and the psychopathically enthusiastic support of most of its own Jewish citizens.

As for those other villainous nations, the major supplier of death weaponry is of course the United States, but Berlin has long cited a “special historical responsibility” towards Israel (I won’t go into that again here) and its right to self defence (which it doesn’t have under international law as an occupier, though interestingly Hamas does), and because of this guilt complex Germany sends the country a steady stream of arms and is said to be its second-largest weapons supplier after the United States. But the contribution by my former home country, the United Kingdom has now also just been revealed.

Research indicates that 14 shipments of military items have left the UK for Israel since October 2023, including 13 by air to Ben Gurion airport and one maritime delivery to Haifa that alone contained 160,000 items. Since September 2024, 8,630 items were exported under the category “bombs, grenades, torpedoes, mines, missiles and similar munitions of war and parts thereof — other”. Arms manufacturers in the UK engineer approximately 15 percent of every F-35 and there have been multiple shipments of F-35 components from the UK to Israel since the destruction of Gaza began. In July 2024, for instance, an Israeli F-35 dropped three 2,000-pound bombs on a camp for displaced people in Gaza's Al Mawasi, killing at least 90 Palestinians.

Without NATO countries’ armament supplies, the bombing would cease.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2025/05/13/zbsb-m13.html?pk_campaign=wsws-newsletter&pk_kwd=wsws-daily-newsletter

Israel is flooded with evil and lack of empathy. “I never knew people were capable of being so evil” (Professor Orit Kamir, Haaretz Hebrew).

If we do nothing, make no mistake, we are complicit in the genocide.

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Additional text by Diana Buzle.

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You can see Eyeless in Gaza: The Preface here:

waltking.substack.com/p/eyeless-in-gaza

If I am able to get this on to the Unz Report, and you are reading it there, I can’t count on succeeding chapters to be accommodated so please subscribe to my Substack if you want to be sure to receive them.