While Most Of The Arguments Attacking The Legitimacy Of Palestinian Gfms And The People Who Verify Them

While most of the arguments attacking the legitimacy of palestinian gfms and the people who verify them seem to boil down to the plain racism and the discomfort with having to think of palestinians as anything other than faceless statistics on your phone or tv screens instead of real living people who want to talk to us, there is a strain of of it that i find more aggravating than anything else.

[image i.d.: senatortedcruz, 6d ago: Friends I will be honest I don't think real life Gazans are taking time out of their day to make brand new tumblr blogs then send asks to big bloggers asking for money.]

This makes my blood boil for a couple of reasons:

FIRSTLY, there is the assumption that palestinians were somehow never on the internet before. The smear campaign against shahed began literally after some users found it impossible to believe that she was a real person who loves photography and to talk to me about her art and how important it was to her. This was IN SPITE of me linking her Instagram that has existed long before October 7th 2023 and has over 6k followers specifically there for her art, which they would have found easily if they had cared to actually read my posts about her.

This is nothing new, because it has always been the general assumption from users in the imperial core that you don't think we from the global south can exist on the internet and see all the shit you say and have opinions about it– but it never stops being shocking to me how thoroughly you are ready to pretend we aren't real people every time. We are directly seeing the results of that wilful ignorance manifest itself cruelly against palestinians in their time of need today.

And then SECONDLY comes the fact that they aren't entirely wrong– reaching out to us on the internet in the middle of a genocide IS insanely hard. There are constant network outages due to the incessant bombing, people have lost their homes and livelihoods, they have lost so much of their friends and families, they are sick and injured, they are struggling just to find any food or any clean water. A lot of people either lost their cellphones while fleeing violence or probably had to sell them and pick cutting themselves off from the world and each other over starving. They are experiencing atrocities beyond our comprehension. A lot of people have given up, especially in the face of the apathy they see from the rest of the world to what they are going through. But that doesn't mean everyone has and that they aren't reaching out to us anyway, often at great cost to themselves, because it is a matter of survival.

Shahed has told me that she has had to struggle a lot to reach out to us. Finding places where there is internet connection is very hard, and she often has to risk going by active combat zones to get a good enough reception to talk to me and others here she has befriended. The danger is even more so at night, and she has told me about how afraid she is at those times because of the presence of iof quadcopters in the area. Sometimes she is able to come by internet connection at night from someone with some solar cells nearby her tent now that running electricity has become so hard to come by in gaza, but she has to pay a high fee to get it from them, dipping into the meagre funds her family has saved for food and water instead.

Every single message that reaches us from gaza comes with a sacrifice we can't even begin to understand.

The cost she has to pay both literally and in terms of the dangers to her life to reach out to us are extremely high, but she still does it all because she is the sole provider for her family of seventeen right now– especially her little siblings Rafif and Masa, who are suffering from severe hepatitis right now and urgently need to get out of gaza so that they can seek treatment in egypt; and her months old nephew who was born just weeks before the genocide began and has no access to baby food or diapers right now.

It GALLS me to see people try to call her a liar for being able to have an internet connection at ALL when i know just how hard she had to fight to get it.

Just because YOU are unable to imagine yourself in that situation when you are in your comfortable homes with an easily available connection, DOESN'T mean there aren't people who are willing to fight to be heard and get the help they deserve. And of course, this is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the struggle that comes with crowdfunding when you are in gaza.

Your “cynicism” comes from a place of privilege and doesn't help anyone. You are only insulting all the palestinians who work so hard every day to reach out to us, all so some truly heartless people can call them bots or scams for being able to reach out to anyone at all.

WE ARE RUNNING OUT OF TIME. SHAHED HAS TO REACH 80K WITHIN THIS WEEK TO EVACUATE HER WHOLE FAMILY.

WE HAVE ONLY JUST CRACKED 68K/80K, AND THERE IS STILL A LONG WAY TO GO.

gofundme.com

Donate to Help Shahd in Gaza!, organized by Shahed Muhammad

Have you ever experienced seeing your dream broken in front of your eyes and not being able to do … Shahed Muhammad needs your support for H

Please donate to and share Shahed's fundraiser as widely as possible. Take it to your whatsapp groups, to your discord servers, your instagram stories. Repost her story and her photography, repost the link to the raffle at @journalsforpalestine wherever you have reach because there is only so much i can do with the deadline looming so close to us.

This CANNOT wait. You've gotten her this far, let's get her through this last stretch too.

i think hazem got shadowbanned again. he hasn't even raised €1k and tumblr seems hell bent on making sure he never reaches his goal. please don't let them get away with it!

(his younger brother ^)

Hazem Khalil (@hazem1999sblog) is @bilal-salah0's friend. Bilal is verified by Nairuz and Hussein. He's legit. His old blog, @hazem1999, was shadowbanned and he had to remake just a few days ago. Now he's getting error messages when he tries to send DMs. This is really, really bad.

His entire family has been stuck in Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza for months. Now the cost of living has skyrocketed and the means for survival are scarce. His family cannot even access drinking water or food. Tumblr is taking away his only source of income during the genocide.

They need €50,000 as soon as possible, but its been 10 days and they haven't even broken €1k.

Please reblog this, follow his blog, read his previous posts and donate. We can't let Tumblr silence him.

current progress: €953 / €50,000

gofundme.com

Donate to Help my family in Gaza reach safety, organized by Hazem Khalil

My name is Hazem, and I am from Gaza. Since 2018, I have not been able to see my fami… Hazem Khalil needs your support for Help my family in

edit august 1:

Hazem got terminated! I swear to god Tumblr wants him to never see his family again!

but thanks to you we crossed €1000. how quickly can we get his family to €2000??

his new blog is @hazempalestine, please follow, donate, and share

tagging for reach!

@timetravelingkitty @meaganfoster @briarhips @dirhwangdaseul @mahoushojoe

@rhubarbspring @pcktknife @transmutationisms @sawasawako @feluka

@terroristiraqi @irhabiya @commissions4aid-international @wellwaterhysteria @deepspaceboytoy

@post-brahminism @khanger @kibumkim @neechees @mangocheesecakes

@kyra45-helping-others @marnota @7bitter @tortiefrancis @toiletpotato

@fromjannah @omegaversereloaded @vague-humanoid @criptochecca @aristotels

@komsomolka @xinakwans @heritageposts @nibeul @ot3

@amygdalae @ankle-beez @communistchilchuck @dykesbat @watermotif

@stuckinapril @mavigator @lacecap @yugiohz @socalgal

@chilewithcarnage @ghelgheli @sayruq @northgazaupdates2 @vakarians-babe

Hello,

I am Ahmed, 31 years old, with my wife Asmaa and our children: Mohammed (9 years old), Kareem (6 years old), Namer (4 years old), and Sahad (1.5 years old). We have faced many challenges in this war, starting from the destruction of our home to the famine we continue to endure in northern Gaza.

My son Mohammed suffers from motor and

hearing disabilities, among other health

issues. I used to have a workshop for windows, kitchens, and all aluminum work, but due to the war, my livelihood was completely destroyed, and I can no longer meet our basic needs.

This is our home that was destroyed in this terrible war.

My goal is to leave Gaza to save my family's lives. The cost of travel is $5000 per adult and $2500 per child, plus travel and accommodation expenses.

Together, we can support Ahmed and his family during this ordeal. Your donation, regardless of its size, can make a difference in the lives of these children who need a fresh start.

If you're looking to support Ahmed and his family, please consider providing assistance directly or through relevant charitable organizations.

gofundme.com

Donate to Urgent Help Needed to Evacuate My Family from Gaza, organized by Ahmed Alanqar

Hello, I am Ahmed, 31 years old, with my wife Asmaa and our child… Ahmed Alanqar needs your support for Urgent Help Needed to Evacuate M

I hope everyone is safe

Ahmed Alanqar

They're in dire need for NOMAD esims in Gaza! Please refer to the website on how to buy esims

Donating eSims is really easy and helps keep people in Gaza connected to the rest of the world. My referral code for Nomad eSims is WEAT59RQ. If you have a referral code, please share it if you reblog this.

A UN delegation arrived today in northern Gaza.

Scenes of deliberate massive destruction by israrel can be seen as the UN vehicles enter the region.