In Valiant Fortitude by Soraya Boyd

Image by Emre Karapınar @ IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation/TURKEY via Flickr

by Soraya Boyd
Guest Writer
Dandelion Salad
Facilitate Global
December 30, 2012

Unlawfully pincered between harsh collective punishment and base military aggression
The tear bedabbled faces of innocent children in constant lacrimation
Afforded no respite cling desperately to their progenitor for safety and protection

Incessantly tossed and trounced in a criminally virulent sphere
Innocent children lead daily lives carved in the deathly architecture of dread and fear
An ever impending Cast Lead or Pillar of Cloud peril looms near

With aggressive intimidation suffused by unremitting violence the customary norms
How can their young minds and tender hearts weather such darkly storms?

Unlawfully starved and forced to subsist on an infinitely nutritionally insufficient diet
Whilst pseudo world leaders, consciously turning a blind eye, remain complicity quiet

Their childhood generationally denied by a carefully planned military regimen of cruelty
Where shall little children safely play in the face of such atrocity?

Fraught with ever present danger, the way to school is tainted by the shameless taunting of settlers’ contemporaries
And when returning from school, often find their beloved home demolished, hounded from every angle, where are the sanctuaries?

When blessed balmy sleep eventually upon their slumber laden little lids does fall
Beneficent solace and comforting reprieve grant a sorely brief restorative interval
Only to wake to another day of a protracted pestering reality: desolate, drab and dismal

Struggling to unshackle the illegal binding fetters of a powerfully armed military aggressor
Who constantly glowers over ruminations of continual dispossession, deeply rooted in the disturbed mind of a serial violator

Unperturbed by its use of white phosphorous, intently strives to perfect the sinister art of murderous conquest
Unsatisfied, the conqueror’s ever scheming psyche agitates, spawned out of a self made perpetual state of unrest

In the depth of their profound misery, woefully weighted by such contemptuous subjugation
Resiliently, innocent children bravely shoulder the brutal load of oppression
In traumatic circumstances, their very tender years confirm unnaturally thwarted aspirations for self-determination
From the heart of their enduring blamelessness, the sacrosanct right to life remains an unequivocal affirmation

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Soraya Boyd is Founder and CEO of Facilitate Global. She can be contacted at soraya.boyd@facilitateglobal.org.

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[DS added the video.]

Overcrowded Schools in War-Torn Besieged Gaza

Palgaz on Jan 3, 2013

Nearly half a million children in Gaza attend dilapidated schools, adding to emotional traumas resulting from wars and siege.

Transcript

From the archives:

The Belligerent Occupier by Soraya Boyd

In Memory Of A People With A Land by Soraya Boyd

A Most Familiar Drama … Murder Most Foul … by Soraya Boyd

Inhumanity, Illegality and Grand Theft in Palestine by Felicity Arbuthnot

Perpetual Conflict By Israeli Design by Graham Peebles