There were twelve thousand viewers glued to the livestream as I clicked into Bisan’s video. Wrapped in a baby blue PRESS vest and matching helmet, she huddled in a dark room at Nasser Hospital with 3 to 4 other Gazans speaking rapid-fire Arabic as drones buzzed in the background. Her tired dark eyes were grim and threaded with terror as she read the flood of comments across her screen. She plead with followers to educate themselves on Zionist aggression against Palestine and to demand a ceasefire. Automatic gunfire rang out as people placed virtual flower crowns and chintzy cowboy hats on her head. This genocide is being live-streamed. 

As I sat in my humid bathroom glued to the screen I had to remind myself to blink. To breathe. To pray. When would the moment come when a bomb struck her building or an IOF solider fired through the door? Would her connection drop upon impact or would we see her flesh blown apart in real time? Every 30 seconds or so, Bisan would wince or silently gasp as the artillery noise inched ever closer. As if to confirm she wasn’t trapped in a dream, she’d ask the viewers if they heard it too. Viewing the livestream was like floating in a sea of thousands of death doulas holding her virtual hands. We came to bear witness. If this be the bitter end, damnit she won’t be alone. 

The buzzing of the armed drones crawled deeper and deeper into my brain. I struggled to tamp down panic. The sort of panic that comes when you are body slammed by the sudden realization that you are utterly helpless in this moment. Chants for a ceasefire and protests in the street and social media shares cannot remove Bisan from the dark warrens of a hospital under bombardment. I can only watch…and wait.

25 thousand* Gazans have been killed since Israel began its campaign in Palestine. Thousands more have been wounded/orphaned/starved to death. To say nothing of the untold number of bodies buried under the rubble. The numbers are staggering. The sheer volume of killing lends itself to abstraction. Statistics about the deaths per hour and exponentially larger casualty counts mask the very human lives so cruelly being snuffed out. And so I clutch at Instagram Stories and TikToks and X feeds about the reality on the ground. I zoom in on photos. I learn their names. Motaz has hung up his journalist hat to turn inward and embrace his family as bombs continue to fall. Plestia, although she’s made it to Australia, continues to use her platform to foreground images of Palestinian joy amidst scenes of devastation. Al-Jazeera journalist Wael buried his son Hamza before dashing back to the ruined and bloody halls of a local hospital to report on the unfolding catastrophe on babies and other civilians. He was recently evacuated to Egypt (then Qatar) after narrowly surviving an IOF drone assault. 

Following the initial assault on Nasser Hospital the Israelis dropped Gaza into yet another communications blackout. I’d refresh my Instagram every hour praying for an update from Bisan. As I moved through the next 24 hours, time seemed to thicken and slow down. I struggled through what felt like an absurd work routine. Virtual meetings, Outlook notifications and production metrics provided a soundtrack to my dreadful anticipation of her death. And then there it was. An Instagram story from Bisan calling for a Global Strike from January 21st to January 23rd. She admonished us (me) to not despair, to keep up the fight against this second Nakba. Same baby blue PRESS vest, same matching helmet. Standing in front of a dirty mirror, Bisan spits in death’s face and affirms that after 107* days of genocide she’s still alive. 

Free Palestine. 

*The casualty count increases daily.

*109 days at the time of this writing. The assault on Gaza continues.