I am a runner.
I run marathons around whole world. Never have I been attacked violently by police forces as I was today, during the Jerusalem run from #SaveSheikhJarrah to #SaveSilwan.
I was beaten six times, attacked by Israeli forces, for running in my ancestral town & city.
We ran 3.5 kilometres from Sheikh Jarrah to Silwan. I arrived at the finish line Batn Al-Hawa, Silwan neighbourhood under threat of ethnic cleansing by Israel.
All runners wore t-shirts that had # 7850 printed on back, the number of Palestinian Jerusalemites under threat.
Out of nowhere, Israeli forces raided the finish line, where we had gathered and been singing songs, drinking water, and resting our legs.
They were violent, attacked everyone indiscriminately, beating, throwing grenades, & firing rubber bullets at some. #SaveSilwan
I was attacked, they were beating me violently on my legs, my running legs, my everything. They beat everyone in the vicinity as they violently suppressed our gathering at the finish line. We were exhausted, yet they wanted to crush us even further. #SaveSilwan#SaveSheikhJarrah
After they had already beaten all of us multiple times and emptied the whole space of gathered Palestinians in the heart of my ancestoral town of Silwan, they were ready to inflict more violence upon us. #SaveSilwan
The wanted to keep attacking all of us who were present at #JerusalemMarathon finish line.
Look at this video. I got attacked for 2nd time. I felt they really wanted to break my legs. Was my running gear too provocative? A tank top, shorts, & trainers. They hated it. They hate us
4 hours later. I am in so much pain I can barely walk, let alone run. I am thankful to have a friend who knows what I need for immediate relief,, yet I know I won't be able to use my legs normally for days.
I have to cancel tmw morning run with my RTM team in Lifta, Jerusalem.
On a good day, I can run a whole marathon in 3hrs20mins. Below are marathons I ran in past years 1. Malta Marathon 2020 🇲🇹. 2. Tokyo Marathon 2019 🇯🇵. 3. Santiago de Chile 2018 🇨🇱. 4. Edinburgh Marathon 2016 🏴.
But, in my city #Jerusalem, a hateful state🇮🇱 denied me that right.
Thank you @sunnyboymorgan, I actually ran Cape Town's Two Oceans half-marathon three years ago. What a wonderful race (difficult, but beautiful), I cannot wait to be back to do more running 🇿🇦.
I know it may be "trivial" and does not compare to the starvation and mass slaughter in Gaza..
But the West Bank has been under a suffocating siege for over a week now. The few main roads comnecting cities are shut down. No alternative routes. People are stranded.
Inside "Area A" Ghettos of the occupied West Bank, the situation is at its worst. 30min journeys become ~5 hours. People sleep in their cars when their homes are minutes away. Soldiers humiliate, degrade, and assault commuters daily, while JudeoNazi settlers roam free on WB roads
Fuel shortages are rampant. People kill each other at gas stations. Palestinian public employees only got 30% of their salaires. The PA is totally absent, not even a public comment or advice to its people. Israeli gov't "wothhold" or STEAL over 8 billion shekels of PA's money.
🧵THREAD.
Throughout this olive season, Israel's Settler/Soldier militias have been diligently 1) preventing farmers access to their lands, 2) shooting/killing farmers, 3) terror attacks, burning of homes & property, 4) destruction of olive trees, 5) theft of olive harvest.
The Israeli gov't-sponsored terror militias exploited distractions - such as the escalating Israeli aggression against Lebanon, and because naturally the mother of all horrors, the #GazaHolocaust unfolding in north Gaza since October 1st (start of olive season), take precedence.
In most cases, Palestinians were in their lands harvesting olives, in areas which even Israel's "judicial & military authorities" "permitted" Palestinian farmers access to.
However, settlers & "idf" soldiers coordinated to remove Palestinians from their lands, often by force.
🧵 A comical encounter with Zionist soldiers at one of the many IOF roadblocks in the occupied West Bank (their purpose is maintain Jewish-only traffic on West Bank main roads).
Read if you want to see what 10 minutes with illiterate genocidal killers feels like. Only 10 minutes.
This roadblock's purpose is humiliation, not "security". Its to purify all West Bank main roads (Area C) from Palestinian presence, keeping it for Jewish Settler traffic (background, uniterrupted).
Alternative roads are 10x longer at minimum.
Israeli occupation is the ugliest.
See the 🇰🇪 bandana in the first tweet? Well, one of the delinquents found it in my vehicle 😱 and thought it was a Palestinian flag 😱😱
Commence being thrown on the wall, legs spread, pockets emptied, and basically molested by like four soldiers (they call this a "search").
⚠️IMPORTANT⚠️🧵
Not many are talking about this, but it is heavily reported.
In recent days, Israeli forces intensified wholesale destruction / controlled detonations of entire residential blocks in Gaza.
Jabalia, Beit Hanoun, & Beit Lahia have been declared Disaster Zones. 🧵
Remember the videos Israeli soldiers used to publish, full of glee, as they count down to detonate entire residential blocks /universities in Gaza?
The soldiers don't post as many videos now (i guess someone told them it looks bad?) but the demolitions have actually intensified.
Residents in Gaza are hearing those huge detonations daily, hourly even.
On Friday, rumors circulated in Gaza city that earth quake had hit... Except it wasn't natural - The shake was a result of another huge demolition in the north areas.
Those in my age group are target for summary execution by Israel's genocidal forces in Gaza. Young males are being executed, often infront of family and loved ones, in a savage manner, by soldiers who are proud.
All Gaza, especially North.
They also get hit by targeted strikes, whether they're carrying their bicycles, flying drones to film a massacre site, or seeking to collect grass/flour to bring home to your starving children...
Palestinian men are being subject to a systematic mass slaughter.
All the young brains, the smart ones, the technologists. Dozens of programmers, information technology experts, and workers in computer engineering. Systematically slaughtered by the Zionists in Gaza. euromedmonitor.org/en/article/622…
Israeli armed drones killed several young Palestinians in the camp.
1,400 Israeli soldiers raided a total of 400 homes, during which they destroyed furniture, walls, cars and shops. They also defaced pictures of murdered Palestinians. 2/
The soldiers arrested HUNDREDS, detained them in open rain.
One of the young men who were detained said the forces assaulted them one by one - severe beatings & insults. He mentioned soldiers shot a young man when he shouted back, he got seriously injured.