• 8 months ago
A symbolic funeral march has been held in Portsmouth to highlight the plight of those who have been killed in the Israel-Gaza war
Transcript
00:00 [Music]
00:08 Hi, we're with Palestine Solidarity Committee.
00:13 We're a group of mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, uncles, children.
00:19 We're marching for funeral babies for Gaza because so many have been killed.
00:27 There's been 15,000 babies and children killed in Gaza over the last five months.
00:34 Over 35,000 people and it's not right and we can't forget them.
00:39 We want to mourn them and we want the wider community to understand that this isn't right
00:46 and that they must have their voices heard.
00:48 [Music]
01:03 Hello, my name's Rosie. I was on the funeral procession today for people killed in Gaza.
01:10 I wasn't expecting so many people to attend,
01:14 but I was really pleased that lots and lots of people came out on a Sunday afternoon
01:20 to honour and to mourn the people killed in Gaza.
01:24 It was important to me to hear the names and ages of the thousands and thousands of people
01:31 killed by Israeli airstrikes and bombs and when they queue for food and they get shot.
01:38 These are people that we're not meant to identify with. We're not meant to care what happens to them.
01:44 Of course we care about people in Israel as well, Israeli citizens,
01:48 but the Israeli state is pursuing a very, very, very terrifying and cruel policy against people in Palestine.
01:57 And the fact that so many people came out to demonstrate and to remember people in Portsmouth today,
02:05 I think shows that people do care about what's happening in Palestine
02:11 and we very much want the genocide to stop.
02:14 [Music]
02:21 These are all the names of two-year-old children in Palestine that were killed.
02:26 [Music]
02:30 Amir Kanan, two years old. Amir Saeed Safra, two years old.
02:36 Anas Faiz, two years old. Anas Hussein Al-Khateeb, two years old.
02:43 [Music]
02:57 Today we marched in black for the 12,000 plus children killed in Gaza.
03:05 Some carried shrouded babies to symbolise the disproportionate number of babies and children killed.
03:12 Some of us read the names and ages of just 400 of them.
03:19 This level of child casualties is not an accident.
03:25 It's a war crime. There's no other name for it.
03:30 The reason their names was very painful, because as you say, a name like Abdelkarim Abdullah Omar Shabab
03:40 and his age, under a year old, you can't help but imagine his cruel and tragic end.
03:51 All of the names that were read out were of children that did not make it to primary school.
03:58 [Music]
04:09 It was a very moving experience to be part of.
04:13 We knew about 50% of the participants and another 50% were kind of new people.
04:23 I think we needed it as a community to deal with the sadness that we were engaged with.
04:38 And I think it had a strong impact on Portsmouth.
04:44 I noted that a lot of people came to their balcony windows and to their balconies and looked down on us.
04:54 To begin with in wonderment and later on with genuine sorrow and sympathy.
05:01 [Music]
05:11 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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