“keep talking about me”

19-year old Mohammad “Moe” (he/him) has enchanted the cat-loving Internet with a gut-wrenching rollercoaster ride involving his aloof ragdoll cat, Leo, as they dodge quadcopters and IDF tanks in Gaza.

In September, Moe’s cat, Leo (to whom Moe refers using both he/him and she/her pronouns, sometimes within the same tweet) was injured in his eye and leg while outside on the street during an explosion. Mohammad dutifully found a veterinarian to inspect and treat Leo’s injuries. She was tended to by Moe and made a full recovery, which she signaled by darting out the door and staying out for more than two days. Without his companion, Moe spiraled and the situation outside grew more violent, causing him a great deal of worry and loneliness.

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When Moe and Leo were lovingly reunited on 10/15, they soothed their invested followers with a string of sweet selfies of the two of them snuggling.

“ …😭😭😭❤️ Leo is back, thank God. Despite the death and destruction we are experiencing here in Gaza, I am now the happiest person on earth,

as if my soul has returned to me 🥹❤️❤️”

—@mo7medjbour “Mohammad in Gaza 🇵🇸” via X • 6:05am PST 10/15/24

“Don't forget me in your prayers”

A week ago, Leo and Moe were both starving, without access to food for humans or cat food. Then, Thursday night, they were saying final goodbyes, sharing this dystopian view of twin missiles illuminating a smoky sky with tank-tracks visible on the ground:

“If I die,

I am not a number,

I am a planet in itself,

I have dreams and ambitions that I wanted to achieve….”

—@mo7medjbour “Mohammad in Gaza 🇵🇸” via X • 1:49pm PST 10/24/24

Despite being stalked by an IDF quadcopter when he went out a few nights ago to check on Leo, as of the most recent updates, Moe and Leo are currently snuggled up together and still somehow managing to stay online. Mohammad requests bags of flour and winter clothing but admits he doesn’t know how he could even receive anything at the moment. He takes comfort in any words of support offered via X and wants as many people as possible keeping eyes on his precarious situation. He also wants people to compliment Leo, of course. 😻 Leo prefers Instagram to X and has her own profile there, leo.moe0.

#homelesswithaniphone

Researching, documenting and reporting systemic abuses is an essential job born out of struggle. Anyone with a smartphone and a mind for resistance can break into independent investigative reporting, as @Wizard__Bisan’s recent Academy-affirmed Emmy win demonstrated. Bisan uses her smartphone and fluency in English to show Americans what our government does with our federal tax money.

Bisan doesn’t go on long-winded rants about politics while safe and comfortable indoors, like many creators. Almost antithetical to TikTok and YouTube style, she doesn’t use hyperbole or clickbait. She shows people the parts of displacement that usually remain abstract: what she has been eating (usually plain flat breads when she can get some, dressing it up with corned beef when she was able to obtain a can of the SPAM-like ration) and where she will be sleeping. She takes us to the devastating aftermath of missile strikes and brings her audience along with her on endless evacuations.

Bisan’s manner is matter-of-fact and sometimes emotional. Her role as a reporter on devastation that she is also experiencing makes her a subjective but trustworthy narrator. Bisan has a way of appealing to a common humanity like a friend or sister, inspiring a desire to protect Palestine, even if just to protect her, personally. Only in her mid-twenties, she’s developed parasocial relationships all over the world through her savvy use of social media. But no matter how beloved she is, her audience is helpless to save her without freeing Palestine from occupation.

Witness protection

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has tracked at least 134 journalists that have been killed covering Gaza, often in their “PRESS” vests, nearly all of them Palestinian except six from Lebanon and two Israeli casualties. In addition, CPJ report 71 journalists have been arrested, with 43 of them still incarcerated as of October 30th, plus 41 are injured and two are missing. These figures are only those that have been confirmed and are therefore undercounted.

Unfortunately universal rules of war don’t seem to have helped journalists stay safe while immersed in Israel’s attempt to expand further into Palestine. Israel’s allies, the top one being the United States, seem content to look the other way as war crimes and clear-cut evidence of genocide and ethnic cleaning are unfolding before our eyes.

Exposing abuses committed by powerful people has always been dangerous, but press are intentionally targeted and murdered with an alarming frequency while reporting on Gaza, in violation of international law.

Wafa.ps

Despite the bleak situation for press covering Gaza, at the end of September, 11-year-old Palestinian student Wafa shared with co-hosts of an educational X Space @GazaGreatMinds her dream to be a top investigator one day. Her name happens to be shared with WAFA.ps, which lost one of their journalists, Mohamad Abu Hassira to IDF violence on November 7th, 2023. His home was struck by (a) missile(s), killing him along with 42 other members of his family. The news was confirmed by his colleagues at local WAFA.ps, as well as London’s The New Arab, and Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate.

Palestinian people call their murdered loved ones martyrs, elevating them in death to people who died not simply because of their ethnicity or proximity to militarized colonizers—but because they hold valuable information and/or unshakable spiritual convictions. Martyrs are witness to unbelievable, unspeakable things. They die with a message which survives through their loved ones.

California Genocide

Last week, the President formally apologized to survivors for nearly 1,000 Indigenous people who were confirmed to have been killed and buried at boarding schools across America. This horrific discovery confirmed long-standing claims made by Indigenous survivors of America continuing to engage in ethnic cleansing long after they colonized the continent, which was denied for generations. Indigenous peoples’ testimonies got scientifically proven in recent years with the discovery of 65 graves that prompted a vindicating apology in which Biden describes genocide as horrific and shameful, but stops short of naming it:

“…the United States was established and began expanding, entering treaties with sovereign Tribal Nations. But as time moved on, respect for Tribal sovereignty evaporated, was shattered, pushing Native people off their homelands, denying their humanity and their rights, targeting children to cut their connection to their ancestors and their inheritance and their heritage….

…the federal government mandated the removal of children from their families and Tribes, launching what’s called the Federal Indian Boarding School era. Over a 150-year span from the early 1800s to 1970…”

The purpose of our education system is supposed to be for learning words, history and culture, but even the President admits that it still does better at avoiding, erasing and actively destroying those things. He proceeds to defend denial, stating that most people still aren’t aware of the California genocide, managing to do so without as much as saying the “g-word”:

“One of the most horrific chapters in American history. We should be ashamed. A chapter that most Americans don’t know about. The vast majority don’t even know about it…

…The Federal Indian Boarding School policy and the pain it has caused will always be a significant mark of shame, a blot on American history.

For too long, this all happened with virtually no public attention, not written about in our history books —“

—President Joe Biden