Today, Ahmed Muin, director of Gaza Birds Singing, rose with drones loudly buzzing in the background. The sound of bombings through the night in Gaza has been relentless, he says. But he’ll join live with the Hebron/Bethlehem Amwaj Choir in a livestream today, a second musical encounter defying violence and starvation.
This is the morning message:
Tonight was terrifying… and tomorrow might be worse.
This morning, I tried to buy flour to bake bread —
$1,000 for a single bag.
It’s insane. It’s inhumane.
Still, amid hunger, destruction, and pain — we will sing.With Amwaj Choir, our voices rise with love and peace, even from beneath the rubble.
Bread has become a dream… but our voice remains free and priceless.
I will do my best — because art is what we have left.
“Even in darkness… we are the music.”
They’ll be joined by Amwaj Choir, conducted by Mathilde Vittu and made up of participants from both Hebron and Bethlehem, who have worked with my friends and colleagues at Bethlehem’s Wonder Cabinet. Mohammed Helles, Gaza Birds’ violinist, has now been based in Paris for the last weeks and will join an event there at Institut du Mond Arabe. Mohammed will describe the conditions in Gaza following the concert. I think we need to think of this not simply as “a hopeful music event,” but a concert in defiance of ongoing, mass forced displacement, mass starvation, and genocide.
The stream will be live at 2pm Paris/Berlin time or 8am New York time, here, and should be viewable afterwards for our North and South American readers just waking up.
Updated: new link, 14:20 Berlin local time
Streaming from Gaza and conditions there are unpredictable, so it sounds as though the plan is for Mohammed to fill in from Paris.
I could link to the various NGOs also pointing to the mass starvation challenge, but suffice to say, they’re consistent with what he’s reporting. What really drives that home is seeing this image: having to survive on two tablespoons of macaroni, cooked in oil.
There’s nothing left…
Just one pack of pasta
– we fry it in oil because that’s all we have.
No vegetables.
No flour.
No food… just pain.
That’s my breakfast, and I have to survive on it the whole day.
This is how we live.
Where is humanity?
Fundraisers for Ahmed Muin and the Gaza band are still live and encouraged:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/hello-peace-help-innocent-people-to-survive
I wrote about the December event; Al Jazeera English covered that event:
Featured image is an illustration by Judith (apologies, will try to get proper credits) via the IBARABE event.
Previously: