At the end of the United States’ Black History Month, one week after the 47th anniversary of Malcolm X’s assassination in New York’s Audubon Ballroom, and another week shy of my first year in Gaza, I attended a talk on X at Gaza’s Centre for Political and Development Studies (CPDS) Tuesday. My friend Yousef Aljamal, a translator at CPDS, coordinated the event. “We are being subjugated to occupation and racism,” he told me when I asked him why. “I see Malcolm X as a role model. He fought against racism, just as Palestinians are doing today.” CPDS’s lecture hall held a larger crowd than it has during any other event I have attended there. The speaker, Refaat R. Alareer, is a popular teacher of English at the Islamic University of Gaza (IUG). Joining CPDS regulars, dozens of his students had turned out for another opportunity to hear him. “I don’t claim to be a Malcolm X specialist,” Alareer said. “I’m only a fan.” His interest in X, he said, began twelve years ago. “I was teaching a cour
Until now, the besieged Gaza Strip has stayed free of the novel coronavirus spreading across the world. As the Gaza Strip has been under a stringent Israeli-led blockade for nearly 13 years, the spread of the coronavirus - officially known as COVID-19 - has become the topic of discussion for many Palestinians, with some joking that the blockade was preventing them from being exposed.But as authorities in the coastal Palestinian enclave gear up to contain any potential outbreak, serious questions have arisen about the risks and implications of such a scenario. But given its already difficult humanitarian situation and high population density, an outbreak in the Gaza Strip could prove to be catastrophic, health officials have warned. "If the virus enters Gaza and spreads, it will get out of hand," Gaza Ministry of Health spokesperson Majdi Thuhair told Middle East Eye, as he explained that a severe shortage of resources and personnel would make it near impossible