An open letter from the Gaza Youth Committee to Australia

Over the past few days, the Gaza Youth Committee has succeeded in attracting the attention of all Israelis, with young people from Gaza appearing in front of tents and destroyed areas holding photos of several Israeli children killed by Hamas on October 7, 2023.

It is important that these messages come out of Gaza, carried by brave young men who declare their commitment to peace on behalf of the large number of Palestinians who completely reject the killing, because they are the people who suffer most through the loss of their dearest children.

We know that a large part of the world knows nothing about Gaza except to see its citizens as terrorists or victims of Israeli military operations. We were not surprised when we saw a lot of comments on Israeli social media sites that questioned the Committee’s intentions and downplayed our actions.

We were very happy when we found our photos throughout the accounts of the families of Israeli hostages and a large number of our partners on the Left, Right and all of Israeli society, who know us well, trust us and know that we have been risking our lives for years.

We have been arrested, assaulted, and our equipment confiscated from Hamas many times before the war – and now we have been harmed daily by Israeli operations that pose a threat to the lives of our family, friends and team members.

The Israeli army has now killed more than 60,000 people in Gaza, wounded hundreds of thousands and destroyed our future – but it will not be able to eliminate our humanity and our rights.