Randa Abdel-Fattah + Hind Khoudary - Stu Hatton

coverage

ground forces had begun

expanding their operations

we were told

*

via this syndicated feed

you can see the landscape

shift in real-time

ditto the line

of ‘neutrality’

*

who or what

coverage

covers

for

*

picking up a little

backchannel

chatter:

once the number of

active, detectable mobile devices

slips below a ‘certain’ number,

the area gets the all-clear

to be bombed

*

to demand a ceasefire,
a ‘humanitarian pause’

to demand aid,
water, electricity, internet

to demand release

of those held hostage

by trauma, retribution,
the party line

to demand not just history
but what history
demands?

Note. As a critique of coverage by Western media, this poem stands in solidarity with Randa Abdel-Fattah’s article ‘In the face of Western hypocrisy, the people stand with Gaza’, New Arab, 10 Oct, 2023 as well as the work of Palestinian journalists such as Hind Khoudary @hindkhoudary

---

Randa Abdel-Fattah is a Future Fellow in the Department of Sociology at Macquarie University researching Arab/Muslim Australian radical social movements from the 1970s to date. She is also the award winning author of over 12 novels.

Follow her on Twitter: @RandaAFattah - New Arab

Hind Khoudary is a freelance Palestinian journalist in Gaza who has worked with PBS, Middle East Eye, Vice, Electric Intifada, +972 Magazine, Al Jazeera and others. You can follow her recent reporting at The Intercept, AL Jazeera, The Electronic Intifada, among others. Follow her on X/Twitter: @Hind_Gaza

Stu Hatton is a writer/editor who lives on unceded Dja Dja Wurrung country with his partner and their three kids. He mainly writes poems, short prosey things, essays, and reviews.

Alt Text: Olive leaves cast shadows against a pale blue surface