I am a war survivor. And that is why I refuse to sit quietly while genocide unfolds — in Gaza, on our screens, in broad daylight. I know what war sounds like. I know the pitch of missiles slicing the sky. I know the hunger, the displacement, the unanswered questions. I know the look in a mother’s eyes when she has nothing left to offer but her arms.

Last week, I was supposed to be on the Gaza Flotilla called “Conscience” — a civilian aid mission attempting to bring food, water, and medical supplies to Palestinians by sea. I lost contact with the organizer just days before departure. I was still trying to reconnect when the news broke: the flotilla had been struck by Israeli drones in the middle of the night, in international waters near Malta. Thirty humanitarian workers. No weapons. No military. Just water, food, medication, and diapers, were struck by an Israeli missile that generated a fire on the boat endangering the lives of the humanitarian crew. Not one country intervened or sent help.

Many of my peers are putting their bodies on the line. They are physically blockading ports to stop arms shipments. They are occupying government buildings, getting dragged away by riot police, and facing jail or immigration detention. Mahmoud Khalil remains in bureaucratic hell; Mohsen Mahdawi was only recently freed.

But it’s not enough. Not nearly enough.

Because while we organize, march, and mourn, over 52,000 Palestinians — mostly women and children — have been killed. Entire families wiped off civil registries. Food and water are weaponized, leaving more than 1.2 million people starving in Gaza. The World Health Organization (WHO) has documented 464 attacks on healthcare facilities in the region, resulting in significant casualties among medical personnel and the destruction of essential medical equipment, including ambulances. At least 232 journalists have been killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023, making it the deadliest conflict for journalists ever recorded. A recent report by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics indicates that over 39,000 children in Gaza have lost one or both parents. This figure reflects the devastating impact of recent events and highlights the urgent need for support for orphaned children in the region. And still, so many ask: But what can I do?

Let me be clear: we are not powerless. But our greatest threat is the illusion that we are.

What Can You Do?

People keep asking: What can I do? It’s not enough to feel bad. Or to repost a story. Or to wait for elections.

Here are concrete, immediate actions you can take to disrupt the machinery of genocide:

1. Divest Your Labor

If you work for a university, museum, nonprofit, or tech company with ties to weapons manufacturers, fossil fuel giants, or Israeli institutions, you can — and should — push for divestment. Form coalitions. Walk out. Shut it down.

2. Support the Supply Chain Blockades

The global arms trade is not abstract. It relies on real infrastructure — ships, ports, and trucks. In Oakland, Sydney, New York, and London, people are physically blocking shipments of weapons to Israel. They need backup, funds for legal defense, and boots on the ground. Not everyone can risk arrest — but some of you can.

3. Flood the Streets — and the Dockets

Mass mobilizations still matter. So do lawsuits. Join or support legal actions challenging your country’s arms exports or your institution’s complicity. Push your local governments to declare ceasefire zones, sanctuary cities, or initiate symbolic boycotts. These gestures may seem small, but when multiplied, they shift public narrative — and policy.

4. Disrupt Culture

If you’re an artist, writer, curator, or musician, don’t underestimate your power. Withdraw from complicit institutions. Use your platform to pressure, not to posture. Refuse normalcy. Art should not beautify atrocity. Art is the ability to understand the times. It should confront it. When art becomes “shocking” because it is challenging the status quo, that means the artwork is doing what it should be doing: raising the collective consciousness.

5. Protect and Amplify Palestinian Voices

This isn’t about centering yourself — it’s about expanding the reach of those on the ground. Translate, transcribe, repost, publish, fund, and follow Palestinian journalists, medics, and resistance leaders. They are risking everything to document the truth.

The boat that was struck in international waters was named Conscience—a name that now echoes like a plea across the silence of global inaction. It is conscience that compels journalists to report until their final breath, that drives aid workers to risk their lives delivering food to starving children, that keeps prisoners of conscience like Mahmoud Khalil holding on through bureaucratic cruelty. It is conscience that asks us not just to witness genocide, but to act. To demand the immediate opening of the Rafah crossing. To flood our streets, our governments, and our institutions with the unrelenting insistence that this man-made famine, this massacre of orphans, this targeting of hospitals and the press, must end. If the world had a conscience, Gaza would be free.

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*Recent reports note that a tugboat was dispatched to the flotilla, though none of the activists on board agreed to board it. There still remains a discrepancy between the first responders on the tugboat and NGO organizations about how many people were on board. *

As of 12 hours ago, the Freedom Flotilla Coalition issued the following demands in a press release:

Israeli ambassadors must be summoned and answer to their violation of international law, including the ongoing blockade and the bombing of a civilian vessel in international waters.

We demand that:

• Malta immediately respond to its obligation and ensure the safety of all on board the vessel.
• The international community condemns this aggression against an unarmed humanitarian aid vessel and demand the Maltese authorities immediately act.
• All states end political, financial and military support for Israel’s illegal siege, blockade, occupation, and apartheid.
• Civil society contact Maltese embassies and high commissions globally to ensure the safety of our humanitarians.

For the latest updates, follow @gazafreedomflotilla on Instagram, Bluesky, and other social media platforms, as well as their website: https://freedomflotilla.org/