Dear Norman,

I attended a lecture last night by Erik Fosse, who worked alongside Mads Gilbert at Shifa hospital in Gaza during the Israeli attacks. It was heart-wrenching stuff, and he showed photos and told stories which both saddened and infurieted everybody in attendance. He told us how he had worked at that hospital several times before, and the fact that he was a westerner was not something that anybody cared about, or even noticed. When they arrived during the attacks, however, everybody greeted them like rock stars. And the reason, obviously, was that he and Gilbert were the only westerners there, and the Palestineans realized that they might at least serve as witnesses to their destuction.

Fosse also described how they could hear those unmanned drones circling the city constantly, so the IDF clearly knew who they were killing. It’s pretty hard to contrast Israeli statements bragging about how they hit 90% of their targets with the number of children killed. He emphazised how Gilbert and himself were lucky enough to have their family safe back in Norway, while the Palestinians working at the hospital knew that their families were in constant danger (everybody had portable radios in their ears to keep updated on which neighbourhoods were being bombed). One time the wife and two kids of one doctor arrived seriously injured, while the doctor was on duty. Luckily the both survived. The doctor’s cousin, pregnant wife and two other kids weren’t so lucky, though. It just went on and on.

On Tuesday a documentart was aired on Norwegian tv which revelaed how Norway sold weapons to Israel in the months leading up to the attack. Since it’s illegal for Norway to sell weapons directly to Israel while they are at war, it sold them indirectly through the U.S (through a corporation called NAMMO). It’s been three days since it aired, and not a single word of discussion has been raised about this appalling fact. We have a leftist coalition government at the moment, so the opposition obviously aren’t going to raise a word of protest. It’s a disgrace.

Just wanted to let you know that the Norwegian state’s image as a friend of the Palestinians is a blatant lie.

Best,

Dag Sørås (Oslo, Norway)