Christmas in Gaza

For this poem, I have taken a well known hymn of a quiet and silent Christmas night, and inverted it to consider the situation in Gaza. I was walking round a shop, seeing all the Christmas gifts and goodies and food, and thinking at the same time we should do more. Even if nothing else, we can donate to charities who are making a difference in Gaza. And a real difference, albeit now showing like the peace truce, which is a big show for President Trump, but where deaths and starvation continues. Meanwhile, the UN and other aid agencies fear new Israeli registration rules for dozens of international non-governmental organisations (INGOs) risk the collapse of the humanitarian response in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. 

"Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. Why did I walk through crowds of fellow-beings with my eyes turned down, and never raise them to that blessed Star which led the Wise Men to a poor abode!" (Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol)

Christmas in Gaza

O homes of Gaza, with broken walls
How ruined we see the lie
Above the shelling brings no sleep
The fear of death goes by
No light in dark streets shineth
Just everlasting night
Lost hopes and fears of all the years
Are coming here tonight.

For hate is born of many
And missiles fly above
No mortals sleep, but soldiers keep
Their watch so lacking love.
Politicians declared, together
That comes a peacetime birth,
And praises sing to Trump the King,
Despite such ruined earth.

But silently, how silently
The food and aid is given
The calling of our human hearts
And just a touch of heaven
No triumph blaze, this coming
But in this world of sin
The aid workers can reach them still
And here Christ enters in.

Oh homes destroyed so callously
For refugees we pray;
Not that much joy now coming in
No Christmas here today
But let the Christmas angels,
Bring love and hope and tell
That we may show, to them from us
Our Lord Emmanuel