My Brother Mahmoud Khalil, You Have Preserved Your Humanity in a Brutal World

Great March of Return co-founder, Ahmed Abu Artema, pens letter under genocide in Gaza.

Left: Mahmoud Khalil (Watermelon Pictures), right: Ahmed Abu Artema (social media)

My brother Mahmoud,

I never had the honour of meeting you in person, but I learned about your case through social media. I heard that after more than a month of your detention in the state of Louisiana, U.S. immigration judge Jamee Comans ruled on April 11, 2025, that the authorities may proceed with your deportation from the United States—despite your permanent resident status. Your only “offence” was protesting the genocide being committed by Israel, with full backing from the U.S. government, against two million people in the Gaza Strip.

It is both shocking and disheartening that people can be arrested and expelled from a country simply for holding principled political views. But being in Gaza, living through this horror, deepens my anger and frustration over your case. For over 18 months, I have lived alongside more than two million people under relentless assault—massacres, destruction, starvation, and displacement, all carried out by Israel with unwavering U.S. support, the same government now seeking your removal.

Since the beginning of this genocidal war in Gaza, Israel has killed over 60,000 Palestinians with American weapons. The vast majority were women and children, according to every credible human rights organisation. Israel has destroyed over 70% of our homes with these same weapons. It has razed infrastructure, hospitals, and universities. It has forced nearly two million people to flee their homes dozens of times, under constant threat of massacre. It has sealed the crossings, cutting off food, medicine, and fuel—acts that amount to crimes against humanity.

Mahmoud, as we face death in all its forms here in Gaza, we have often felt abandoned. Israel exploits the unlimited support it receives from the U.S. government and its immunity from accountability to commit even more egregious crimes. We’ve known all along: Israel will not stop spilling our blood and destroying our cities unless it feels the threat of punishment. That’s why international support is the fuel for its genocidal machine—not just active support, but even silent complicity. Silence is a powerful message to Israel: the world is not disturbed by the continuation of genocide.

That’s why we deeply understand the value of those who break that silence. The protests of hundreds of thousands of people around the world—including your demonstration and sit-in—were a rupture in that wall of silence. They elevated the voice of conscience. Your protest reminded the world of the fundamental principles of human rights. Your actions lit a torch of hope in our hearts, piercing the darkness of global complicity and apathy.

Here in Gaza, we cling to any flicker of hope that someone, somewhere, will tell Israel, “Enough.” It was only natural to expect the U.S. government to reconsider its policies—not just because of your protests, but out of respect for the moral principles those protests embodied.

But we were stunned when the U.S. government chose instead to mimic the authoritarian regimes it claims to oppose. It chose to suppress the sit-in, and now it moves to punish those who took a brave stand against genocide. This behaviour sends a clear message to Israeli war criminals: continue your mission of killing, destruction, and displacement without fear.

Mahmoud, it is baffling that the same world that boasts of technological and industrial advancement is also the one where the most basic human rights—freedom, dignity, and safety in one’s homeland—are most brutally violated. Worse, these very tools of progress have become instruments that enhance the efficiency of evil and facilitate killing. This is what the brave young woman Ibtihal Abu Al-Saad exposed: that Microsoft provides the Israeli army with AI technologies used to commit massacres in Gaza.

What value remains in our modern industrial civilisation if justice is absent, if war criminals receive full support from the most powerful nations, and if they feel completely safe from any accountability for the atrocities they commit? Humanity’s need for justice, peace, safety, and dignity is far greater than its need for more technological advancement.

Mahmoud, from Gaza, I express my sorrow for the price you’ve paid for your moral stance. But I want you to feel proud. You have not lost. You cared more about justice than about your own personal comfort. History marches on, and this dark chapter will come to an end—just like colonialism and apartheid did. But moral stands endure forever.

You have preserved your humanity in this brutal world.

Ahmed Abu Artema is a Palestinian writer, dreamer and human rights activist. He is one of the founders of the Great March of Return.

On October 24, 2023, Israel killed Ahmed’s 13-year-old son Abdullah in an airstrike along with five other of Ahmed’s close relatives and a neighbour. Ahmed was seriously injured in the attack along with two of his three other children.