All Eyes On Gaza - Real Lives, Real People
A half-hour video call from Gaza that reminded me why connection is the most radical act of all
You who are trembling in the half-light, You who are wide-awake in a sleeping world, You who feel the burn of a child's cry in your marrow—This is for you.
These words by artist, poet, activist Azul Thome found me this week like a summons I couldn't ignore. Because honestly? I'm shocked by what's happening right now.
MPs walking out of Parliament over Gaza ceasefire votes. The government calling Palestine Action—people with spray paint—terrorists, while pensioners and priests get arrested for holding placards. UN rapporteur Francesca Albanese getting sanctioned by the US for telling the truth about genocide being profitable.
Part of me is nervous to talk about Gaza again. Will people think I'm being too much? Too political? But then I think about Albanese's words: "All eyes must remain on Gaza, where children are dying while we speak."
How can I not speak?
Especially after last night's video call.
The Call That Stopped Everything
I had a half-hour video call with Noorhan Samuni. She's 25, lives in Gaza, has two daughters—Sham and Sadaya, aged 2 and 3. She called me from the rubble of her bombed-out house.
She introduced me to her husband and the children in her family. She showed me the space between the debris where she cooks bread when they have flour. She showed me her skinny arms and the children with clothes too small and no shoes. She showed me the tent where they sleep.
"What have I done? What have I done?" she kept asking God.
It takes it to a whole new level when there's a real human behind the story, doesn't it? When you can see their face, hear their voice, watch them move through the wreckage of their life.
She told me about the constant lack of food, how her daughters cry for bread that she doesn't have. How they're drinking salty water that isn't safe for the children. How every minute there's bombing overhead and they're terrified.
But she also told me about her dreams. Over and over again, she said, "I dream that my children can be in the world like other children. I dream that they have clothes and food and clean water. I dream they can be out in the world the way you are."
In another dream, she said she dreams of having a cupboard and a bed. She used to have a bed and cupboard and normal things, but now she has nothing.
And then she said something that brought tears to my eyes: "After the war, I would love for you to come and I will cook—chicken and fish and tomatoes—and we will eat together... after the war."
Even in the midst of all this suffering, she thanked me and told me she was sending me all the love from her heart.
I see her as a real person. I feel for her deeply, though I can never imagine the terror she lives with. I'm connected to her across the distance not because I can fix anything, but because her humanity calls to mine.
I hold her dreams with me. I hold the image of her someday cooking chicken and fish and tomatoes for us to share. I hold the knowledge that what she wants—a cupboard, a bed, safety for her children—these aren't grand demands. They're the most basic human needs.
(The photos below are Nours home.)
What Happened When We Gathered
After that call, I felt called to do something. So I held an online peace circle for Palestinian solidarity. I wasn't sure who would come, or what would happen.
People joined from India, Australia, Finland, Sweden, Kenya, England, the States, and more. We started as strangers on a Zoom call, and by the end, we were a community.
We lit candles. We read poetry. We sang together. We cried together. And then we made commitments to action.
The commitments were beautifully diverse:
Put Palestinian solidarity stickers on my pram
Speak honestly to each person who asks how I am—and say I'm okay but I'm struggling with the fact that there is a genocide
Train to become a street medic
Support students who are resisting
Write weekly to government representatives
Love bomb arms manufacturers to soften their hearts
Plant olive trees and native wildflowers
Teach nonviolent communication
Dance for all the people in the world
Recognize that even silence can be courageous and radical
Some people are called to direct action, others to prayer, others to creative resistance, others to the quiet work of tending their own communities. All of it matters.
This is what integrity looks like—not one prescribed response, but authentic action arising from genuine connection to what you value most.
We sang this song together:
Cry heart—but do not break.
Your love is needed in days to come.
Cry heart!
And then cry freedom.
Cry justice,
Till the work be done.
By Bid Cousins
Why This Is About You Too
Here's what I want you to understand: this isn't separate from the healing work I usually talk about. This IS the healing work.
When we practice staying present with collective trauma, we're building our capacity for presence. When we learn to feel grief without being destroyed by it, we're developing emotional resilience. When we choose to stay open-hearted in the face of horror, we're cultivating exactly what the world needs most right now.
This is what I mean when I talk about connected self-leadership. It's not just about knowing yourself and following your inner guidance—though it includes that. It's about understanding that you're part of a larger web of life, and that your healing and your actions ripple out to affect the whole.
The work of healing our own disconnection from ourselves, from our bodies, from the earth, from our purpose—that work IS political. When we learn to stay present with what's difficult, when we practice staying open-hearted in the face of horror, when we choose connection over disconnection—we're not just healing ourselves. We're modeling a different way of being human.
And that different way of being human? That's what threatens systems of oppression more than anything else.
I'm starting regular solidarity circles. Not just spaces to feel and process—though we need those too—but spaces where we come together to take action. We'll gather online, center ourselves, remember why we're here, then spend time writing letters, signing petitions, planning actions, supporting each other's activism.
Because here's what I've learned: we need both the inner work and the outer work. Connection without action can become complacency. Action without connection burns us out. But when we bring them together? When we act from a place of deep connection to ourselves and each other? That's when real change happens.
A Poem for the Road
I want to end with words by Refaat Alareer, a Palestinian writer and professor who was killed by an Israeli airstrike in December 2023. He wrote this knowing he might die:
If I must die,
you must live
to tell my story
to sell my things
to buy a piece of cloth
and some strings,
(make it white with a long tail)
so that a child, somewhere in Gaza
while looking heaven in the eye
awaiting his dad who left in a blaze—
and bid no one farewell
not even to his flesh
not even to himself—
sees the kite, my kite you made, flying up above
and thinks for a moment an angel is there
bringing back love.
If I must die
let it bring hope
let it be a tale.
This is what we're being asked to do. To turn suffering into story, pain into purpose, grief into action that brings hope.
So don't turn away from what's happening in Palestine. Don't let yourself become numb to the suffering of others. But also don't let it destroy you.
Find your way to stay connected—to yourself, to others, to the larger web of life you're part of. Whether that's through prayer or protest, poetry or politics, healing work or direct action—or all of the above.
We need each other to remember that our sensitivity isn't weakness—it's exactly what the world needs right now. We need each other to keep choosing connection over disconnection, love over fear, presence over paralysis.
🎧 Listen to the full episode here to hear more about my call with Noorhan, the poetry that's sustaining me, and learn how you can join upcoming solidarity circles by signing up for the mailing list here.
🌿 Explore my free resources at https://www.leonajohnson.life/resources for tools and support on your journey of connection and authentic self-leadership.
