"We Will Never Leave": Human Rights Lawyer Raji Sourani in Gaza City Refuses to Be "Good Victim"

We go to Gaza City to speak with Raji Sourani, director of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza, who is refusing to move south after Israel’s evacuation order. “Why should we be good victims for criminals who do war crimes [in] the daylight in front of the whole world, and the world is watching?” asks Sourani, who says there are no safe havens in Gaza, but social solidarity is high among survivors. “They can bomb us. They can kill us. But they cannot take the love and the justice from our hearts and minds.” Since October 7, Israel’s attacks on Gaza have killed 2,800 people — over a third of them children — a figure that does not include an estimated 1,000 additional Palestinians trapped under rubble of homes and businesses. Civil groups are sounding the alarm as civilians in Gaza are being forced to use contaminated water, a majority of hospitals remain partially operational, and critical supplies are running low under Israel’s complete siege of the territory.