Revolutionary Dublin Tour in support of the Abusalama Family

My name is Daragh Cogley, I am fundraising for my partner Shahd whose life has been turned upside down by the ongoing Genocide in Gaza, leading to an endless trail of unanticipated events. This includes her family being uprooted from Gaza, and Shahd’s recent deportation from the Schengen area to Ireland following her participation in a speaking event in Belfast.

We invite you to a fundraiser event on 1 June 2024 to help Shahd support herself and her family until she can return to Barcelona, where her parents are now based after surviving the Genocide in Gaza. The fundraiser is a special tour of Revolutionary Dublin conducted by Lorcan Collins. If you can contribute €50, you will be invited on this afternoon tour. Details will be mailed to you by Daragh. If you can't join the tour or afford the €50 ticket, all other donations are still much appreciated.

Since 7 October 2023, over 35,000 Palestinians have been slaughtered by the Israeli Occupation Forces and over 90% of infrastructure in the Gaza Strip has been destroyed. Shahd’s family has lost countless members of their extended family, neighbors and friends, and had many others unlawfully detained and stripped of their dignity. Jabalia Refugee Camp where Shahd was born and raised have been undergoing multiple bombings and burnings, rendering most homes, including her family home, destroyed. Shahd’s immediate family are now dispersed across the world, from Gaza, to Egypt, Spain and now due to the deportation of Shahd on 3 May 2024, Ireland. The Abusalama family are working tirelessly from their dispersed places to support their survivors and stop the genocide while struggling between the costs of survival in new places and supporting their loved ones still in Gaza.

Shahd, who has in the past been able to financially support her family, was unlawfully suspended by Sheffield Hallam University where she was teaching, following an orchestrated campaign by Israel’s Lobby in the UK that tried to silence her and the liberation causes she represents. Although SHU eventually dropped its investigation of the unfounded allegations, SHU continued to subject Shahd to further vulnerabilities, by engaging in the defamatory and divisive discourse of the infamous Zionist newspaper Jewish Chronicle. Shahd is still fighting an expensive court case regarding this issue without secure employment, and in the midst of this, was required to relocate to Barcelona to support her parents, who after many months of genocide in Gaza, were able to escape.

Even if the genocide ends today, the Abusalama family will be homeless: their beautiful home in northern Gazawas first bombed and then set on fire by the Israeli army. Their neighbourhood currently remains underinhumane siege and intensive Israeli bombings, with more family members stuck nearby. Their land and trees have all been mercilessly destroyed, with more destruction and loss occurring with each passing day of this ongoing genocide.

On 20 May 2024, after attending a march in Belfast calling for an end to Israel’s genocidal ethnic cleansing of Gaza, Shahd was scrolling her social media when she recognised her oldest paternal uncle Abu Osama in a widely circulating footage by Al-Jazeera, being rescued from under the rubble of his own home, which also housed his sons and their families. Her 80-year-old uncle is a child survivor of 1948 Nakba, originally from Beit Jerja in nowadays Israel, who served 4 decades of nursing in Jabalia Refugee Camp UNRWA clinic. He is now disabled and with poor health conditions, which made him unable to follow Israel’s criminal orders upon the resident of northern Gaza to “head south” amid continuing bombardment and displacement of southern cities and refugee camps in the Strip. While Shahd’s now-disabled uncle survived with wounds, Abu Osama’s son Wajdi who remained to care for him was murdered. His body remains trapped under the rubble and the family remains unable to grieve amid escalating terror and repeated displacement by Israel’s Occupation Army.

Your support is essential to ensure Shahd is able to continue supporting herself and her family amid these unprecedented times. Please donate, share widely & help Shahd and her family have some safety and security in the new lives which were imposed upon them.

Places on the tour are limited, so if you'd like to join, donate €50 ASAP and we will contact you for a special afternoon on June 1st. If you would like to donate without going on the tour, it would also be greatly appreciated.

Thank you so much for your support,

Daragh