I will not start my email by greeting you because we are past a point where optics matter. It is day 207 of the genocide of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, and the genocide is more than evident. For you, the proponents of everything engineering, mathematically speaking, this is a genocide. More than 34,500 Palestinians have been murdered, many remain under the rubble, and we don’t know if they are alive or dead. More than 71,000 people have been injured, and the health sector is collapsing. Mass graves are found in hospital courtyards, hospitals burned down, children killed in their sleep, amputations happening without anesthesia in the most unhygienic conditions, neighborhoods reduced to rubble, and bodies crushed alive by tanks.
I see mothers bidding farewell to the parts of their children’s bodies — to the burned and decapitated bodies of their babies. I see fathers having to carry the body parts of their children in bags because there is no way for them to be buried as whole bodies. I hear mothers screaming that their children were killed hungry. I see mothers having to cook wheat made out of animal grain to feed their children. I witness parents having to endure their children’s limbs being amputated without anesthesia and in the most unhygienic environments, in a living room in a partially destroyed house because almost every hospital in the Gaza Strip has been targeted, leading to the destabilization of the healthcare sector. More than 70 thousand Palestinians have been severely injured, mostly children, and they are denied access to medical treatment. The siege on Gaza since 2007 deprives them of their human right to travel to seek treatment elsewhere.
I see Palestinian men stripped down with guns to their heads and held hostage by the IOF. I see mass graves of bodies whom the health ministry is unable to identify because of how burned their bodies are. Even in our murder, our oppressor ensures more suffering for us.
I see children dying because of the cold. Their tiny bodies can’t handle living in the direst situations in tents with no conditioning or even layers of clothing. Their deaths are on the hands of MIT because it emboldens their murder by investing in research and accepting funds from the Ministry of Defense of Israel to create autonomous robotics swarms.
I see a baby child whose both legs were amputated asking the doctor if they will regrow. What answer will you give to him? I read stories about the girl who was the only survivor of the massacre against her family, begging around for medication. Do you have the courage to look into her eyes?
I read the story of Hind Rajab, a 6-year-old Palestinian baby who was trapped in a car with five bodies of her family members who were killed by the IOF for 12 days. After 12 days, the body of Hind was found. She was killed along with the two Red Cross paramedics who were trying to rescue her. Hind was left to die in fear and cold. She begged, “Come take me. Will you come and take me? I’m so scared. Please come.” What if Hind was your daughter or someone you admire and love endlessly?
I see the pictures of 12-year-old Jinane Abu Jazzar, my neighbor, who the rockets flung her body into the air, and she ended up on a wall with her limbs cut off. The picture of her doesn’t leave my mind, and it shouldn’t leave yours too. It should make you angry to the extent where you destroy the so-called order and “vibrant” ties this institution shamelessly still has.
I am told stories about Palestinian fathers crying because they can’t find a way to provide food for their families. They don’t have food to eat. Stories of families who have been collecting rainwater to hydrate themselves. They have been drinking the undrinkable water of the Mediterranean so they don’t die of dehydration. Will their hunger and dehydration make you move and cut these blood-stained ties?
As a Palestinian refugee, born and raised in the Gaza Strip, what is happening right now is not an abstract concept. It is not a theory of decolonization and dismantling system of oppression. It is tied to everything I have. It is my family, friends, and people. It is the streets, the neighborhoods, and cities I am most familiar with. It is my only home and I refuse to see it collapsing and being destroyed before my eyes from a distance in an institution that contributes and perpetuates that damage.
As an institution deeply tied to the military complex here in the US and abroad, especially to Israel, we have a moral responsibility to act, to divest, to clear ourselves from being complicit in the genocide of the Palestinian people. Everything we do—from our research to our exchange and study abroad programs that are tied to Israel—impacts Palestinians and deepens the oppression and prolongs their plight. Divesting is merely a first step in ensuring justice for the Palestinians who have endured more than 75 years of occupation and colonization.
I am writing this two days after I lost 4 of my childhood friends: Hanan, Hala, Amira, and Amani. A bomb eradicated their home and took them away from me and the world. I have not seen them in over 21 months. I write while thinking of my friends Mariam, Dima, my baby cousin Dana, and my cousin Bakir who were all murdered in cold blood in broad daylight.
I think of my friend Husny and his family trapped in the north with little to no food. I think of my friend Farah trapped in a tent after her escape from the north with her sick mother. I think of my high school friends whose education was halted because all universities were destroyed. There is no future left for them, and all that is awaiting them is death.
Do you not see them? Do you not hear them? How dare you not listen to them? Do you not feel their pain? Do you not understand our rage and anger?
I am genuinely interested to know how you sleep at night knowing that you are in a power position within an institution that is deeply complicit in the genocide of population 50% of whom are children. How do you even dare to call yourself a human? How do you have the audacity to claim that you care about the betterment of this world when you extend an arm of research to a military carrying out ground invasion of hospitals, mosques, churches and schools? How dare you speak about unity and inclusivity when you are an active weapon in the erasure and the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians?
Finally, I think of my family whom I have not seen in over 21 months. I think of my 7 sisters and 3 brothers whose education and future were put on pause for now. I want them to be at my graduation. I don’t want to wake up one morning and see their names on the news.
With that being said, I believe in the power MIT has to be the leader of change and doing justice by the Palestinian people. Palestinian families are also our families. Everyone at the encampment recognizes this bond. They are familiar with the interconnectedness of struggles against oppression, spanning from Turtle Island to the Caribbean, to Africa, to Asia, and to Palestine. We are driven by a shared commitment and dedication to liberation, justice and freedom. We are doing what MIT prides itself in – leading change.
Palestinians will not accept your apology after the genocide. May the souls of the 13,800 children haunt every one of you in your sleep and your wake because your ties and damn neutrality is complicity. It is time to end all ties and fundings to and from the Ministry of Defense of Israel. It is time to divest – COMPLETE DIVESTMENT NOW!
Until liberation and to a free Palestine from the river to the sea,
Fedaa A Alsoufi
Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Class of 2026
Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science