As the rest of the world continues to dump buckets of cold water over their heads in support of ALS research, some Palestinians have created their own version of the Ice Bucket Challenge to raise awareness about the ongoing crisis in Gaza. Known as the Rubble Bucket Challenge, the campaign invites social media users to douse themselves in sand, gravel, and other materials from buildings that have been destroyed during Israel's seven-week military offensive. The choice of materials was both deliberate and necessary: they couldn't use ice water, participants say, due to deteriorating conditions on the ground.
"In Gaza we don't have water and when we have water, we can't make ice since the electricity is off most of the time," writes Gaza resident Abu Yazan, alongside a video he uploaded to Facebook Tuesday morning. "So my cousin Hafiz, [my] nephew Khalid and I used remains of a destroyed house to participate in this challenge."
Unlike the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, this campaign doesn't ask users for monetary donations. Instead, it relies on social media to simply raise awareness about a humanitarian crisis that its Facebook page describes as "ethnic cleansing."
"Money will not bring the so many innocent souls back to life and we cannot begin to rebuild Gaza unless the Israeli attacks stop," Maysam Yusef, the Gaza university student who launched the Rubble Bucket Challenge, said in an email. "So our campaign is more of a social media revolution, where people show their solidarity with Gaza and publicly reject the killing of civilians. We are trying to form a worldwide movement to pressure Israel to stop this genocidal act against Palestinians of Gaza."
Read full article :Theverge
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