Many of the hundreds of children killed this week, look like my nieces here in London. So the images from Gaza have been very powerful but it also touches a community nerve and memory for the Bangladeshi’s in the UK. 

As a child l watched the attempted genocide during the Bangladeshi liberation war in 1971 by the Pakistani army & air force, known as Operation Searchlight. I saw how it was particularly targeted at Hindu men, as Pakistani soldiers at checkpoints that my family went through were pulling out uncircumcised men on the coaches as we fled to India. We had British passports and were able to get transport when millions had to walk into India. All these night mares that have been lying dormant for many years suddenly came back to me, as l saw the children of Gaza telling their stories this past week. 

There was a news blackout of the genocide in Bangladesh in 1971 but with today’s social media we have such intimate details of the children’s death. As we see children writing their names on their limbs, so as to be easily identified after being killed. Is it something we didn’t have to mercifully have to do in 1971.

So lets us not forget how events like those being played out in Gaza, can hit a nerve of particular communities in the UK like the Bangladeshis as they relate their experiences and is the basis of their solidarity with Palestinians.