Another beautiful soul, Yasmin Mogahed is a name that kept propping up, even before I followed her on social media. Her quotes are empowering and self-evaluative and a little background research shows she is a woman with impressive credentials, supplementary videos, articles, public speeches and bounds of personal experience. She writes about spiritual empowerment, about overcoming personal, emotional hurdles, and making peace with yourself.

From what I have read of the reviews, a great many people, women in particular have found solace in her writing from grief, from hurt. She is a Muslim woman, a role-model I should say, writing from an Islamic perspective, her book is endowed with verses of the Qu'ran and prophetic hadith, that serve as references, reminders and add further depth to the book. Having said that, there are many people who are not Muslims who have said that it has also helped them come to terms with a difficulty page in their lives so if you feel this is something you may be interested, I urge you not to shy away from it.

Israeli prime minister insists that Hamas are hiding behind citizens, they only target areas linked with Hamas. Given that Hamas is the elected government of Palestine, their aim: resistance. That makes any state building, school, hospital, mosque, home a potential target. I suppose that explains why people are as equally likely to die in their homes as they are if they were to walk out of doors.

Hundreds turn out to demonstrate in Media City, Manchester to condemn the unbalanced representation of the events unfolding in Gaza/Israel by the BBC.

To put things into perspective, it is exactly the same as another country labelling the Coalition in the UK as a terrorist organisation and destroying everything here, our school, homes and hospitals in their hunt of these 'Coalition militants'.

Speaking of which, Palestine has no army, navy or airforce. So who are these miltiants so often spoken of?

Hamas are the product of a 65-70 year occupation of Gaza where the population have been walled off, their food and water controlled or cut off, their homes and lands confiscated, their people shot in the streets, beaten, prosecuted, imprisoned, tortured, humiliated and more. Had I been a child of Palestine,  I would have been born into these dire conditions and had I survived up to now this is all I would have ever known. Not a single day of my life would I have experienced the luxury of normal life, of security and of freedom.

When the Israeli prime minister says that they won't stop raining down drones, shells and bombs over Gaza until Gaza stop their attacks, what he is quite literally stating is that the Isreali government want the people of Gaza to lay down their resistance and accept the force of Israel, succumb to the savergery with which they have been treated these long silent years, to surrender their will, to let themselves be slowely and painful ground into the earth until they are left broken.

The occupation of Palestine is what needs to come to an end, enough is enough! It will not do for the UN to simply strongly suggest a seize fire. It may end the airstrikes for s short while as we have seen last year, as we have seen in 2009 etc but that would not end the suffering of these people. It needs to step up and hold Israel accountable for the innumerous international laws that it has broken, force it to finally end this inhumane blockade of Palestine. It needs to recognize the human rights of the Palestinian people. Just like ourselves, the people of Palestine cannot, will not and should never have to tolerate such treatment and over such a prolongued period of time whilst the rest of the world pretends it does not exist. Only and only then can peace truely prevail for both sides of this soridid business.

#freepalestine