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The Palestinian civilians of the Naher al-Bared refugee camp, near Tripoli, in North Lebanon, are under heavy bombardment. Fires are raging, smoke is billowing, and people are dying. Palestinian blood is drip dripping in Lebanon again; and life is leaving this world.

There are thousands of people including children and women still in the camp, who, according to the Lebanese army, have lost their opportunity to leave and are now trapped. What justification can an army have for attacking a refugee camp, a densely populated civilian area? In the name of humanity, the answer must be, none.

The Palestinian people in Palestine continue to survive the now 40-years-old and seemingly unending brutal Israeli occupation of their land, the instrument and root of an unending cycle of violence and race hate against them.

Of the countries housing the intoxicatingly dead-end, nowhere-to-turn refugee camps outside Palestine - where four-million-odd people have been exiled to a marginal existence - Lebanon has been the most sadistic host. Its refugee camps are the most dilapidated, and the people who must live in them are the most marginalised among the Palestinian diaspora.

The wholly inadequate excuse for the current violence is an alleged bank robbery. Where a crime has been committed there are criminal justice processes to follow to apprehend the suspect or suspects. This latest of collective punishments perpetrated against Palestinian civilians is a crime perpetrated by the state and supported by Washington, who, in the wake of renewed violence immediately sent ammunitions to Lebanon. Why?

It is vital people everywhere ask this question of their government’s actions and inaction. There are great examples to follow, including that of the formerly repressed Venezuelan people, who looked past the corrupt commercial media and other smokescreens to restore the people’s choice, by landslide victory, Hugo Chavez, to power after the botched CIA-backed Venezuelan coup attempt of 2002 (evidence of the Bush administration’s involvement in the Venezuelan business elite’s attempted coup was and is insurmountable).

Angels and saints have walked and walk among us; and real blood-and-bones people have triumphed and continue to triumph over the iron-fisted violence of power. Most important of all, we can all reach down and respond to the instinct deep within our flesh, and speak out - down the pub and over cups of tea - until we are at once one again.

Sarah Skilton