Post by Fr David Neuhaus SJ | 27 April 2026
Shouting at the Wall
A 2020 rap song by the Palestinian Gazan boy rapper MC Abdul reminds us all of Gaza. Let us remember that the horror did not begin on October 7, 2023. It dates from decades before then. The photo above commemorates the refugees who arrived in Gaza in 1948. Entire towns and villages in southern Palestine were emptied of their inhabitants by the Zionist militias before May 1948 and then by the Israeli army. These Palestinians, about 200 000 in number, crossed into the Gaza Strip (which until that time had a population of about 80 000 people).
Abdel-Rahman Al-Shantti, known as MC or MCA Abdul, was born in 2008 in Gaza City. He started his career at the age of nine. “Shouting at the Wall” was released in 2020, when he was twelve years old. He raps, saying, “The microphone is the only escape possible, ’cause that’s the way that I can speak my mind”. MC was able to relocate to the USA before October 2023 and later managed to get his immediate family to Cairo.
Read about him here: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/8/26/gazas-mca-rapper-an-11-year-olds-message-to-the-world
View the song “Shouting at the Wall” here
I’m exhausted
Last night, I couldn’t sleep
And when I did, I could hear bombs in my dreams
Nightmare situation
How could they be so evil?
Making martyrs out of children and innocent people
We expect the bombs not knowing where next
Huddling in the corner of my room trying to protect my little brother as the building shakes like it’s possessed
But nothing’s stronger than the will of the oppressed
I bomb back with my lyrics and rhymes living at times trying to break the Palestinian minds
What’s hiding in the clouds hanging over my head?
My dad risks his life outside to buy bread
The fourth war in my twelfth year
At this stage, I’m numb though I haven’t felt scared
There’s nothing I can do in this case to stay safe, I’m brave
Even though this house could be my grave
I want freedom for the population
2 million prisoners living in this location
Shouting at the wall but nothing is ever changing
That’s life under an occupation
I want freedom for the population
2 million prisoners living in this location
Shouting at the wall but nothing is ever changing
That’s life under an occupation
Mothers mourn fighting with grief
White sheets cover bodies that lie on the streets
Buildings turn to ash but my mind is made of steel
So, it doesn’t take much for me to heal
Or lose the will to live or lose the minds
My auntie lost her home, so she lost her life
But she’s still alive but traumatized
By the bombs that flew in and dropped that night
My sister couldn’t sleep, try to stop her cries
I said it was fireworks, I was telling her lies
Where’s the compassion? This is heartless
It’s like they want us all livin’ in darkness
Cutting off water and electricity for hours
They’re knocking towers, but that’s not knocking the power that I have in my pen When I’m writing, I’m unstoppable