Gazan Teens & Social Media: Girl Gains Attention for Live-Tweeting Bombing
A 16-year-old girl in Gaza, who used social media to express her fears and share videos and pictures of the bombings in her home town, has become the unofficial mascot for the atrocities that civilians are enduring because of the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Farah Baker tweeted comments and documented times of missiles striking near her home, as she huddled in the house with her family, according to Al-Jazeera America .
Her Vine videos and tweets about her fear of dying and watching her younger sister as they endure the continuous attacks have garnered the Palestinian a total about 131,000 followers as of Saturday morning on her Twitter handle @Farah_Gazan.
On July 29, she had about 39,000, according to NBC.
One of the most popular tweets was one from July 28, where Farah writes, "This is in my area, I can't stop crying. I might die tonight."
The tweet was accompanied with a picture of two missiles.
Baker also tweeted that this was the third time in her life enduring the attacks but that this was the worst.
The ongoing conflict has been increasingly debated on both sides -- those who sympathize with Israel and those who sympathize with Palestine. The United Nations recently probed Israel for suspected war crimes.
But Israel has defended its barrage of bombs that has killed more than 1,400 Palestinians by saying that the Hamas group -- which is classified as a terrorist organization by the U.S. -- uses women and children as shields, according to NBC.
Baker said Hamas defends people, and the blockade imposed on her area is "going to kill us."
For three weeks, she has given the world a peek into living amid the bombing, according to the Daily Mail.
Children her age are trapped at home, unable to go to school, and when the holy month of Ramadan ended last week, she was unable to celebrate like other Muslims around the world.
Baker told CNN recently that, in the previous wars, she was sure she would not die because she was a civilian, though this time she does not feel the same security.
The people are especially afraid at night, when the bombs start, but during the day, they are able to walk outside, she told CNN.
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