14 May 2011 | International Solidarity Movement
The Gazan rap group DARG Team have recorded a song in memory of the International Solidarity Movement activist Vittorio Arrigoni who was kidnapped and murdered in Gaza last month. The song entitled ‘Onadekom (Calling You)’, samples a popular resistance song, taken from a revolutionary poem written by the Palestinian Tawfiq Zayyad in 1966. The DARG Team, from Gaza City is comprised of four artists who rap about social and political issues effecting the citizens of Gaza. DARG’s remake of the song pays tribute to Vittorio and the work he was doing in Gaza before his death.
Vittorio was active in the Palestine cause for almost 10 years. For the past two and a half years, he was in Gaza with the International Solidarity Movement, monitoring human rights violations by Israel, supporting the Palestinian popular resistance against the Israeli occupation and disseminating information about the situation in Gaza to his home country of Italy and around the world.
He was aboard the siege-breaking voyage in 2008 with the Free Gaza Movement. During Israel’s brutal assault on Gaza know as Operation Cast Lead Vittorio assisted medics and reported to the world what Israel was doing to the Palestinian people. He was arrested numerous times by Israeli forces for his participation in Palestinian non-violent resistance in the West Bank and Gaza. His last arrest and deportation from the area came as a result of the Israeli confiscation of Palestinian fishing vessels in Gazan territorial waters.