We, the people of Gaza, have been repeatedly threatened. We have been threatened to be « cleaned », with massive death, with « Hell Breaking Loose ».
The thing is, we have already gone through hell. I, like two million other Palestinians in Gaza, survived the Genocida Hell from October 7, 2023 to January 19, 2025.
If I have to be honest, I did not survive hanging -to my life. No, I survived leaving the « f » in life and keeping -to « lie ».
The more I lied, the more I kept my fragile existence.
I still remember the first lie I told myself. It was long before the genocide.
I remember I told myself after the Israeli aggression of 2008-09 against Gaza that he would never witness such a war. It was a naive lie. I witnessed the war in 2012, and again in 2014, and again in 2021, and again in May 2023.
On the evening of October 7, 2023, I embraced my mother when she broke, while Israeli hunting planes indiscriminately struck all Gaza.
I chose to say -the truth and myself: that this would be the final episode of our miserable lives. I heard that we would die in one way or another in what I had to follow. He felt the same way; That is why he cried.
But how can the total acceptance of imminent death exist? Humans by nature want to live. So I started lying -me again.
Shortly afterwards, when Israel bombed the Baptist Hospital on October 17, killing hundreds of people, I lied. I told myself that the world would rise in Gaza and that the sun would not shine on Israeli hunting planes bombarding Gaza again. It was a short lie. The Israeli bombing was only intensified, reaching genocidal rates.
When Israel traveled forcibly in December of that year, I told myself that it would be only a couple of days and that I would return. When I returned in May 2024, I told myself that I would not be displaced again.
When I returned home after my seventh forced shift in September 2024, Israel had restricted the aid of help to Gaza and I told the world that I would not allow them to starve. But he did it. For weeks, my family and I survived bread, Zaatar and some tuna cans that we had saved from our time shifted to Al-Mawasi.
But with great fear, the lie told myself that it was when the phase came into force. « That’s, » I told myself. « The military version of the genocide is over, because what else can Israel do that he has not done already? We have gone through all the forms of torment and horror! »
But in the background I knew I was lying to myself.
He knew, like so many people in Gaza, that it was a matter of when and how Israel resumed the genocide.
It did not spend much time before we had an indication that came. Shortly after the start of Ramadan, Israel stopped the entrance of all help, causing another hunger. Two weeks later, instead of the call to Suhoor, we were aroused by the sound of the mass bombing.
More than 400 people, including at least 100 children, were massacred in a matter of hours.
Therefore, now the question of when answered, but how it remains. How many more children will kill Israel to realize their so-called « total » victory? How long will this time take them to « finish the job »? What horror and misery will we have to endure? And how will it end this time?
Despite living 15 months of the genocidal war of Israel, I have no answer to these questions, because Israel surprises me with the evil I have in the store. I mean, is that? The final stage of genocide? Do you summarize the attack inside while blocking all the help and cuts water and electricity? I am afraid that Israel can still go further.
The Israeli government says this round of attacks will continue until its captives return. If so, what was the cessation of fire? A break for the murderers of the whole slaughter?
In the meantime, the world is back in empty sentences and does not take any action. We have failed so many times that I have stopped counting. What you can do less is not having pain and misery for granted, as if we were born, as if we were scheduled to suffer all the time.
I was raised in the middle of wars and survived 15 months of genocide, and yet I am surprised that I did not develop an immunity to fear, given the large amount of torment I have passed. I’m still afraid of what will come.
While he faces death once again, I want to be true with myself. I mean, I deserve a much better life than the one that Israel has imposed to me oppressively. I deserve a boring, inevitable and safe life, free of bombs, famine and unimaginable loss.
I don’t want to lie anymore, I want to live.
The opinions expressed in this article are their own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial position.
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