We, the individuals of Gaza, have been repeatedly threatened. We now have been threatened with being “cleaned out”, with mass loss of life, with “all hell breaking unfastened” on us.
The factor is, we’ve already been by means of hell. I, like two million different Palestinians in Gaza, survived the genocidal inferno from October 7, 2023 to January 19, 2025.
If I’ve to be sincere, I didn’t survive by hanging on to life. No, I survived by dropping the “f” in life and holding on to “lie”.
The extra I lied to myself, the extra I sustained my fragile existence.
I nonetheless keep in mind the primary lie I advised myself. It was lengthy earlier than the genocide.
I keep in mind telling myself after the 2008-09 Israeli aggression towards Gaza that I’d by no means witness one thing like that conflict ever once more. It was a naive little lie. I witnessed conflict once more in 2012, and once more in 2014, and once more in 2021, and but once more in Might 2023.
On the night of October 7, 2023, I hugged my mom when she burst out crying as Israeli fighter jets indiscriminately pounded the entire of Gaza.
I selected to inform her and myself the reality: that this was going to be the ultimate episode of our depressing lives. I felt we have been going to die a technique or one other in what was to observe. She felt the identical approach; that’s why she was crying.
However how can one exist in complete acceptance of imminent loss of life? Human beings by nature wish to stay. So I began mendacity to myself once more.
Quickly after, when Israel bombed the Baptist Hospital on October 17, killing a whole lot of individuals, I lied. I advised myself the world would stand up for Gaza and the solar wouldn’t shine on Israeli fighter jets bombing Gaza once more. It was a short-lived lie. The Israeli bombardment solely intensified, reaching genocidal charges.
When Israel forcibly displaced me in December of that 12 months, I advised myself that it might be simply a few days and I’d return. Once I returned in Might 2024, I advised myself that I’d not be displaced once more.
Once I returned house after my seventh pressured displacement in September 2024, Israel had sharply restricted help entry into Gaza, and I advised myself the world wouldn’t allow them to starve us. Nevertheless it did. For weeks, my household and I survived on bread, zaatar and some cans of tuna we had saved from our time being displaced in al-Mawasi.
However by far worst lie I advised myself was when part one of many ceasefire took impact. “That is it,” I mentioned to myself. “The army model of the genocide has ended, as a result of what else Israel can try this it hasn’t already accomplished? We’ve gone by means of all types of torment and horror!”
However deep down I knew I used to be mendacity to myself.
I knew, like so many individuals in Gaza, that it was a matter of when and the way for Israel to renew the genocide.
It wasn’t lengthy earlier than we bought a sign that it was coming. Quickly after the beginning of Ramadan, Israel halted the entry of all help, triggering one other famine. Two weeks later, as a substitute of the decision for suhoor, we have been woke up by the sound of large bombardment.
Greater than 400 individuals, together with not less than 100 youngsters, have been massacred in a matter of hours.
So, now the query of when has been answered, however that of how – stays. What number of extra youngsters will Israel kill to understand its so-called “complete” victory? How lengthy will it take them this time to “end the job”? How a lot horror and distress will we’ve to endure? And the way will it finish this time?
Regardless of residing by means of 15 months of Israel’s genocidal conflict, I’ve no reply to those questions, as a result of Israel retains shocking me with simply how a lot evil it has in retailer. I imply, is that this it? The ultimate stage of the genocide? Resuming the onslaught whereas blocking all help, and chopping off water and electrical energy? I’m afraid that Israel can nonetheless go additional.
The Israeli authorities says that this spherical of assaults will proceed till it will get their captives again. If that was the case, then what was the ceasefire for? A relaxation for the killers from all of the killing?
In the meantime, the world is as soon as once more issuing empty condemnations and taking no motion. It has failed us so many instances that I’ve stopped counting. The least it will possibly do is to not take our ache and distress as a right, as if we’re born into it, as if we’re programmed to undergo on a regular basis.
I used to be raised amid wars and I survived 15 months of genocide, and but I’m stunned that I’ve not developed an immunity to worry, given the nice quantity of torment I’ve been by means of. I’m nonetheless afraid of what’s to come back.
As I face loss of life as soon as once more, I wish to be truthful to myself. I wish to say that I deserve a a lot better life than the one Israel has oppressively imposed on me. I deserve a boring, uneventful, safe life, freed from bombs, hunger and unimaginable loss.
I don’t wish to lie any extra, I wish to stay.
The views expressed on this article are the writer’s personal and don’t essentially replicate Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
