My name is Sarah, and I am a Palestinian
citizen. I turned 23 on the nineteenth day of the third war against Gaza I’ve
witnessed in the last five years of my life. And to make it clear – I’m not
a terrorist!
I’m writing this piece after watching the Al-Jazeera
documentary film Al-Fajer Massacre,
describing one of the most savage massacres that took place in this war. I am heartbroken
now for all that has happened to those innocent people, who lost everything:
their beloveds, their memories, their homes...‘everything’ is the only word
that can describe the size of their loss! Everybody cried while watching the
film, my entire family did.
I live in the centre of Gaza, and until this
moment, neither my family nor I have physically been affected by this brutal
war. This is the twenty-first day of war, and it’s not much different from the
last twenty days. The same things are taking place every single day. I wake up
to follow up the latest news, the new updated number of martyrs and wounded,
the new places being targeted by Israeli forces, whether everyone I know is
still fine and alive.
Then we all keep waiting for what’s coming next.
Where and who will be the next target? It might be me, or my whole family! Or
we might be lucky to survive from the random missiles that target nothing but
civilians! Nothing is certain, and all the possibilities are
present. Yes, it’s that simple.
Watching others’ death, pain and loss is not far
from death itself, on the contrary, many days passed and I die more than once a
day, the size of pain that survivors suffer from is much larger than the pain
you would feel in the final death. I imagine how would I feel if I lose those
people I love, how my life would look like without them.
What if I die? How would my mother feel about
that? How others can carry on in their lives without their families? I just
can’t imagine and I’m pretty sure even those who have already lost their
beloved ones don’t have any idea of how they would keep living without them and
I bet that they all wish if they died with them.
Nothing is more difficult than death in this
place but life. I think those who died “martyrs” are the
luckiest! Lots of us are keep telling ourselves: unfortunately, we’re still
alive.
Even in times of peace and ceasefire, life here
is not rosy. Palestinians’ life in Gaza has always been tragic. We’ve been
living under siege for more than seven years. The siege killed the dreams of
thousands of people, the dream to study, to get medication, to see relatives,
to see the other side of the world – if it is even right to consider Gaza as a
part of this world – and much more than I even can count.
We were already dying before this war was
launched, before any of the preceding wars took place. We are dying slowly; our
crime is only being Palestinian citizens. We lack the simplest necessities of
life: water, electricity, borders, and infrastructure…with endless consequences.
Even those Palestinians who are living outside
Gaza and the West Bank, they’re dying every single day, more than once, because
our land and homes were once stolen…but for sure it’s not forever! Peace and
stability are the dream and obsession of every Palestinian, of every human
being on this earth…not terrorists.
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