Why are Palestinians not allowed to survive?

When the ceasefire began in January, we felt lost between a haunting past and an uncertain future. We were teetering between painful memories holding us back and incessant life demands pushing us forward. Crying over the unspeakable while creeping among the ruins of our lives. We were exactly in the middle of two lives: one still bleeding and another eerily blurred. We wouldn’t want to go back, yet we are unable to move forward.

And yet, we cherished that moment of quiet and began to rebuild what was left of our lives.

“Ceasefire” isn’t as rhetorical as it sounds; it is exactly how Dr. Refaat Alareer put it: Palestinians cease, Israelis fire. It has always been a one-sided genocidal war. The so-called ceasefire was fragile, breached almost every day, tightening the noose on Gaza in every possible way—denying humanitarian aid, medical supplies, and commercial goods since the first days of the holy month, striking the main water distribution point, cutting the electricity that powered it, and imposing restrictions on medical workers willing to volunteer in Gaza.

Despite the suffocating grim reality, we began to get a hold of what was left of our lives—rebuilding from ashes, restoring stolen dreams that had been on hold for more than a year and a half. We reunited with loved ones and reopened restaurants, markets, and libraries that had been deliberately obliterated. Even children returned to their schools-turned-shelters after more than a year without formal education. We started to feel human again, not mere bodies stripped of our names, stories, and dreams, reduced to numbers in headlines.

I, myself, was juggling my duties as if I had been given another chance to live and dream. Yet, the war had already imprinted itself on my soul. I left the war, but the war refused to leave me. I jolt awake almost every night from terrifying nightmares filled with bombs, massacres, and unspeakable horrors. The only thing that eased my panic was the fact that it was just a dream. I wake up, splash water on my face, and repeat affirmations to my war-battered mirror: “The war is over. We are alive. We are free. It won’t come again.” But the moment my eyes flinch shut, I return to the endless cycle of horrors, fleeing death even in my sleep.

Anxiety, sleep disorders, depression, post-traumatic stress, and anorexia have become rampant—etched into the identity of every Gazan. Yet, the idea that genocide might resume never once crossed my worst nightmares. Not mine, nor any Gazans.
Just an hour before Israel unleashed its latest wave of scathing violence—openly and brazenly—I was riding back from Khan Younis. It was my first long-distance ride in over a year—40 minutes there, and 40 minutes back. Along the way, I was robbed of my breath. My gut told me something dreadful lay ahead. I panicked but then realized that it was just another remnant of war on my soul.

On my way home, after midnight, the Al-Nuseirat market was bustling with people buying Eid necessities, mosques were filled with worshippers, and the streets were still adorned with Ramadan decorations—alive and gleeful. I reached my home, fervently planning for tomorrow while preparing suhoor for my family. Minutes later, everything turned into an inferno in the blink of an eye.

Fire belts lit the sky suddenly. The rattling hum of drones overhead was deafening. Indiscriminate airstrikes shook not just the walls and earth beneath me but my very soul. I rushed to my parents, desperate to ask, What’s going on? But the fear etched on their faces was clearer than any answer they could give.

The sirens of ambulances shattered my final hope that I was only dreaming. No—it was happening. Again.

That confusion, that suffocating disbelief—it took me back to October 7th. I peeped on my phone to be shocked that another episode of genocide had been declared.

Why? Just why? Wasn’t the brutality already committed before the world’s eyes enough? Wasn’t the blood of over 180,000 Gazans enough to satiate? Wasn’t the devastation littered across every corner enough?

Before I could even process my own questions, another airstrike cut my thoughts short. I felt everything crumbling—the efforts I had put into my future vanished before my eyes. I felt I shouldn’t have dreamt, shouldn’t have clung to life through the passing truce, shouldn’t have tasted joy. At that moment, I believed Gazans had no choice but to die.

But I don’t want to die.

Nor do I want to repeat the draining cycle of fleeing death.

I wished—desperately—that it was just another haunting nightmare. But it was reality.
“My God, we are beyond drained, exhausted, and overwhelmed. We cannot endure another genocide.” This was the silent plea of every Gazan.

The death toll surged rapidly—over 400 Gazans killed that first night, 200 of them children. I couldn’t close my eyes as the bombs fell. These were different from before—more destructive, more lethal, more soul-crushing. We could feel them.

Death is the easiest thing in Gaza—and the most abundant. People die wholesale—starved, cold, and betrayed in the dead of night.

“We break our fast on hunger at iftar, and fill our bellies with blood at suhoor,” a friend wrote on Facebook.

By morning, the sky poured tears and wailed thunder. It did what I couldn’t do, soothing my overwhelmed heart over the last night.

Yet, despite how much I’m in love with winter, I now don’t exchange the same love. The rain I love drowns the displaced, starved, grieving people in tents.

We’re all desperate for a miracle to end this insanity, yet aggression is ramping on. Massacres after massacres are unfolding, family after family is erased from the civil registry, the injured succumb to their critical life-threating injuries, mothers are mourning their children, and children are carrying the burden alone.

We’re on the cusp of famine as well as food is dwindling, and if it’s available, it’s unaffordable. And the question remains:

Why?

Why must we endure this endless bloodshed, navigating horror and terror alone?

Why are we not even allowed to survive?

Just why?

Gazans are not heroes. They are forced to be.

Gazans are not legends to be praised, nor spectacles to momentarily shatter the world’s hearts.

Gazans are humans. No less than anyone else.

And we deserve—simply—to live.

Long live Palestinians.