Many of Gaza’s youth decide to leave the open-air prison. But many of those who leave end up alienated or refugees. But sometimes to realize the value of your homeland, you have to leave it.

After every ceasefire, Rana Shubair tries to imagine leading a normal life. In Gaza, the bar is set low and means not living under raining bombs. “Mama, who broke our house?” the neighbor’s three-year-old asked. His mother ignored his question. The following day the toddler announced, pleased that he had figured it out, “The Israelis broke our house.”

In Gaza, Rana Shubair looks back with nostalgia on the Great March of Return: Approaching the fence the first day, that spine tingling moment brought back memories of my one and only visit to Jerusalem in the year 2000. Seeing hundreds of people all standing there gave me a physical feeling of being locked up in a big cage.

Rana Shubair set out with her husband, two children, and a collection of other relatives to join 30,000 more Palestinians who marched to the border with Israel for Gaza’s Great March of Return: “As I pondered the faces of my people there with me, one fact was clear to me more than ever: None of us had anything more valuable to lose than what we already had—our home.”