As Palestinians in Gaza return to the ruins of what life used to be, the rubble becomes a promise of what could one day be rebuilt. Until then, it’s still home, even if it’s a tent.

The battle in Palestine today will determine the kind of world the future generation will live in. And perhaps it will be a world where being Palestinian no longer requires translation.

Palestinian journalists in Gaza are carrying on a tradition of “committed journalism” that began decades ago. They, like their predecessors, were killed in the line of duty because they were working for a cause.

The genocide brought Palestinian journalists closer together and created a collective with a single, unified mission: to tell the truth about what’s happening in Gaza. That is why Israel is assassinating them.

For weeks, I have been reporting on the daily massacres at ‘aid distribution’ sites in Gaza. When I speak to people, including friends, who risk their lives every day to get some food, I can’t help but think of what I would do in that situation.

Palestinians did not choose a life of war and occupation. But since this life was forced on them, they have no choice but to survive — and resist.

Journalists in Gaza know they could be killed at any moment by the Israeli army for telling the truth. It doesn’t stop them from doing their jobs.

Ibrahim Abu Mahadi lost all six of his sons in a single Israeli airstrike. His mourning voice was the voice of all fathers clutching at their children in their tents, afraid to close their eyes and sleep for fear of what they might wake up to.

Sometimes I wonder if journalism is as pointless as politics. But when I speak to families in Gaza, I am reminded that in the face of global indifference, there is a duty, even if just to my own conscience, to try and change this horrible reality.

Political conflict was never the choice of Palestinians. It was and still is the ocean that separates them from their houses, their trees, and the graves of their elders, from Gaza all the way to Jenin.