When I ask my family members in Gaza how they’re spending Ramadan this year, they answer it’s just like any other month of deprivation in the past year and a half of genocide.

As I sit in Egypt in exile, looking at photos my family has sent me of our home in rubble, there is only one thing on my mind: my return to Gaza.

Israel’s genocide in Gaza has failed because although it destroyed Gaza’s infrastructure, it couldn’t destroy Gaza itself; it couldn’t destroy the people. Just as Israel has been unable to destroy Palestine after 76 years of trying.

Even now, in moments of joy, all we think about are the things we lost, like celebrating a child’s birthday, celebrating the new year, or even the simple pleasure of gathering as a family without fear of the Israeli death that hovers around us. 

The Israeli genocide on Gaza has made being a journalist a deadly job. But even the most mundane aspects of journalism, like tracking people down to interview, have become a monumental task in the face of mass displacement and mass destruction.

Ever since I could remember, I wanted to be a journalist. I wanted to practice journalism in Palestine, and about Palestine. I never doubted that through journalism I can help Palestine and the world be a better place, until last year.

Israel has been exterminating an entire people for more than a year, and no one is willing to stop this madness.

I used to write about the world as I saw it and the world that I wanted to see. Now as I bear witness to the extermination of northern Gaza, I can only write about the unfolding horror.

Palestinians have endured 76 years of the Nakba and now the 2024 genocide. Despite Israel and the West’s desire to erase our existence, we continue to declare, “We won’t leave.” 

I stayed in Amman for the first time in my life the week before the Allenby border shooting. It was strange to be in an Arab country not under occupation, but I also saw Palestine everywhere.