Mumtaz Moosa | mumtazs@icloud.com
October 11th 2024 | 15:30 CAT
2 min read

Photo Credit: Pngtree

As we reach the one-year mark of the ongoing genocide, many of us have become activists in our ways. Most have turned to social media to share the real stories from real people on the ground in Palestine.

Online, we often encounter familiar comments: “The war will end when the Palestinian people give up Hamas,” or claims that they are to blame for their suffering. Let me be clear—each life lost in this war is a profound tragedy, a wound that families will bear forever. Just this week, a prominent journalist made headlines when he remarked that Gaza is the most monitored place on Earth, yet the hostages remain unfound. It raises a troubling question: does the Israeli government truly want to find these hostages?

Entire areas have been reduced to rubble, forcing people to flee repeatedly to supposed “safe” zones. Now, many strive to survive each day. While we know the names, stories, and families of the hostages, we must also ask: what is the value of a Palestinian life?

Since October 7th, over 2,100 infants have been killed, and roughly 17,000 children have lost their lives. To put this into perspective, a 20-year-old in Gaza today has spent their entire life in conflict. They have buried friends and family and likely know at least one person held in Israeli prisons without charge or trial.

Seventeen thousand children—gone, their lives deemed insignificant. Two thousand one hundred babies—lost, their stories fading into statistics.

This week, I watched a documentary that highlighted the persecution of native peoples around the world. A member of one such community said something that struck me: “If one of us is killed, murdered, or raped, it doesn’t matter as long as it’s not one of them because then it becomes a headline, an international story. But as natives—no one bats an eyelid because we don’t fit the mould of what civilisation expects us to be.”

In Gaza, there once was one of the highest rates of university graduates globally. Yet, 625,000 children could not attend school in just one year, and 58,000 first-graders could not start their education. Despite this, teachers find ways to continue in refugee camps, creating a glimmer of hope amid the despair. Even in these camps, children still dream of a future and still believe they can become something one day.

The Palestinian people have not given up, and we must not give up either. Their lives do matter. The people of Gaza have shown the world what it means to hold onto faith in the Almighty, even amidst destruction. Let us stand with them, and let us make the message clear: Palestinian lives matter.