Palestine was the first grief I ever knew. Even as a boy, sitting thousands of kilometers away, the sound of those bombs on the nightly news felt like a tremor in my own chest. I didn’t see politics, I saw children the age of my schoolmates, their faces streaked with soot and tears, clutching debris instead of toys. Their pain felt like my own, a silent covenant I made with them long ago.
\nI still remember Yasser Arafat at the United Nations in November 1974 saying;<\/p>\n
\u201cI have come bearing an olive branch in one hand, and a freedom fighter\u2019s gun in the other. Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand..\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Those words spoke of courage, hope, and resistance even in the darkest of times. It is a courage that echoes the words of Mahatma Gandhi, who long ago reminded the world that:<\/p>\n
“Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English..”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Today, well over 150 countries recognize Palestine as a state. But recognition on paper cannot stop the bombs. Paper cannot bring back the children already killed. Paper cannot fill the empty stomachs of the starving.
\nIn Gaza, the soul is being starved. Over 20,000 children a relentless, agonizing loss of a life every single hour have been killed since October 2023. This slaughter of innocents is paired with the deliberate silencing of truth, over 240 media workers have been killed, making this the deadliest conflict for journalists in modern history.
\nI saw the face of hunger that the world must never forget: a small, hollow-eyed boy, not yet old enough to know better, scooping dry sand into his mouth to silence the screams in his stomach. His eyes were the true, terrifying portrait of this war a story that needed no captions, only a conscience.<\/p>\nThe brutality is not new. We remember the blood on the decks of the Mavi Marmara in 2010, where humanitarians were killed while attempting the simplest act of mercy. And today, the borders remain sealed while desperately needed aid trucks wait. The children are dying not just from shrapnel, but from thirst, infection, and a hunger that swells their tiny bellies.
\nYet humanity still sails: the Global Sumud Flotilla, made of dozens of ships, is once again moving toward Gaza. Despite drone attacks, engine failures, and blockades, they continue their journey. Spain and Italy have even sent navy ships to escort them, protecting citizens onboard. These ships prove one thing: humanity is not dead. It is still alive, still fighting, still sailing across the seas to reach Palestine.<\/p>\nAnd through the dust and the dark, the spirit of Palestine endures a stubborn, defiant miracle in human form. They plant seeds in shattered earth, they teach their children the language of return, even as their homes fall. As the Quran promises:<\/p>\n
\u201cAllah does not burden a soul beyond
\nwhat it can bear\u201d (Surah Al-Baqarah 2:286).<\/p><\/blockquote>\nThis endurance is not passive suffering, it is the truest, most profound form of resistance the daily, resolute choice to simply live.
\nGreat voices have spoken for them. Nelson Mandela said…<\/p>\n\u201cOur freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Ghassan Kanafani wrote:<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Palestinian cause is not a cause for Palestinians only, but a cause for every free person in the world.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
But now, as a father, the pain is no longer a shared memory; it\u2019s a living terror. I look at my five month old son, his fingers curled tight around mine, and I am undone by the thought of a child his age in Gaza a baby whose last cradle was concrete dust, whose cry was swallowed by the sound of a drone. How do I hold this small, perfect life and not weep for the thousands whose lives were simply stolen? Tears fall without warning.<\/p>\n
As a journalist, I cannot remain silent. Every story from Palestine is more than news it is history written in blood and tears. Every life lost, every home destroyed, every child crying it is a story the world must see.<\/p>\n
I close with Mahmoud Darwish\u2019s words, a lament for the deep cost of land and life:<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the olive trees knew the hands that planted them, their oil would become tears.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
And I pray, from the depth of my heart: May we, the journalists and the fathers, the world’s conscience, soon have the privilege of retiring this story. May the day come when we write not about their suffering, but about their return, their rebuilding, and their peace. May Palestine finally breathe, may her children laugh, and may the true sun of justice finally rise over that wounded, holy land.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Palestine was the first grief I ever knew. Even as a boy, sitting thousands of kilometers away, the sound of those bombs on the nightly news felt like a tremor in my own chest. I didn’t see politics, I saw children the age of my schoolmates, their faces streaked with soot and tears, clutching debris […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":66586,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,676],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/raajje24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66585"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/raajje24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/raajje24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/raajje24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/raajje24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66585"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/raajje24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66585\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66589,"href":"https:\/\/raajje24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66585\/revisions\/66589"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/raajje24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/raajje24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/raajje24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/raajje24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}