Rebuilding is more than reconstruction: it is resistance. It is our refusal to be erased, our determination to remain and exist on our land
On the 17th night of Ramadan – a time meant for prayer, reflection and mercy – Gaza burned. Once again, our screens fill with images too harrowing to describe: tiny bodies wrapped in bloodstained cloth, fathers carrying their children’s remains in plastic bags, mothers screaming into skies that rain death instead of mercy. In less than an hour, Israeli airstrikes killed over 350 Palestinians, including 90 children. Entire families wiped out as bombs fell on areas Israel itself had designated as “safe zones”, turning supposed sanctuaries into mass graves.
This was not merely a resumption of violence. This is the continuation of a genocide that never truly paused, only ebbed enough to vanish from headlines while Palestinians continued to die by the dozens daily. The heaviness of this moment is unbearable, bringing back the brokenness of the past year that has not yet healed. For this slaughter to continue while the world watches reveals how deeply indifferent global powers have become to Palestinian suffering, how thoroughly dehumanized an entire people must be for their massacre to be debated as a matter of “security concerns”.
Ahmad Ibsais is a first generation Palestinian American, law student and poet who writes the newsletter State of Siege
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