After over two years of genocide in Gaza, time has taken on a strange, fractured meaning. Days stretch endlessly, yet months disappear without warning. I lost an entire year of my education, but thankfully journalism filled the gap, providing me with the tools to navigate my reality. It taught me lessons no university ever could, on humanity, silence, faith, survival, and the extraordinary depths of the human spirit.
This genocide has rewritten every part of my life. But it has also rewritten my understanding of the world.
During this genocide, I’ve seen the best of people. I’ve seen starved neighbours share their last piece of bread, strangers pull children from under rubble, starved doctors work without medicine, starved journalists risk everything to tell the truth. And that, perhaps, is what keeps me believing in the value of life — even when life feels unbearable.
I also quickly learned who stands in solidarity with the Palestinian people. Many around the world have watched Gaza burn — some with outrage, some with apathy, but also there are those who have seen political opportunity in the face of our suffering.
And for those who remain silent, well, in my eyes that amounts to complicity.
Regardless, global solidarity has been one of the few lights that reached us. Small acts — a protest, a donation, a boycott, a message sent through unstable internet connection, the flotillas’ attempts to reach Gaza— have reminded us that people refuse to let us be erased.
That matters more than many will ever understand. Solidarity may not rebuild homes, but it rebuilds something within us. It tells us we are seen.
Keeping the faith
I have witnessed in my people a strength that defies the imagination, but this isn’t because Gazans are naturally heroic, it’s because we hold faith in the face of absolutely no alternative. When survival becomes the only option, the human spirit does not break — it adapts.
Certainly, hope can feel like a burden, especially when it’s expected of us no matter how much we lose, suffer and witness. But at the same time, our hope isn’t naive or romantic. We keep hoping not because things are okay, but because we refuse to let go of who we are and what we deserve.
In the absence of the Adhan, and the destruction of mosques, faith becomes a silent companion. It isn’t there to provide miracles or even answers, it helps us endure. It is what you cling to when logic collapses, when the world feels hostile, when grief becomes a daily visitor.
Faith whispers that there is still purpose in surviving, still meaning in the fragments of each day. It reminds us that we are still alive because we have a message to deliver to the rest of the world.
Perspective
The genocide has taught us to appreciate what the world usually overlooks and to cherish the smallest things: the ability to walk without pain, to sleep under a roof, to have a warm house with four walls, to find a meal that fills the stomach, to wake up and find your loved ones alive.
These are no longer simple details — they are blessings we hold tightly. It’s changed what we prioritise. Now, we no longer mourn the material things we lost. Buildings can be rebuilt, but who can rebuild our beloved souls?
People often speak of “after the war,” but for us, there is no clear before and after. This experience will live within us forever — shaping how we walk through the world, how we love, how we fear, and how we raise our children.
I will never forget the day when the Israeli soldiers stormed our house after besieging us for nine days, nor will I forget the scenes of tanks and bulldozers, and how we were forced into an excavated hole.
No, no one can erase the images of bodies in pieces, skulls, skeletons, of blood, of the injured and amputated, of infants and foetuses killed in their mothers’ wombs, of the starved, of tents flooded with water, of displaced masses in their barely standing tents.
No one can delete the massacres, the death traps disguised as aid centres.
No one can erase the smell of blood and smoke that clings to our memories. No one can bring back our martyrs. No one can compensate the orphans and widows.
The genocide stole all the opportunities for children to shape their lives through education. Schools lie in ruins, teachers have been killed, books buried in ash. For years now, children have worried less about homework and more about finding food and clean water.
When my academic journey halted, I spent a year watching the world around me collapse. I was trapped not knowing how to move forward.
There is no planning for the future in Gaza, but what we can do is preserve the memories that exist in the here and now.
This is how I learned to document everything, because what Gazans know all too well, is that nothing is permanent.
Archiving our reality felt like a duty, and one of the few things still within my power. But this duty was a blessing, as journalism gave me a voice when everything else was taken away from me. Despite all our fallen colleagues who were killed wearing press vests and helmets, like Anas Al-Sharif and Ismail Al-Ghoul, choosing this way of life gives us a stronger sense of courage, it seems.
In over two years, Gaza has shown the world what it means to cling to life despite everything — to laugh in grief, to share in scarcity, to rebuild from ashes, and to insist on dignity even when denied it.
If the world has learned anything from Gaza, it should be this: even under genocide, we continue to teach what humanity truly means.
Huda Skaik is an English literature student, a writer, and a video maker. She is a member of We Are Not Numbers, and she also a contributor for Electronic Intifada and WRMEA. She dreams of a future as a professor, professional poet, and writer.
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