By Awni Rajoub
A year has passed, and Gaza is still under fire, burning daily under a barrage of bombs and missiles. A year of total destruction, killing and displacing women, the elderly, and children. More 42,000 martyrs, including thousands of innocent children, fell victim to a war machine that knows no mercy.
Despite all this, and despite the ongoing pain, Gaza is still standing, steadfast, and resisting.
Doesn’t this represent the greatest victory for the human spirit? Doesn’t this express greatness and an invincible sense of belonging to the land and the homeland?
O Islamic nation, the Arab nation, where are you?
Gaza is screaming in pain, under its rubble are children waiting for hope, and its women are burying their sons under the dirt.
In the face of all this destruction, Gaza continues to resist. It resists the most hateful military force the world has ever known. An enemy that does not distinguish between a child, an elderly person, and a woman, an enemy that strikes without mercy, without compassion.
Gaza has no water, no medicine, no food. Yet its people eat the bark of trees and the grass of the earth to stay alive, to remain alive.
But they do not live only to survive, they live to fight. To tell the whole world: We are here, we do not die, we are not defeated.
As for you, O Arab nation, O Muslim nation of two billion, where are you from Gaza? Where is your anger? Where is your conscience? Where is your jealousy for your brothers and sisters in Palestine?
While you are swaying with joy and dancing in your streets, Gaza is burying its sons.
While you are silent, Al-Aqsa is being desecrated, and the land is being raped.
Where are you from this? How can you allow yourselves to remain silent in the face of this injustice?
But despite everything Gaza refuses to be broken. Gaza does not ask for pity, it asks for justice.
While it bleeds Gaza is telling the world: Israel is an occupying state, a state that kills children, a state that displaces innocents. Israel deserves nothing but condemnation and isolation from the international community. How does the world accept the continuation of this brutal occupation? How does it allow these crimes to go unpunished?
Gaza, a symbol of pride and dignity, we owe you for standing up despite all the wounds, despite all the pain. You are the one thar remains, your people will remain free.
Thank you Gaza, we have learned from you the meaning of steadfastness. We have learned from you that resistance is not an option, but a duty and a right.
You are dignity, you are hope and the desired
Gaza, Gaza in the heart of every Arab
Gaza, victory and joy in the hearts of all Arabs
Tomorrow is near for those who see it
This article was translated from Jordan24.