Consiliul CSC
More than 47,000 people – men, women, and children – are dead. Forty-seven thousand souls extinguished, their lives stolen in unimaginable ways. More than 100,000 are injured, many maimed for life. Behind these numbers are faces, dreams, and families who will never be whole again. The scale of loss is so vast it feels impossible to grasp, but in Gaza, grief is never abstract. It is personal, it is raw, and it is everywhere.
People in Gaza grieve loved ones, and they also grieve their homes. The loss of a home is more than the loss of a physical structure. A friend of mine in Gaza, who also lost his home, told me, “A home is like a child of yours. It takes years to build, and you care for it, always wanting it to look its best.”
In Gaza, people often build their homes brick by brick, sometimes with their own hands. Losing your home means the loss of safety, of comfort, of a place where love is shared and memories are made. A home is not just bricks and mortar; it is where life unfolds. To lose it is to lose a piece of yourself, and in Gaza, countless families have lost that piece over and over again.
It’s been a wile since a ceasefire was declared in Gaza. For the first time in 15 months, the relentless sound of explosions has been replaced by silence. But this silence is not peace. It is a silence that screams loss, devastation, and grief – a pause in the destruction, not its end. It feels like standing amid the ashes of a home, searching for something, anything, that survived.
The images coming out of Gaza are haunting. Children with hollow eyes stand in the rubble of what was once their home. Parents hold onto the remains of toys, photographs, and clothing – fragments of a life that no longer exists. Every face tells a story of trauma and survival, of lives interrupted and torn apart. I can barely bring myself to look, but I force myself to because turning away feels like abandoning them. They deserve to be seen.
Ceasefires are not solutions; they are merely interruptions, pauses, a momentary reprieve in a cycle of violence that has defined Gaza’s reality for far too long. Without addressing the underlying injustice, they are doomed to fail, leaving Gaza trapped in an endless loop of destruction and despair.
True peace requires more than an end to the bombing. It requires an end to the blockade, to the occupation, to the systemic oppression that has made life in Gaza unbearable.
The international community cannot look away now that the bombs have stopped falling. They must hold Israel accountable for its actions. The work of rebuilding Gaza is important, but the work of addressing the root causes of this conflict is more urgent. It requires political courage, moral clarity, and an unwavering commitment to justice. Anything less is a betrayal of the people of Gaza.
