Nice to meet you. Where are you from?
Gaza.
Oh, Gaza? The blockaded place?
Yes, where people die slowly.
I heard Israelis kill you all the time
Not all the time; but yes, with guns,
warplanes, in a hundred ways.

So, Facebook conversations go;
since to them, Gaza means stories of war,
this war, that war, this attack, that attack,
as if nothing exists in between,
except sad stories of no life,
and day goes after day,
week after month after year.
While stories of people barely living pile up.

Now, I love irony.
I check social media.
I see everyone staying home,
posting their fears
as if the whole world is at war
against a virus:
Every country, city, business, school,
every man, woman and child,
afraid to go out,
afraid of what is in the air:
COVID-19.

Now do they understand Gaza?
Now do they understand siege,
blockade, life without freedom?

My grandma once said,
One day belongs to you;
another day belongs to life.
Yesterday, life gave us fear,
fear of being imprisoned, killed.
Today, the whole world takes its turn
at not knowing what a sunrise may bring.
But it’s not a reason to be happy.
Instead, I feel a sort of sympathy.

In Gaza, our prison was for a while
the safest place on earth.
The whole world envied us
while we were safe
in our great, outdoor prison,
no one coming in or going out,
even the virus.

Now, we all share the same fear,
but our oppressors are more afraid than we are
of our common enemy.
And they will have to wait a little while
before they can strike us again.