After expelling the author and his family from the apartment building where they lived and directing them to a “safe” place, Israeli soldiers planted explosives and destroyed the building. Photo: Ali Skaik

Since October 2023, Israel’s war on Gaza has caused unprecedented destruction, killing more than 53,000 Palestinians in Gaza, displacing nearly the entire population, and reducing vast neighborhoods to rubble. Despite months of bombing, siege, and mass suffering, Israeli officials insist their genocide must continue. Israel has reaffirmed its narrative that more violence inflicted in Gaza is necessary. Officials have said that Hamas remains a viable threat and that civilian deaths are “inevitable.” They have also instigated a blockade of aid that has pushed Gaza’s population into starvation. These claims, repeated in the media and international forums, form a carefully crafted web of lies that is being used to fuel the never-ending war.

In April, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant revealed that a trench dug near Rafah, which was previously cited by Israel to justify prolonging the war, was only a meter deep; not deep enough to form a tunnel but rather a “canal covered in dirt,” as reported by The New Arab. The trench, after all, was not used by Hamas as claimed; it was instead used by the Israeli regime as a mechanism to delay any possibility for a ceasefire. For all their talk of “security,” of “existential threats,” and “necessary strikes,” this one-meter trench stood as a metaphor for the shallowness of Israel’s justifications for committing massacres. Their fabrications were not about stopping Hamas; they were about stopping peace. Declaring that they will not end the war. While Palestinians in Gaza dig through rubble for survivors, Israel digs trenches to bury diplomacy. They have blocked humanitarian aid, destroying all paths for a ceasefire. Sometimes, the most effective weapons of destruction aren’t bombs, shells, or bullets, sometimes, they’re shallow trenches used as propaganda bait and candid admissions that an end to horrors was near, and someone chose to stop it.

That choice cost lives.

Even more troubling is the continuous justification for the staggering civilian casualties in Gaza. Each time Israel justifies the deaths of innocent people, the explanations sound increasingly hollow.  For instance, Israel committed a massacre on May 7 in the Al-Remal neighborhood in Gaza City, bombing Al-Wahda street and targeting a restaurant.  I heard about a 12-year-old boy, Kamal Amrish, who sold coffee nearby, who was killed; his hopes of survival were crushed under bombs; his hopes of survival were crushed under bombs.

I also heard about two girls debating whether to purchase pizza, hesitant due to its cost, perhaps thinking they should enjoy it in case they are killed, who knows what tomorrow may bring? One of them was reportedly killed in that strike. What was their fault? Was it daring to dream, to survive, to live?

Early in the war, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant declared, “We are fighting human animals, and we are acting accordingly.” But if animals have rights, what does that say about how they treat human beings, even in the darkest chapters of history?

In warfare, language becomes a battlefield too. Words lose their meaning. Defense begins to mean offense. Terrorist becomes anyone caught breathing in the wrong set of coordinates. And the phrase human shield so often repeated becomes a linguistic shield, one that transforms children into acceptable losses. But no rhetoric can soften the unbearable silence that follows the sound of an explosion. War empties words, but not grief. And no justification can fill the crater left in a heart broken by the loss of the innocents.

The border crossings of Gaza remain shut. No aid, no medicine, no escape. The crossings: Karem Abu Salem, Rafah, Erez are all locked, fortified by the claim of security. Israel says that the risks are too high. Militants might use the routes to smuggle weapons. Yet, this rhetoric of security is a veil, a convenient excuse that keeps Gaza trapped. In the meantime, the people of Gaza (2.5 million) are left with nothing but their breath, their suffering, and the cruel silence of a world that turns a blind eye. But what about the mothers whose children need vitamins? What of the old people waiting for medicine because they have chronic diseases, dying in their beds because there is no way out? What of the 18,000+ children who have already been killed since the war began?

On Jan. 28, 2024, the Israeli army surrounded the area where my family and I lived. We were trapped inside our apartment in the second floor of our building for nine days. On Feb. 6, Israeli soldiers invaded our home, expelling us, claiming to take us to a “safe place,” but proceeded to plant explosives inside our home. I had thought to myself, “What place could be safer than my own home?” They shoved us into a hole nearby, holding us hostage for hours. They destroyed our building, and we were displaced.

While Israel tightens its control, the world sleeps, whispers in muted concern. Governments issue statements calling for ceasefire negotiations, but no one calls for the crossings to open. Virtually no aid has entered Gaza, and no one has held Israel accountable for the imposed starvation. The world watches, but refuses to act—afraid to challenge power, content in silence. Gaza remains locked away, abandoned, its destruction endlessly justified.

No matter how many lies have been told, no matter how many buildings continue to be flattened by Israeli bombs, one truth remains undeniable: This barbaric aggression will end. And when that end comes, and it surely will, Gaza will not be a buffer zone, an open-air prison, or a battlefield. Gaza will be just for Gazans. It will be a place where decisions are made by those who have been carrying the millstone of loss, pain, and agony. A place rebuilt not in the image of a victor, but in the voice of its people. The lies will collapse, as lies always do. Gaza bears our wounds, but it is not broken. Its future will belong to no one else but the people who have paid the highest price to endure.