I live in the West Bank, which means I live under occupation. I live in a two-story house with my family, yet I still live under occupation. Some days, I manage to take a clean shower, if there’s any water. Which reminds me: I live under occupation.
I think of myself as a free man yet, uncontrollably, I live under occupation.
I live under occupation, but for the past couple of years I’ve come to realize that pain has many levels. Even suffering has a hierarchy.
And even though I live under occupation, I am still able to say I live.
Scrolling through my feed, I find images flying in from half an hour away. Images of children without their parents, parents without their children. Images of a child clawing at the dirt on the ground that was mixed with a little bit of flour to feed their helpless body. Images of a man that waited years to finally have a child, just to carry the boy in a plastic bag. Images of a mother holding the scattered flesh that she once called her baby. Images of people so frail, so innocent, so beautiful, with nothing but skin and bones left on their fragile bodies.
Images I can’t comprehend, not while living under the privilege of occupation in the West Bank.
Has it ever occurred to you that I, a man living under occupation, might be considered lucky? Has it ever occurred to you that I wake up guilty just for surviving another night? That a person my age in Gaza went to sleep last night and awoke as a hashtag online, buried, if he was lucky enough, in a hole with hundreds of other people who share the same story. Buried in a white bag that seeps the blood of his innocence.
No funeral. No grave. No name.
Then, I think of myself. I cry at the death of my friend Odeh.
I cry because I miss him. I cry because I hadn’t seen him in years, and because I never will again. Odeh was martyred a month ago. He was killed protecting Umm Al-Kheir. He was murdered in cold blood, in front of his wife and children.
I wail. I yell. I shriek. I scream. I cry my heart out.
But then I feel nothing but guilt. I feel ashamed for feeling so much over one person. In Gaza, people have no one left to mourn them. No one left to miss them. No one to wipe the tears of their grief. I only lost Odeh, and Odeh won his place in paradise.
I graduated college two months ago, and in Gaza there are no colleges left. I stressed over final exams, job applications, the script for my thesis defense, the suit I’d have on, the perfume I wanted to wear, the new pair of socks I chose the night before.
In another world, these considerations are valid. Yet I pity myself.
I stress over the socks and suit, when a boy in Gaza was buried without a body to dress. I stress over the small 6 hours of sleep I get, when a child in Gaza waits sleepless for his dead father’s return. I stress over the wifi speed, while Gaza screams to a world that refuses to listen. I stress over how I’ll be remembered by everyone, while people In Gaza pray not to be forgotten in their graves. I stress over how to write these sentences, while in Gaza, their sentences are written on body bags.
“Middle aged woman, dark brown hair, no left arm, found under rubble in Khan Younis.”
Sometimes I complain about how depressing life in the West Bank is. But then I see a mother in Gaza being told all 5 of her children were exterminated by a single missile, and she’s still standing, barely. She has been taking a single breath in between every scream for the past 22 months. My struggles feel petty. My struggles feel embarrassing. Their chance of existence is annihilated, yet my freedom feels deprived.
I sit in cafes and restaurants where people whisper about politics over a coffee.
In Gaza, cafes and restaurants are bombed.
In Gaza, hospitals and schools are bombed.
In Gaza, ambulances and shelters are bombed.
How could I have the audacity to complain about my problems when Gaza is being erased before my very eyes?
Why am I allowed to survive?
I am tired of being told I should be “grateful” that I am not in Gaza.
I’m not grateful. I’m enraged. I’m furious.
The bottom line of our luck is still having a mother. I want to scream when I hear people say it’s “complicated”. No, it’s not complicated.
It’s colonization. It’s an occupation. It’s ethnic cleansing. It’s genocide. It’s murder. It’s deliberate silence and censorship.
Sometimes I see the images of the bodies, and I can’t help but recognize the things people wear. They look like items I wear.
Their skin, it looks like mine.
Their hair, it looks like mine.
Their facial features, they all look like mine.
I can’t help but wish it were me. It should’ve been my name in the list of forgotten martyrs. That it should’ve been my family.
I want people to know that my wrath is not abstract. It’s not complicated, nor is it subjective.
I am angry that the world posts “never again” after scrolling past a video of scattered limbs coming from Gaza.
I am angry because the world pretends not to see. I am angry because there is so little I can do. I am angry because my family’s survival feels like betrayal.
What hurts most is that this rage won’t bring back a single child to its mother’s arms. And I know this article won’t change the outcome.
But maybe, just maybe, if I were to be able to make you feel something, it’ll mean I didn’t waste the privilege of being under occupation.
Because surviving shouldn’t feel shameful. Because safety shouldn’t feel like treason. Because joy shouldn’t feel like robbery, and because living shouldn’t feel like guilt. Because the only thing heavier on my chest than being a Palestinian, is being a Palestinian that’s still alive to tell you about it.
