Palestine

Palestine is a land where the earth is soaked in history, where every olive tree stands a witness to generations of resistance, resilience, and ruin. For decades, this land has been suffocated under the boot of colonisation and relentless violence. Foreign powers, most notably the U.S and the U.K have continued to propped up Israel, with its brutal system of occupation, and have carved up Palestine for geopolitical gain and ideological domination. The Nakba of 1948 was not an isolated catastrophe - but the start of an ongoing campaign to erase Palestine from the map. In just mere months 700,00 Palestinians were forcibly displaced from their homes by Zionists militias, their villages razed to make way for a new state. Entire communities were uprooted and families were torn apart. Now nearly 75 years later, the world watches again as Israel fragments Palestine, only this time with a lot more force and with no intent to stop. 

Gaza is the most populated strip of land in the world and Gazans have been living in this open air prison since 1967. The Palestinians here transformed Gaza into something beautiful. But after October 2023, there was no place left to call safe and it had become a living nightmare for all of its 2.2 million civilians. Every home, street and corner has become besieged. For 11 months the Israeli military has been steadily pushing Gazans from the North to the South through means of relentless violence and indiscriminate carpet bombing. They have massacred at least 41,000 Palestinians, and more than 94,000 injured. In addition, tens of thousands remain missing and the official statistics do not account for those trapped under the rubble. Gaza has been turned into a mass grave yard where survival feels like a daily gamble. 

People have been forced to become internally displaced, crammed into makeshift shelters or left to the mercy of the elements. Sham, a young girl from the Al-Maghazi refugee camp, reflects the terror of a child forced to evacuate from the place she calls home she recalls ‘’Someone started calling out to my fathers cousins, saying ‘Evacuate, evacuate’, and we rushed to gather out things and leave.’’ Shams adds ‘’I am scared. I was waiting for the war to be over because my mother is abroad, and I am waiting for her to come back.’’ Shams' words reveal not just the immediate danger but also the deep longing for normalcy, for a family reunion that seems more distant with each explosion. Conditions in the displacements are beyond desperate in camps. AJ+ offers a glimpse into the grim reality of displacement. Imagine sleeping on the cold, hard ground, with no mattress, no cover, no pillow - just the shirt on your back and the few belongings you managed to grab in haste used as a pillow. Cold bites at your skin and anxiety weights in your chest. There is no relief, even the simple act of going to the bathroom becomes a trial of patience, as you wait in line with hundreds of others. This is the reality of Gazans everyday. 

And then, there is the isolation, Gaza has essentially been cut from the rest of the world. Clean water is a luxury people cannot afford - only the salty sea is within reach. Food and medicine are impossible to come by, as Israeli forces have destroyed all the hospitals and have blocked nearly all aid from reaching Gaza. The blockade squeezes the life out of this land, bit by bit making survival a daily struggle against hunger, thirst and the dread of another bomb. 

The violence is non confined to Gaza. Between October 7th 2023 and September 2024, the occupied West Bank has endured perilous conditions marked by escalating brutality by the IOF. High levels of violence are only escalating in this region. In this period 692 Palestinians, including 159 children, were killed by the IOF. The suffering in the West Bank mirrors that of Gaza, as Palestinians face daily raids, forced evictions, and a tightening grip on their land.

This is not just statistics or headlines. These are lives - families ripped apart, children like Sham torn from their home, their futures uncertain, and their basic human needs unmet. What is unfolding in Palestine is not a conflict but a humanitarian catastrophe.