After a thousand days of the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip, the numbers are no longer just statistics, but have turned into human stories of people who lost their owners, cities whose landmarks disappeared, and generations who grew up amidst the sounds of bombing and the smell of rubble.
It is one of the most devastating humanitarian disasters of the modern era, as the Israeli war of extermination was not limited to targeting people, but extended to stones, trees, and memory, in an attempt to change the face of the sector that has embraced more than two million Palestinians.
In Gaza, the question is no longer how many days have passed, but how many lives have been lost, how many homes have disappeared, how many children have not completed their childhood, and how many mothers continue to search among the rubble for a trace of their children.
Official Palestinian data indicates that the death toll has exceeded 73,000 Palestinians, including more than 21,500 children and more than 12,500 women, while tens of thousands were injured, and thousands more are still missing, many of whom lie under the rubble of buildings that have turned into mass graves.
Human beings were not the only target of the war, as the latest United Nations estimates confirm that 81% of the buildings in the Gaza Strip were destroyed or suffered varying degrees of damage, including more than 123,000 buildings that were completely destroyed, while 92% of residential units were damaged or destroyed, making finding a habitable home a rare exception in a sector where about 2.4 million people live.
Nearly 68 million tons of rubble have piled up above ground, an amount that the United Nations says could take more than two decades to remove, in a scene that reflects the scale of destruction the sector has not witnessed in its modern history.
As for hospitals, schools, universities, water and electricity networks and roads, they were damaged to varying degrees, while 75% of agricultural land was damaged, turning Gaza from a land that used to produce its own food into an area that depends almost entirely on humanitarian aid.
A life suspended between displacement and hunger
During a thousand days, displacement was no longer an exceptional event, but rather a way of life imposed by the war on most of the Gaza Strip’s population.
Families who had left their homes once were forced to flee many times, carrying what remained of their belongings on small carts or on their shoulders, in search of a safer place, before the bombing reached it as well.
In the shelters, there were no rooms or beds, only tents pressed together, faces exhausted by waiting, and children trying to play on the sand and among the rubble, as if they refused to admit that their childhood had been stolen from them.
With shortages of food, water and medicine, a loaf of bread has become a daily dream, obtaining a clean glass of water has become an achievement, and hospitals have become unable to receive the increasing numbers of wounded and sick after most of them went out of service.
Despite everything "Praise be to God"
Despite this scene, which looks more like the end of an entire city, what surprised the world the most was not the scale of the destruction, but the Palestinians' ability to continue living.
In Gaza, a visitor doesn't need much time to hear the phrase that has become part of the details of daily life: "Praise be to God."
This is said by a father who has lost his children.
The mother repeats it while preparing a simple meal of lentils or dry bread for her children.
It is uttered by the paramedic who has just emerged from the rubble.
It is whispered by the child who survived while losing his family.
This phrase is no longer just a religious expression, but has become a philosophy of life, and a means of confronting a reality that exceeds human endurance.
Patience the weapon that war could not take away.
For a thousand days, the war wagered that hunger would break the people, that displacement would drive them to leave, and that fear would make them abandon their land.
But what happened was different.
Despite the unprecedented destruction, most of Gaza’s residents remained inside the Strip, moving from one neighborhood to another, from a school to a tent, and from a tent to the rubble of their home, refusing to leave their land.
"Patience" became the theme of their daily lives; patience in the face of losing loved ones, patience in the face of hunger and thirst, patience in waiting for aid, and patience in the face of long nights spent under the sounds of planes and shelling.
This patience was not surrender, but a form of civil resistance, and a declaration that
Staying on the land is in itself a stance and a message.
An entire generation is born amid war.
In contrast, thousands of children were born during this war, and all they knew of the world were tents, water queues, and the sounds of airplanes, while hundreds of thousands were deprived of education after their schools were destroyed or turned into shelters.
Childhood in Gaza has become synonymous with fear and deprivation, while international organizations warn of psychological effects that may haunt an entire generation for many years.
A thousand days and the story continues.
A thousand days later, Gaza stands witness to one of the bloodiest and most destructive wars of the 21st century.
Entire cities were razed to the ground, millions of tons of rubble covered the place, and tens of thousands of victims were gone, but one thing remained unbreakable.
He is the Palestinian.
That person who stands on the ruins of his home, looks up at the sky, and says quietly: "Praise be to God . "
Then he starts again to pitch a tent, or remove a stone, or search for water, or comfort a child, as if declaring to the world that war, however cruel it may be, may destroy cities, but it cannot easily defeat the will of a people who believe that patience is not just a virtue, but a way to survive, and that holding onto the land is the last thing that can be given up.
