Don't stop talking about Gaza

The genocide in Gaza is not over.
The killing has not stopped.

Every single day, people are still being killed.

Last week, one incident overwhelmed me and left me shell-shocked. Maybe because I know the family of one of the victims. I know his brother from my days at Birzeit University. Since his brother was killed, he has been sharing nonstop about him — remembering him, grieving him, refusing to let him become just another number.

The name of the young man I cannot stop thinking about is Abdul Rahman — “Abboud,” as they called him.

He was an engineer.

The reason I cannot stop thinking about him is the brutality of the killing. He was volunteering with a field kitchen, helping feed displaced people who are themselves victims of this genocide. A bomb killed the three young men working there.

One of them was Abdul Rahman.

The image was unbearable: rice spilled onto the ground, blood mixed with the rice.

I cannot get it out of my mind.

And I keep reading what his brother writes about him — lamenting him, remembering his smile, mourning the cruel separation imposed by Gaza’s isolation. He wrote about not even being able to say goodbye to his own brother.

One sentence shattered me:

“It is as if we were born for sorrow.”

And so I wonder, is this really our fate as Palestinians?

The more I thought about Abdul Rahman, the more torn I became between conflicting emotions.

On the one hand, perhaps I was trying to find something noble amid the horror. I know I should not romanticize death, and yet I could not help thinking: what an honorable way to spend your final moments — feeding hungry people, serving the displaced, volunteering in the midst of catastrophe. What a testimony to humanity in a time of inhumanity.

What a way to be remembered.

But then another thought immediately crashes in: the cruelty of this genocide. The cruelty of a world that takes someone like him. The cruelty of a humanity that watches and moves on.

And I cannot stop asking:

Why, Lord?
Why him?
Why any of them?

Why do good people suffer?
Why has this not stopped?
Where are the people of conscience?
How much longer?

These questions torment us. Perhaps they always will.

But at the very least, we must not stop praying. And we must not stop speaking.

I am praying for this family. I am praying for Gaza. But prayer alone cannot become an excuse for silence.

The least we can do is tell their stories. Say their names. Refuse to let the world look away.

Do not stop talking about Gaza.

Do not stop calling for this genocide to end.

Images are from Abdul Rahman’s Facebook page

(Images are from Abdul Rahman’s Facebook page)