When even the simplest details of life become a dream

There are pains that scream, and others that are content with silence. In Gaza, however, there is a pain that chose to live between the ribs, unseen by the eye, yet it weighs heavy on the heart until it almost makes it impossible to keep beating. It is waiting… that heavy guest that hasn’t left homes for years, until it became part of the details of life, of the features on faces, and the stories that never end.

Have you ever experienced time stopping for you at a station you can’t leave, while the world around you rushes forward? Spending hours of your day nailed to the roadside of expectancy, not for anything except to get a drop of water or a loaf of bread? In Gaza, this forgotten part of the world, age isn’t measured in years, but in the minutes and hours spent standing in lines of waiting. The suffering begins with simple morning details that have turned into daily hell. People stand for long hours waiting for a gallon of clean water, or a loaf of bread to feed their children, or even a spot to charge a phone to stay connected to what remains of this world. This monotonous waiting isn’t just physical fatigue; it’s a systematic gnawing at human dignity, where the energy and dreams of youth are wasted securing basic survival needs, turning the entire day into an exhausting journey in anticipation of the simplest rights.

And as days pass, waiting no longer remains just a state …As days go by, waiting is no longer just a temporary state; it turns into a psychological burden that quietly drains a person. It doesn’t only leave a mark on the body, but it also steals the soul’s ability to live, making the future seem blurry no matter how strong the will. It postpones dreams, leaves appointments open, and hangs plans on the word ‘maybe.’ Yet, Gazans continue their lives with a stubbornness that’s astonishing, as if they refuse to let despair have a victory. Behind closed doors and in narrow corridors, there are hearts groaning with another kind of waiting: waiting for a text message that opens a blocked passage for travel, or approval for a medical transfer that could save a patient fighting for their life, or a phone call that reassures someone living abroad about their family. It’s the kind of waiting that keeps nerves taut like fraying strings, where people sleep with their eyes on their phones and wake up with the same obsession and anticipation.

In Gaza, entire generations have grown up on ‘waiting lists,’ waiting for a job, waiting for stability, waiting for an end to this ongoing tragedy. Gaza will remain, despite everything, a witness that humans can preserve their humanity even in the harshest conditions. The hearts of its people will continue to ache under the weight of waiting, but they will not give up their right to dream; because hearts that have learned the meaning of patience also know that the dawn has an appointment, even if it is delayed, and no matter how long the night, it will be followed by sunrise.

And because they know that nations are built with hope just as they are built with patience, and that a heart accustomed to resilience doesn’t know how to surrender. Nations that cling to life, no matter how exhausted they are by hardships, write their history with a silence that hits harder than any noise.