Peace سلام — such a beautiful word, yet in today’s world, it feels like a distant dream.
We search for it in speeches, in international awards, in conferences filled with applause —
but it vanishes the moment we look at the faces of children under the rubble.
Peace is not a signature on a piece of paper, nor a medal to be awarded —
it is life restored, dignity returned, and justice reclaimed.

If I were among those who decide,
I would give the Nobel Peace Prize not to those who speak about peace,
but to those who create it.
To those who stop wars before they begin,
who open new arenas where leaders and the wealthy can compete away from human suffering,
who make life a right for everyone, not a privilege for a few.

But this year, the news came through a phone call — not from a grand hall in Oslo.
The Nobel Peace Prize of 2025 was awarded to a woman fighting for freedom in another land.
And when I watched the moment she received the call, I couldn’t hold my tears.
They were not tears of joy, nor of sadness — they were tears of recognition.
Because peace is not an announcement, not an applause, not an ornament on a wall.
Peace is built in silence, through struggle, through patience, through pain.

Gaza knows what peace really means — and also what it means to live without it.
Yes, the war has stopped. There is a ceasefire.
But more than 53% of Gaza remains under Israeli control.
The siege still chokes daily life.
And the hope for real freedom has not yet been born.

A ceasefire cannot erase the fear in a child’s eyes,
nor rebuild the homes that vanished,
nor bring back the lives that were stolen.
Peace is not a speech at a conference,
nor a prize delivered through a phone call.
Peace is a school reopening.
It is a street becoming safe again.
It is the sea returning to its children,
and the air no longer carrying the echo of explosions.

In Gaza, every home holds a story of loss.
Every street remembers pain that never ended,
and every mother waits —
for the day her voice will be heard,
for the day her children will sleep without fear,
for the day freedom will be given, not begged for.

I am from Gaza.
I know that peace is not a headline, not a prize, but a promise —
a promise written through endurance, day after day.
And until that promise is fulfilled,
every Peace Prize will remain incomplete,
and peace itself will remain a word that Gaza is still waiting to live.

But we will keep writing.
We will keep dreaming.
Because I believe the world cannot stay blind forever.
One day, hearts will open before the halls do.
And peace will be given not to the famous,
but to the forgotten — to those who carried the world’s silence and still believed in hope.

And when the Nobel Prize is mentioned again,
I hope it remembers the child in Gaza who laughed despite fear,
the mother who forgave despite loss,
and the people who stood tall despite the world turning away.

Because they are the ones who deserve to have their names written in the language of peace —
not on golden medals,
but on the pages of history and the conscience of humanity.

Gaza does not ask for an award — only to be recognized as the truest voice of peace that was buried beneath the smoke.

Fares Abulebda 
10 October 2025