From the moment I saw people in Gaza rushing to the humanitarian aid distribution center run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, my heart broke, and my mind hasn’t rested since.
This wasn’t humanitarian aid.
This was humiliation.
People weren’t rushing because they wanted more, they were rushing because they were starving,because dignity had been stripped away, layer by layer.
And I kept asking myself: How did we get here? Where were we, and where are we now?
How, when, why, and where are we going?
Someone please explain it to us, someone please listen.
We tried to speak. We cried out years ago.
In the summer of 2017, I was invited to speak at the conference titled “Palestinian Youth Drawing the Map of the Future” held in Cairo because of my ability to articulate the hopes and needs of our people.
I looked directly at leaders, decision-makers, ministers, and told them, “Support Gaza by investing in its land,support agriculture, support work, support hope.”
But they didn’t listen.
They didn’t listen to the thousands of fresh graduates knocking on closed doors.
They didn’t listen to the young people who left, those who risked everything chasing dignity in a world that shut its eyes.
They didn’t listen when entire communities warned, “We are collapsing.”
And now, it’s here.
The collapse is real. Socially, economically, psychologically.
You didn’t just destroy buildings, you destroyed an entire society.
The people of Gaza are not okay.
They live surrounded by ruins.
They wait in lines for hours just to get flour or canned goods.
They pay triple for food, if they can find it.
They walk through markets with empty wallets and full sorrow.
Children are growing up with swollen bellies, not from food,but from hunger.
Mothers are ageing in fast-forward. Fathers are disappearing under pressure.
Entire families are crammed into rooms without light, without water, without hope.
You crushed us, then you told the world you’re helping us.
No, you’re managing the damage you created.
Gaza is not a charity case. Gaza is full of capable, intelligent, talented human beings.
We are tired of being treated as mouths to feed, we are minds to respect, hands to employ, souls that deserve to live.
Let us live.
Free us from this endless waiting.
Let people work. Let people breathe. Let people go back to growing, not just surviving.
And if you can’t do that, then at least stop pretending you care.
Stop saying “we hear you,” when clearly, you don’t.
Because if you had truly listened, we wouldn’t be here,watching an entire generation disappear under rubble, despair, and silence.

Enough.
Enough with speeches.
Enough with promises.
Enough with destroying a people, and then asking them to thank you for crumbs.
Gaza is starving, and the world keeps sending food. But that’s not what we truly need.
Yes, people are hungry. Yes, bodies are thinning. Faces have lost their color.
Mothers are skipping meals to feed their children. Bread has become a luxury.
Meat is a memory. Even clean water is scarce.
Life in Gaza has become a slow collapse, not just of infrastructure, but of spirit.
Prices are skyrocketing. Jobs are non-existent. Homes are rubble.
The streets are filled with the scent of despair. And still, people survive. Somehow.
But surviving is not living.
Gaza doesn’t need your handouts. Gaza needs opportunity. Gaza needs dignity. Gaza needs peace.
We are not helpless. We are not beggars.
We are builders, creators, farmers, engineers, teachers, designers, artists, developers, and more.
The problem isn’t our ability, it’s that every door has been slammed shut in our faces.
We don’t want to line up for canned food.
We want to work. We want to build.
We want to feed our families with our own hands, from our own land, with dignity.
We could be exporting roses. We could be sending strawberries across the world.
We could be growing more than just crops, we could be growing hope.
But they didn’t listen.
And now, after more than 600 days of siege, destruction, hunger, and displacement, we are not just asking for food.
We are asking for freedom.
We are asking for our right to self-determination, a right clearly stated in international law, in the UN Charter, and in every document that claims to uphold human rights.

We want peace. True peace.
Not the silence of drones overhead. Not the peace of broken homes and wounded hearts.
We want a peace that allows us to live,not merely exist.
A peace that allows us to dream, to plant, to teach, to create, to travel, to raise our children without fear.
We are not asking for luxury.
We are asking for something so simple, so basic: a normal life.
A life without hunger. A life without fear.
A life where a child can grow without malnutrition, without trauma, without loss.
A life where dignity isn’t a dream, but a right.
The people of Gaza don’t want pity.
We want justice. We want a future.
We want to reclaim what’s left of our humanity, and we need the world to stop managing our misery and start standing up for our right to live freely and fully.

Set us free. You’ve done enough. Let us rebuild what you destroyed .

👉 Please share this petition if these words speak your heart too. We need your voice.           الله غالب 
Fares Abulebda 
28 May 2025