Gaza... when consciences are buried before the dead!

Amin Al-Hajj

At a time when standards have been reversed, massacres have become numbers, children have become statistics, and blood has become a fleeting or quickly forgotten breaking news item, Gaza stands witness to an unprecedented moral decline, to the insolence of the accomplices, and to the exposure of the nakedness of this world of silent and complicit people.
The issue is not the number of martyrs, nor the size of the rubble, but rather the expansion of the graves, the spread of hunger, and the spread of death, in contrast to the mass burial of consciences. Gaza does not need bouquets of flowers from leaders who have lost the color of their blood, nor statements of condemnation from institutions that have become meaningless, but rather a single living conscience, crying out in the face of this dead world.
Gaza is being bombed, besieged, slaughtered, and yet it remains standing. What has fallen is not Gaza, but rather the masks have fallen, the systems have fallen, and those we - until yesterday - thought were men have fallen!
Where is the nation? Where are the Arabs? Where are the Muslims? Where are those who filled the pulpits with sermons, then fell silent when blood spoke? Where are those who wept one day over the image of a little girl on the beach, then did not bat an eyelid as they saw hundreds of children pulled out from under the rubble, headless, nameless, and without a future?
Gaza, that small spot besieged between death and resistance, has never been too small for its children, women and elderly, but rather has been spacious enough for their dreams, their wounds and their legendary steadfastness. But today it is suffocating, not from the cramped space, but from the vastness of the betrayal, from the Arab and Islamic silence, from capitals crowded with statements but devoid of action, from screens that transmit images but do not stir a conscience or create a stance.
The Arabs have changed, humanity has been distorted, and everything has become subject to redefinition, even the right to life. Only Gaza continues to define itself as it always has: an open wound on an immortal dignity.
In Gaza, people don't just lack bread, they also lack the world's ability to make them feel like human beings. Gazans aren't looking for a less painful death, but rather for a life that recognizes their right to life. And here the tragedy lies: not in the scarcity of food and medicine, but in the absence of recognition, in the collapse of humanity, in the silence of the onlookers.
Gaza did not become too cramped for its people, but what became cramped was what remained of the nation's conscience. Chivalry fell, dignity evaporated, and concepts were shattered, until it no longer saw Gaza as a part of its body. Consciences were killed until silence became a "position," collusion a "policy," and failure a "smartness" or diplomatic "tact." Consciences died until "neutrality" became an honor, and the killing of civilians became an "internal matter."
Amidst this shame and nakedness, Gaza remains the only one that speaks the truth, with its blood, not its words, with the bodies of its children, not its reports, with its steadfastness, not with the world's value-free covenants. Is the nation still a nation? Or is its concept - as we said - one that has grown weary of Gaza? Is there any room left in Arabism for a defenseless resistance fighter? Is there any shame left in humanity at the sight of a child being pulled from under the rubble?
Gaza asks nothing more than to be seen as it is: a fighting spirit, not a number in UN reports. Gaza does not want sympathy, but a stance. It does not need tears, but a conscience that has been revived. Gaza is not cramped for its people, but we are cramped for it.
Gaza... When the graves expand, not only are consciences exposed, but our shame is also revealed, and our names are engraved in the register of failure, so choose a place for yourself!