Gaza in a Heavy Farewell to the Year: Between the Legitimacy of Resistance and the Cost of War

This year bids us farewell without lifting its dark clouds from the sky of the Gaza Strip. Another heavy year has passed upon us, as we live under constant anxiety, pursued by policies of killing, starvation, and siege, and we welcome it and bid it farewell from within displacement tents, where the harshness of the weather mixes with the bitterness of loss, and survival itself becomes a daily act of steadfastness.
There is no doubt that October 7th was an exceptional event in the history of our Palestinian struggle, a pivotal moment that reminded us of a truth that the occupation tried to erase for a long time: that this people has not been broken, that its will for resistance is still alive, and that it is capable—in principle—of confronting and overcoming the occupation, if the minimum balance of power is provided, or even some justice in the positions of the world's countries.
However, the harsh truth that must not be skipped is that Israel did not wage this war alone. It fought Gaza with all the American military and security capabilities and technologies, and with full Western political and diplomatic cover, while we—here lies the real weakness—faced the war machine almost alone. No internal united front to lighten the cost, no Arab or Islamic back to support and defend us, and no international community that fairly addresses the Palestinians' legitimate right to resistance, or even in applying the two-state solution it claims to adopt, which the majority of the world's countries support in theory and ignore in practice.
Yes, it can be said that October 7th was a battle in which resistance triumphed in its first moment, but it opened in return the door to a comprehensive unequal war, in which we lost tens of thousands of martyrs and wounded, and during which the urban, economic, and social infrastructure of the Gaza Strip was destroyed. The Palestinian people were not defeated, and Benjamin Netanyahu did not achieve a political or moral victory, but he committed widespread massacres, destroyed the basic life systems of water, electricity, and hospitals, and turned more than two million people into displaced persons living in tents that do not protect against heat or cold nor preserve the privacy or modesty of their inhabitants.
By the standards of wars and their outcomes, and away from slogans and emotions, it cannot be denied that the estimates were wrong, and that the calculations did not take into account the size of the response, nor the nature of the international system, nor the readiness of this world to turn a blind eye to a crime of genocide committed live on air, as long as the victim is Palestinian.
And from here, a clear discrepancy emerges today between the general discourse of the Hamas movement and the discourse of the Palestinian street from the tent dwellers. The movement sees that it has achieved important breakthroughs in Western public opinion, pushed towards broader recognitions of a Palestinian state, and brought the Palestinian issue back to the forefront of the international scene.
In contrast, the Palestinian street—exhausted by wounds, loss, and displacement—looks at things from a different angle: the angle of the exorbitant cost, the spilled blood, the demolished homes, and the increasingly obscure future of the children.
This discrepancy does not mean betrayal, nor denial of the right of resistance as a legitimate right guaranteed by international laws, but it imposes a sincere and courageous national review that distinguishes between the legitimacy of the act, the wisdom of the decision, and between intentions and results. Peoples do not live on abstract meanings alone, but on their ability to endure long-term, protect their humanity, preserve their internal unity, and build a comprehensive strategy not driven by reactions.
This year bids us farewell while the Palestinian division remains dominant, and Gaza with all its wounds is still bleeding, but history has not been written yet. And the greatest lesson that should not be neglected is that our true strength lies not only in the courage of confrontation, but in unity of ranks, good judgment, and building a comprehensive national project that does not leave Gaza alone, nor the Palestinian alone, in facing an international system whose moral balance has been disrupted.
A year departs… and Gaza remains, with its wound, its patience and tears, and its right that does not lapse with time.
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This year bids us farewell while the Palestinian division remains dominant, and Gaza with all its wounds is still bleeding, but history has not been written yet. And the greatest lesson that should not be neglected is that our true strength lies not only in the courage of confrontation, but in unity of ranks, good judgment, and building a comprehensive national project that does not leave Gaza alone, nor the Palestinian alone, in facing an international system whose moral balance has been disrupted