Since Oct. 7, 2023, all of us have experienced continuing, intense grief. Many of us are mourning cousins, siblings, classmates, parents … all of us are grieving the astounding loss of Palestinian lives as well as the very structure of Gazan life. There is nothing left of Gaza, yet its people rush back—on foot—to sift through the rubble of the difficult lives they led, hoping to find the bodies of their family members, neighbors, friends. Every single person is irreparably traumatized, and it’s hard to imagine anyone daring to feel even a bit of hope.
And yet hope is everywhere! Gazans speak of rebuilding even while they are grieving. They envision a new life amid the remains of their old lives. They say the same things we now hear from the fire victims in Southern California: They talk out their grief over family members who were killed, but they look ahead to rebuilding homes, businesses, and lives.
The difference, though, is immense. Fire victims are enveloped in the sympathy of the worldwide community, plus material assistance and more donations than they can absorb. The genocide in Gaza—which continues now, of course—was headline news for the first few weeks, and then casually accepted into that cruel category of news known as “business as usual.” In this country and some others, Israel is portrayed as the victim, yet Palestinians were massacred in so-called “safe zones,” and in schools, and then in hospitals and clinics. No place was safe.
But here’s the miracle in all of this: Yet again, Palestinians rise! They themselves express hope for the future. They remind us that they survived and even thrived after the devastation and displacement of the 1948 Nakba.
Donna Pulling
Santa Maria
This article appears in Feb 20 – Mar 2, 2025.