[This is a personal account from a grassroots charity aid worker on the frontlines]
It’s been 21 months.
For 21 months, we’ve marched, we’ve shouted, we’ve written, we’ve donated, we’ve protested. Every week. Every day. We’ve stood for Gaza, for its people, its children, its right to simply live. And yet, the bombs still fall. The aid is still blocked. The silence from those in power is deafening.
There are days I feel like I have nothing left to give.
I know I’m not alone. The weight of witnessing so much suffering and feeling powerless to stop it has crushed many of us. We keep showing up, but in quiet moments, I wonder: what’s the point?
I asked myself that very question this June, standing in the heat of Cairo, surrounded by others from the Global March to Gaza. We had travelled to the edge of a border we couldn’t cross, gathering in hope, only to be turned back. The symbolism was heavy. We couldn’t even walk toward Gaza, let alone reach it.
I was angry. Defeated. Ready to retreat into silence.
And then I remembered Zainab – Sister of Hussain ibn Ali. Witness to Karbala. She stood. She spoke. She rose. In the court of the oppressor. With truth on her tongue and dignity in her stance, she became the echo after Ashura. Not for recognition. Not because it would reverse what had happened. But because the truth had to live.
That memory shifted something in me.
Zainab wouldn’t undo the injustice, but she would make sure the story didn’t die. And that was enough. That was everything.
And so, I ask myself again: what’s the point of continuing?
The point is this: we don’t stop because the struggle is hard. We continue because the struggle is sacred. Because, like Zainab, we carry the story. And the moment we stop, the moment we go quiet, the story is stolen.
Our efforts may feel small. But they matter. Every post, every chant, every conversation: they stack, they echo, they endure. They remind the world that humanity is watching. That justice is never forgotten. That Gaza is not alone.
This isn’t the end. This is our duty.
Let’s rise. Again. And again. And again.
Aliya
