After two years of genocide in Gaza, will I ever be the same? Opinion by Taqwa Ahmed al-Wawi

The people of Gaza have suffered relentless genocide for two full years. Time has frozen here. Life has become a constant cycle of mourning, loss and death. 

Every day brings a new wound. Every night carries a fear heavier than the last. 

We have endured two years of death and destruction, of limbs scattered across Gaza’s streets, of Israeli rockets leaving nothing but ruins. We live between bombardments and explosions, measuring out our days to the rhythm of death. 

It has been two years without the loved ones who once walked beside us. We fall asleep to the sound of shells. We wake to the screams of those searching for the missing amid the debris. 

For two years, the world has neither heard our cries nor seen the smoke that suffocates our skies. All that remains is waiting for an unknown fate.

I am Taqwa Ahmed al-Wawi, a 19-year-old from Gaza. Age does not define life here; survival defines it. 

I am a writer, poet, editor, publisher and photographer. I come from al-Zawayda in southern Gaza. I’m studying English literature at the Islamic University, where I had barely begun my academic career before the genocide tore everything apart. 

Life under nearly two decades of siege had always been challenging, but nothing compares to the incomprehensible devastation of these past two years. The genocide has changed us entirely. We have lost friends, families, and parts of ourselves. Every person here carries a story that demands to be told.

Read more: After two years of genocide in Gaza, will I ever be the same? Opinion by Taqwa Ahmed al-Wawi