Another catastrophe
My name is Mahmoud Said Ghabayen, and I was born in Gaza, Palestine. If you have been keeping up with recent news, you likely understand what’s occurring in the region. I was named after my Uncle Mahmoud. Who, according to my mother, thought of him as if he were her own child. I could go on and on about how much my uncle meant to me. One memory that often stands out to me was when I visited him last. I kept bugging him over and over again about taking me to my favorite breakfast place in Gaza. While it wasn’t anything fancy or expensive, all I wanted to do was to be there with him, drinking our favorite strawberry smoothies. His daughters would always play a game where they hung on to my arms as I spun around, and whoever held on the longest would win. However, just eight days after Oct. 7, 2023, my family was faced with heart-shattering news. And none of us would be the same after that.
Gaza is a 25-mile by 5-mile rectangle and is also known for being one of the most densely populated areas in the world. Using the South African Government as an example, this territory would be considered an Apartheid state, which means people are separate from each other in the literal sense of “apart-hood.” A Palestinian citizen will never be on the same playing field or have the same rights as any Israeli citizen, whether they were born there or not. This requires Palestinians 16 years and older to carry identification about their ethnicity, for the betterment of Zionist settlements, similar to Jews who had to identify themselves with the Star of David back in World War 2. (View My Palestinian Identification card above)
As of Present, there is a Humanitarian Crisis in Gaza. According to Eberdrola’s Denotation. A humanitarian crisis is a generalized emergency affecting an entire community or a group of people in a region. The people of Gaza currently have extremely insufficient access to food, water, shelter, medical Services, and electricity. A report from Daily Sabah in January, just three months after Oct. 7, stated, “Israel has battered the Gaza Strip with over 65,000 tons of explosives; this yields over three times more explosive force than the U.S. nuclear bomb that decimated Japan’s Hiroshima.” This is equivalent to about 6,000 bombs dropped every week on this tiny enclave. The destruction is so extreme that “Gaza is now a different color and texture from space.” While this source is from January 2024, the issue has only intensified. This genocide is now reaching the 24-month mark.
NPR reports that just 100 days after Oct. 7, three out of every five houses were destroyed, including my ancestral home. Countless people have been left with the uncertainty of “If” and “When” they will be next. Over 90% of the 2.3 million-person population has been forcefully displaced to the southern region of Gaza. And even then, the effort to move was in vain. Those transportation routes, promised as a means of safety, were still under attack. Those who have made it south are still faced with an impending threat of violence.
A very real and documented fact is that zionist children are coerced into signing their names on bombs that will likely kill families, and in return, Palestinian Children, like my cousins, have been signing their names on each of their limbs, in hopes that their bodies are identifiable after those same bombs are dropped. No human life should ever suffer this amount of injustice. No parent should have to answer their children’s questions on whether they will die. The level of mortality in Palestinian families is such that medics in Gaza have had to coin a new acronym: ‘WCNSF’, meaning “wounded child, no surviving family.”
You’d be extremely lucky to obtain an ambulance, as according to the Gaza Ministry of Health, there are no longer ANY ambulances or hospitals left functioning for the entire strip. Since the start of this genocide in October, numerous reports, such as Business Insider, have emphasized the fact that doctors are amputating blast victims on dirt, in tents, and anywhere they can, almost all WITHOUT anesthesia. The United Nations chiefs have described the unprecedented rate of Palestinian child casualties as a quote, “graveyard for children”
It is well known that during the Second World War, an estimated six million Jews were killed. The Hebrew word Shoah is what we know as the Holocaust, shoah translating to catastrophe. We learn this history for two reasons: one, to commemorate the lives lost during this tragic period in time, and two, as philosopher George Santayana put it, “Those who do not learn history are often doomed to repeat it.” The Nakba is another word, this time Arabic, for Catastrophe. However, in this case, the Nakba refers to the catastrophe in which over 700 thousand Palestinians were compelled to enter either the West Bank or the Gaza Strip in 1948, just three years after WW2 had ended. Many were killed in the process of being forced into these new sets of territories. In the current Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu’s, own words he states, “You started a war, you’ll get a nakba.” Netanyahu disregards his own citizens’ lives, and boasts about another Shoah, another Nakba—another catastrophic failing of humanity.
According to PCBS, over 47% of Gaza’s population is children. A book called “Visualizing Palestine reads, “More children have lost limbs in Gaza in the last year than the total of all children in every recent war scenario in the past century. Hundreds of thousands more are still reported as missing/unidentifiable.
ON Sept. 3, 2025, DR. GIDEON POLYA AND PROFESSOR RICHARD HIL CALCULATED THE TOTAL DEATH TOLL FOR GAZA SINCE OCTOBER 7: “Based on all the data collected, the death toll in Gaza is at least 680,000, and 380,000 are infants under five years of age.”
Just eight days after Oct. 7, my family was faced with heart-shattering news. October 15th, I was asleep in my room, still early in the morning, I woke up to my mother’s ear-piercing screams. When I went up the stairs, I found myself holding my phone, the time reading 9:34 a.m. Mahmoud heard his mother crying in agony over and over again, repeating in Arabic, (Mahmoud Habibi Ibni, Habibi Ibni Mahmoud, Rud 3lya) “Mahmoud My Love, My son, My Love, My Son Mahmoud, respond to me” Grasping her phone waiting for a text, a reply, any proof, and any chance. As I stood confused, it had finally clicked what had happened. My mother wasn’t referring to me; she was talking about my Uncle Mahmoud. 25 members of my family had lost their lives in one of these attacks in southern Gaza. Where they thought it was safe, where they listened to the instructions given to them. Twenty-five people were robbed of their potential futures. Twenty-five perished in an instant.
These people aren’t just numbers; they’re actual people with homes and family dynamics—just like yours. Beyond the statistics, these people had dreams, faced challenges, and seized opportunities. They loved playing on the beach, hanging out with friends, listening to music, dancing, cooking—basically, embracing and experiencing what it meant to be human. These are Uncles who took you to your favorite breakfast spot to drink your favorite strawberry smoothie. These are kids who hung on to your arms in hopes of winning a silly game. They’re not just casualties; they’re vibrant souls who added their unique colors to the human canvas.
My name is more than just another name you might have seen and stumbled upon on the internet. This is a personal account and a primary source I lived through.
Most people have no idea what has been going on in Gaza due to the issue taking place in a different country. Some are naive to only think about what’s happening locally and create this mindset of “if it doesn’t involve me, then why should I care?” Being able to see how much can change in two years is astonishing and disappointing at the same time.
Yes, this subject is very personal to me; however, I wish and hope that others try to do something about it and use their voice to try to prevent more innocent lives from being taken. “Being complicit is being involved” is a saying that defines this issue perfectly. While we aren’t directly to blame for what is happening in Gaza, it is our tax dollars that pay for U.S. arms that are used to kill countless people. If you witness an injustice being committed in front of you, and you choose to walk by, would you not be guilty of continuing that injustice? Ignorance is innocence, but choosing to be ignorant is not innocent. Deputy observer to the UN, Majed Bamya, stated, “Maybe for some, we have the wrong nationality, the wrong faith, the wrong skin color, WE ARE HUMAN!” Just because Palestinians look different, talk differently, sound different, and behave differently. Does that make them any less valuable than an American? Does that make them any less valuable than an Israeli? Different shouldn’t mean less. Why do we let others decide who’s worth more? If we measure worth by resemblance. Have we abandoned the essence of humanity itself?”
I wish that I could show you the horrors that I have seen over the past two years. Images beyond our most terrifying imaginations. A couple more facts I feel are important to acknowledge include the American Palestinians who have been killed firsthand by Israel. There are too many accounts. However, their deaths weren’t looked into.
Many Holocaust survivors and Jews have spoken against Israel since the beginning of this current genocide, yet their voices are silenced because the media represents them as quote, “Not real Jews.” Toshiyuki Nunajum, a leader of the Nihon Hidankyo organization that represents survivors of the US’s attack on Hiroshima, a prominent survivor, after his organization had won a Nobel Peace Prize, spoke about the horrors of Gaza and how they remind him almost exactly of what he’d witnessed in Japan many years ago. Lastly, AIPAC, a pro-Israel lobby, spends billions of dollars and pays our politicians to stand with Israel, to defend Israel’s actions.
Currently, the International Court of Justice has issued arrest warrants to Benjamin Netanyahu for the crimes against humanity that he has committed in Gaza. The U.S. made a statement not too long ago saying it would attack any allied nation that tries to arrest Netanyahu for the ICJ’s ruling. What is humanity worth if it isn’t more than a lie of freedom?
A lot of Western media don’t report on the numbers I mentioned. People like to bring up the issue with Hamas. However, that is a tired and unfair argument. The book, “Understanding Hamas and Why It Matters” explains in detail using personal accounts from both sides how Israel is the reason Hamas exists, and that Israel has enabled this entity to justify their acts of horror in the past and Gaza today. This issue never started on October 7th. Why is it now socially seen as antisemitic to speak against Israel? I’m semitic too. “Land you have to kill for, isn’t yours. Land you have to die for is.” The most documented genocide in history, and our leaders fail us yet again.
That’s why I’m here, to tell their stories. It not only matters that we learn history, but also how we digest it as well. It’s unimaginably important that we are independent in our research and in our knowledge of current affairs. How you internalize this information today can enact change; you hold so much hope and power to influence the future. Boycott, research, resist, donate to a just cause, and spread an unfiltered message. Although these views might not be widely accepted by our community, they can spark conversations, and that, to me, is what truly matters. Anything and everything you do can enact change. A future in which we are all human; a future where we are all treated equally. A future where tomorrow we can march hand in hand, where freedom is our friend, where freedom is not a privilege but a human right, Where freedom is granted without a fight.
Thank You.
