467.
That number still feels unreal.
I still don’t believe it.
It felt dystopic to sit on my couch and watch the press briefing led by His Excellency Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani. “It is with pleasure that the State of Qatar, the Arab Republic of Egypt, and the United States of America, announce that the parties to the war on Gaza have reached an agreement to release hostages in exchange for hostages and prisoners. [...] The first stage, which lasts for 42 days, includes a ceasefire, the withdrawal and redeployment of Israeli forces outside densely populated areas, the release of hostages, and the return of internally displaced persons to their places of residence in the Gaza strip.”
I still don’t believe it.
How can 467 days of agonizing pain and torture end with a statement as simple as this one? A statement that poses more questions than it answers. A statement that provides little hope for the efficiency of international law. A statement that serves as the only hope for 2 million people whose lives have been destroyed. A statement that might not be fully respected. How could this one sentence that was said in the most basic terms be what ends an agonizing 467-day journey for people who gave up on hope?
I still don’t believe it.
For 467 days, Al-Jazeera hasn’t been turned off. For 467 days I’ve seen news stories that I wish I had never seen. For 467 days, Instagram’s main function has been to show us videos of men crying on top of the rubble of their homes, or a child’s single arm lying on the floor of a hospital. For 467 days we’ve screamed, we’ve pleaded, we’ve written, we’ve cried, we’ve felt helpless, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
I still don’t believe it.
In the last 467 days, we’ve witnessed all the international systems that we spend so long learning about and idolizing, fail to help. We’ve seen them veto one ceasefire after the other, but even the glimmer of hope with the ones that passed was flushed down the drain when we realized that they were nothing but footnotes at the end of the page. These resolutions remain mere footnotes for us to reference whenever we question what actions the international community could have taken. We hoped they’d stop the bleeding, but all they did was deepen the wound.
I still don’t believe it.
And maybe I shouldn’t.
It’s 467 days, but we have to wait until Sunday.
467 days, but it’s actually 470 days of continuous genocide that shattered Gaza’s heartbeat, leaving echoes of resilience and resistance in a sea of devastation.
To Gaza, I’m sorry we failed you.
I’m sorry we stood so helpless.
I’m sorry you have to wait 3 more days, for what will happen in days 468, 469, and 470, will add more scars to history and add more failures the world must answer for.
Day -1 feels dystopian, a distant memory, existing, lingering, as a reminder of what was taken away. 467 days later, Gaza still breathes, with its fractured dreams and wounded hearts, there’s yearning, not for what day 471 might look like, but for day -1, a time when homes were still filled with laughter, when children used to freely play in the streets when life was measured in moments of joy, not by survival.
467 days and the world’s clock keeps ticking. For Gaza, it stopped at day -1, where time persists as a reminder of what was taken and what remains unfinished.
I still don’t believe it.
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