Witnessing Gaza - Journal 4
Men Inside of a Genocide

As the women spoke carefully in livestreams, the men remained at the edges. At first they watched quietly, attentively, and deliberately. It was obvious who they were: fathers, husbands, brothers - the men of Gaza.

They were not there for comfort, but to assess.

In the beginning, there was no aid. Before any discussion of resources, fundraising, or survival logistics, they wanted to know why I was here at all. They wanted to know who I was and what I wanted from them.

Within weeks, our conversations and accumulated understanding allowed us to open a discussion to secure them aid.

When aid eventually entered the conversation, the questions sharpened. They needed to know whether assistance was meant to keep their people alive or to move them out, whether fundraising was another form of removal dressed in humanitarian language, and whether survival was truly the goal or if disappearance was being made easier.

Beyond the aid, there was the question of removal. Displacement was treated as temporary, voluntary, and reversible, but history said otherwise.

Families were already scattered across borders, villages erased, tribes broken. The land was taken, the people were pushed elsewhere, yet they know where they belong and where their history remains.

When evacuation was framed as mercy, many Palestinians heard repetition of horror rather than rescue.

Pressure followed from every direction, and judgment was constant. Those who stayed were labeled reckless, while those who left were accused of abandoning the land. Humanitarian corridors were weaponized, warnings came from within, and families were forced to choose between survival and inheritance while outsiders debated from safety.

Throughout it all, Palestinians were policed relentlessly by people who would never carry the consequences.

Where the women were shielding and tempering their words, the men of Gaza exposed the raw truth, refusing to translate suffering into something consumable. They spoke plainly about hunger, humiliation, and the strain of failing to provide while refusing to collapse, explaining that dignity was not abstract but carried daily, under watch.

When the occupation did not allow chocolates or sweets to enter, they found ways to make their own. Sugar was stretched, recipes improvised, and moments of sweetness created by hand. They found ways to spoil their families despite the occupation needlessly restricting items. These were acts of defiance against deprivation, proof that joy could not be confiscated.

In quieter moments, their care showed itself in small, unguarded ways - patience where there could have been bitterness, softness where authority might have hardened, an attentiveness to others that made it unmistakable these men were shaped by responsibility rather than ego.

It became clear that masculinity here was not about dominance but restraint, endurance without spectacle, and remaining present when disappearing would have been easier.

Solidarity, in their terms, was exact: refusing to move people for outside comfort, sustaining life without erasing presence, knowing when evacuation saves a life and when it completes a crime, and understanding that survival and resistance are bound together.

They did not ask for pity but demanded precision. Because of this, to this day, I depend on Palestinians to report on Palestinians, trusting their clarity over outside narration and their judgment over imposed interpretation.

The men of Gaza showed me how a people endure a long night without losing their shape, how faith does not always look like optimism or hope, and how sometimes it looks like stubborn refusal. Dignity can be as simple as staying when every system insists you should go.

This journal begins here. I will add at least one entry from my time with Gaza per week.

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AmyraCull أميرة

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