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My name is Mayss. For a thousand days, I've been living the genocide of my people in Gaza. For a thousand days, I've been living in an unending and exhausting cycle of constant terror, mental distraction, immense psychological pressure, and profound loss that devours my soul. I've reached a point where I can no longer define why I'm living or what my goals are. My greatest dream now is simply for my day to pass in peace without losing more loved ones.
For 1,000 days, time in Gaza has ceased to be measured in hours or months; it is instead calculated by the heavy toll of losses, the persistent echo of airstrikes, and the suffocating space between life and death. What the world observes from afar as a protracted political conflict or as sterile statistics is, for us, a reality we breathe, struggle within, and die in a thousand times each and every day.
Today in Gaza our population It is concentrated in less than 30% of the area where we lived a thousand days ago. Oggi viviamo sotto una politica calcolata di sfollamento forzato e fame sistematica, dove non esiste alcun rifugio sicuro da nessuna parte.
This genocide has not only taken us back to square one but has pushed us well below it. I have lost some people from my Family. I have lost our home, my room which was my safe haven, we have lost my father's car, which was our family's main and only source of income. Today I live as an internally displaced person right in front of my bombed-out house, forced to look at its ruins and face my shattered memories every single morning.
Il pain non ha risparmiato nessun membro della mia famiglia. Mio padre, che soffre già di ipertensione cronica, ha subito un grave calo dell’udito a causa dei continui bombardamenti a tappeto, delle cortine di fuoco e delle terrificanti esplosioni, che gli hanno lasciato solo il 40% della capacità uditiva, per non parlare del pesante fardello dell’ansia costante per il nostro destino. Quanto a mia madre, la sua anima non è riuscita a sopportare il peso di un dolore così immenso; dopo aver tragicamente perso suo fratello, sua moglie, la loro figlia e poi la propria sorella, ha subito un trauma psicologico profondo e acuto dal quale non riesce ancora oggi a liberarsi né a superare, vivendo come un corpo senza anima.
Even innocence has been crushed under the rubble.
La mia sorellina, che aveva solo due anni prima che iniziasse la War, è cresciuta e ha acquisito consapevolezza tra bombardamenti e sfollamenti — non all’asilo, né a scuola, né nella sicurezza di casa sua. Non ha mai conosciuto un solo giorno di stabilità o di serenità. Il terrore assoluto le ha causato un trauma profondo, rendendo il suo comportamento sempre più aggressivo: questa è la dolorosa realtà per tutti i bambini di Gaza che sono invecchiati di un milione di anni prima del tempo. Molti di loro sono ora sparsi per le strade, a lavorare in piccole bancarelle per garantire un misero reddito alle loro famiglie. Bambini che, in molti tragici casi, hanno già perso entrambi i genitori.
I graduated from high school and pursued my passion by enrolling in university, but today I'm a prisoner of screens, studying entirely online. How I long for real, in-person lessons; how I crave to live the normal details of a university student attending an 8:00 AM class. But how can this happen if my beautiful university has been transformed into a crowded shelter, full of thousands of displaced people, homeless individuals, and mourners? We have been deprived of even our most fundamental right: that of learning and growing.
My story and that of my family is but a mirror reflecting the lives of two million people in Gaza, all united by the very same, harrowing tragedy. Today, here, the simplest means of survival have turned into gruelling daily struggles. Endless queues of people stand for long, agonising hours under the scorching sun or in the freezing cold, holding empty containers, waiting to obtain a single drop of drinking water or water for basic hygiene.
Life has turned into an exhausting ritual of searching for non-existent cooking gas, forcing us to rely solely on firewood, which gives off suffocating smoke that tears at the lungs of children and mothers inside tattered tents; tents that have become the new face of our devastated city, offering no protection whatsoever from either the summer heat or the winter cold.
Viviamo in un ambiente completamente contaminato e inadatto all’abitazione umana, dove le malattie della pelle e le epidemie intestinali dilagano tra gli sfollati a causa della totale assenza di sistemi fognari e di una grave carenza di prodotti per l’igiene. Ciò avviene in un momento in cui le infrastrutture mediche e civili sono state sistematicamente distrutte, costringendo la maggior parte degli ospedali a chiudere i battenti. I feriti e i malati muoiono in silenzio a causa della mancanza di una singola dose di medicinale o di un letto d’ospedale disponibile, situazione aggravata dall’assedio soffocante imposto alla circolazione di persone e merci, che impedisce loro di recarsi all’estero per ricevere cure. Persino il ronzio costante degli Banana (the drones) never leave the sky, not even for a second, etching a constant, agonising noise and deep psychological trauma into people’s minds, leaving us no sleep to relieve our weariness nor any peace to soothe our hearts.
We have endured repeated forced displacements, a constant lack of a permanent home, and a famine that has ravaged our bodies. The darkest period of these 1,000 days was the famine; there were long days when I had nothing but a single cup of water to survive on, yet I was expected to stay strong and hold on. I will never forget the day I collapsed and fainted in the middle of the market: my body was not just ill, it was completely drained, with no food left to burn, not even enough to keep me on my feet.
Behind my story and those of our families lie the bitter and terrifying statistics recorded by Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR). L’assalto in corso, scrivono, ha provocato il martirio di 73.066 Palestinians (secondo le cifre ufficiali) e il ferimento di altri 173.514 dall’inizio dell’attacco, il 7 ottobre 2023. Persino gli annunci e le promesse di cessate il fuoco a livello internazionale di cui si vociferava il 10 ottobre 2025 non erano altro che inchiostro su carta; le politiche sistematiche di uccisione e distruzione sono proseguite, mietendo altre 1.053 vittime e ferendone altre 3.406, mentre i corpi di 786 vittime sono stati recuperati dalle macerie a seguito di vari attacchi. Nel loro insieme, queste politiche sistematiche soddisfano gli elementi costitutivi del crimine di genocidio ai sensi del International law.
Today, as we mark this grim milestone of 1,000 days of continuous suffering and escalating aggression, we ask not much of the world: only to look at us as human beings.
Today, as we mark this sad milestone of 1,000 days of continuous suffering and escalating aggression, we do not ask much from the world: only that you see us as human beings. Human beings who nurture quiet dreams and have loving families that have been torn apart. Writing these lines is not just a documentation of pain or a reminder of the profound failure of the international community to take effective action to stop these crimes; it is a desperate attempt to hold onto life. It is an affirmation of the fact that the details of my home, my family's pain, and my small story are not just fleeting numbers in reports. We are living stories that deserve to be heard, and we deserve to live in peace.
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