Palestinians are pleading for an end to the Gaza war. No one is listening
A protester holds up a sign that reads ‘Stop the genocide,’ in Beit Lahiya, Gaza, on 26 March 2025
Ahmed Najar writes in Middle East Eye on 27 March 2025:
The people of Gaza are revolting against their killing and starvation. In the north, the streets are packed with desperate voices chanting: “We want to live! End the Israeli killing! We are peaceful people! Out, out, out! Hamas, out!”
My social media has been flooded with videos of these demonstrations by people who have lost everything, who are starving, who just want the killing to end.
Western media, of course, have amplified this, reporting it as a major event. I just wish they had shown the same urgency when thousands of Palestinians were being slaughtered.
Our deaths were barely a footnote. When Israeli bombs reduced homes to rubble, with entire families buried under the debris, there were no breaking news alerts, no in-depth analyses, no panel discussions dissecting the scale of Palestinian suffering. Our deaths came and went in a single line of text at the bottom of the screen – cold, distant and insignificant.
Some Arab media, meanwhile, have downplayed the recent protests, calling them isolated incidents or ignoring them altogether.
But no one is asking why people are out on the streets. No one is acknowledging their desperation, their unbearable grief. These are not people playing politics; these are people who have lost their families, their homes and their futures. They are starving. They are broken. And they are willing to pay any price just to make it stop.
‘Let the killing stop’
How much pain must a person endure before they stop fearing bullets in the hands of the powerful? How much hunger must a child feel before their parents are willing to stand in front of guns and demand that something – anything – change?
I have heard from people in Gaza who have lost their parents, children and siblings. Still, through their devastation, they say: “I accept it, just let the war end.”
When my nephew Fouad was killed, I called my mother. Through her pain, she simply said: “May God bless his soul. We accept what has been written for us. But let the killing stop. I hope we lose no more.” There was a deep, quiet grief in those words – a grief that has learned not to scream, because screaming does nothing. A grief that is tired of waiting for the world to notice.