Today, I decided to answer this prompt’s question, as I have been thinking a lot about it recently. My goal each year has been to become more tolerant. With the beginning of this year, I have been deeply wondering how I could be more tolerant toward myself and the whole world.

I do believe that the reality of living under occupation makes achieving tolerance much harder. Witnessing genocide turns this goal into something nearly impossible. I cannot be as tolerant as I was two years ago. How could I be, when my nation is being killed and left to face the most advanced and powerful army in the world alone? How can I be tolerant when hundreds of my people are killed daily, subjected to the worst atrocities and actions imaginable?

I have expressed feeling ashamed for surviving while being unable to do anything for the people closest to me. My brother is still in the northern part of the Gaza Strip, facing daily attacks alone. It is so hard for us to live without being hurt and in pain. Staying alive has become a tremendous effort and a real challenge to cope with the ugly face of this world.

Staying alive and being tolerant is my biggest challenge in life right now. With full hope, I wish I could forgive this world for allowing an army to commit ethnic cleansing against peaceful citizens whose only ‘guilt’ is being born Palestinian. The people of Gaza have never harmed anyone, and it is deeply unfair for others to allow this to happen and to remain silent in the face of collective punishment inflicted on innocent people.

I, like anyone reading this, want to live in harmony and equality, where every nation is treated the same as others. We are all the same, even if we have different ethnicities and religions.