Gaza: survival at a high price

Writer: Ibrahim Muhammad

In Gaza, the losses of war are not limited to the dead and destroyed homes, but extend to a person’s ability to determine his fate. When the home becomes a source of danger and the absence of alternative shelter, staying is no longer a safe option, and leaving is no longer a guaranteed path to survival. Between two possibilities governed by necessity, a person finds himself forced to manage his survival instead of choosing the life he wants.

I saw this when rescuers were extracting bodies from under the rubble of a collapsed building in Haital al-Hawa, west of Gaza City, and when they took out a child from the rubble, her face was covered in blood.

Those standing on top of the rubble were terrified and rushed to transport her in an ambulance, hoping that she would be alive. They moved quickly, as if this small possibility was worth every attempt to save her, but the child had died.

The scene was not just another tragedy in a long war. It revealed the reversal of the function of the home, from a refuge that was supposed to protect its owners to a place that might bury them under its rubble. In this reversal, a person not only loses walls and possessions, but also loses one of the basic conditions for feeling safe: owning a place in which he can live without expecting it to collapse.

But the tragedy does not end with the rubble. Those who remain in a damaged house may not choose to take risks, but rather are unable to find an alternative, and those who leave may move to a temporary shelter that does not guarantee them stability. Thus, the question is no longer related to the decision to stay or leave alone, but rather to the conditions under which people were left to make a decision regarding which they have no safe options. A choice for which there are no real alternatives may appear to be freedom, but in essence it is a response to an imposed reality.

From here, the issue moves from the limits of individual loss to political and legal responsibility. Who is responsible for protecting civilians? How are those responsible for violations held accountable?

Legal responsibility for the collapse of a specific building cannot be determined without examining its circumstances and evidence, but protecting civilians and respecting international humanitarian law remain fundamental obligations, and dealing with the dangers of damaged buildings cannot be left to families to face alone.

Inspecting threatened buildings, providing safe alternative places, and ensuring basic services are not relief details separate from politics, but rather conditions that enable people to regain a minimum level of control over their lives. When the individual is left to face these dangers with his limited resources, survival turns from a right whose conditions must be guaranteed to a personal burden that he is required to manage, regardless of his abilities.

This situation can be described as a “politics of survival”: when today’s necessities take over the time and energy that a person needs to think about tomorrow, the search for water, treatment, and shelter is not just a series of daily needs, it is a continuous drain on the ability to plan, work, and participate in public affairs.

The longer this depletion lasts, the less space in which people can move from meeting their immediate needs to influencing the circumstances that govern their lives.

Here lies the paradox: People's ability to invent means of living in the midst of destruction is evidence of their will, but it is not evidence that conditions have become tolerable. Celebrating resilience, if separated from questioning the causes of suffering, may turn society's ability to adapt into an excuse to normalize what is imposed on it, and it is not fair for people's success in managing their survival to become a reason for ignoring the duty to protect them.

Resilience deserves appreciation, but it does not absolve officials of their responsibilities, nor does it turn deprivation of safety into something normal.

The importance of this issue is clearly evident in the reconstruction of Gaza, as rebuilding is not only a question of the number of homes that will be built or the roads that will be opened, but also about who determines priorities, how resources are distributed, and the amount of influence residents have in the decisions that will reshape their lives.

If their role is limited to receiving what other parties decide, buildings and services may be restored without their ability to participate in determining their future being restored.

Therefore, it is not enough to consult residents in a formal manner. What is required is that they have actual participation in decisions about housing, services, and distribution of resources, and that they be able to hold accountable the parties responsible for implementation. Reconstruction that excludes people from making its decisions may rebuild the place, but it does not guarantee the restoration of their sense that their future is not an affair that others decide on their behalf.

Whenever I recalled the scene of the child who had been taken out from under the rubble, and those standing by who had rushed to transport her in the hope of saving her, I returned to a question that preceded every talk about recovery: What is the value of promises to restore life if a person remains unable to guarantee the simplest conditions for his survival?

At that moment, what was required of those standing was not to be more steadfast, but rather for the girl to have a real chance to survive.

Houses may be built again, roads opened, and services gradually return, but the end of destruction does not automatically mean the restoration of safety. True recovery begins when a person does not have to spend his day avoiding danger, and when he becomes able to think beyond survival, and participate in the decisions that determine the shape of his life.

Therefore, recovery is not measured by the rubble that is removed and what is built in its place, but rather by the safety, freedom of choice, and ability for self-determination that people regain.

Rebuilding the stone restores the place, but restoring the human being to his position as a holder of the right to security and a partner in determining his future is the deepest test of the meaning of restoring life.