Sina Source

I cannot forget that I spent more than a year and a half working with a major international humanitarian organisation, one that prides itself on operating in conflict zones across the world and speaks constantly about the protection of human dignity. Yet when I was evacuated from Gaza, they did not even recognise me. I left Gaza as a survivor of a genocide, disoriented and displaced, and not a single person from that organisation came to see me, to stand beside me, or even to ask how I was surviving. There was no support. No solidarity. No acknowledgment. While I was still inside Gaza, they performed concern. They spoke the language of care. They made it seem as though I mattered. But once I crossed the border and stepped into exile, the illusion collapsed. To them, I had simply been a function of the war, a body working under bombardment, a machine documenting and operating in the middle of catastrophe. Whether that machine survived or died made little difference. If one disappeared, another would take its place. And the truth is that this was not unique. Many of the organisations that operated in Gaza mastered the art of saying one thing and doing another. Their public language is compassion, dignity, and solidarity. But behind that language often lies a colder reality. Inside Gaza they made me feel that my presence and my work mattered. Later I realised that much of that was little more than anaesthesia, comforting words offered to someone who was desperate to believe that the world was still paying attention. When you are living through war, even the smallest sign of recognition can feel like hope. And sometimes that hope turns out to have been nothing more than a carefully rehearsed performance.