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Arranging a football match despite displacement. Running an animal shelter despite desolation. Cooking for children despite a dearth of food. Surviving a genocide.

Such is the fate of those who live in Gaza, their lives unravelling like the tattered tents they are forced to shelter in, displaced by the ravages of the ongoing Israeli assault.

The people of Palestine — especially those from Gaza — have shown the world their grit and sheer resilience, teaching us a powerful lesson on hope in the face of the unrelenting Israeli assault, something the United Nations special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Palestine has called “the worst of what humanity is capable of”.

Amid the destruction, Palestinians have armed themselves with cell phones, taking to social media to broadcast their lived realities, from how acts of unbridled aggression are causing mass destruction, to young children’s shattered dreams of going to school.

On the anniversary of the resurgence of the attacks on Gazans, we are highlighting 20 Palestinians who have remained in Gaza and continue to tell their stories.

Those who bring us the truth

Platforms such as Instagram, TikTok and X play a pivotal role in the coverage of Gaza, bringing news to the public in a way that most mainstream news outlets have failed to do. They give a voice to the voiceless and help disseminate the stories of those oppressed by the occupation.

Bisan Owda (wizard_bisan1)

At the forefront of this promulgation of news directly from Gaza is Bisan Owda. The 27-year-old’s documentary, It’s Bisan from Gaza and I’m Still Alive, chronicled her life in late October 2023 after her family left their home to take shelter in tents outside the Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.

Owda documented what life was like for her and other Gazans, including an 11-year-old whose parents died when Israeli forces bombed his house. The documentary, made in collaboration with Al Jazeera’s AJ+, won the prestigious Peabody Award and the outstanding hard news feature story — short form award at the News Emmys, despite severe backlash from pro-Israel groups. Owda was also nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize alongside Motaz Azaiza, Hind Khoudary and Wael Al-Dahdouh.

But Owda couldn’t receive the awards in person — she could not hold the trophies that reward her work. Awards and honours seem insignificant when she is surrounded by death and her home is destroyed.

As she shares critical updates from the Gaza Strip, her tone is often angry and her Instagram captions are short and to the point. The sense of urgency to get the news out there and the exasperation from her situation are apparent. “GRAPHIC CONTENT, 21 killed, 13 are children, 6 are women, 2 missing.. 9 children had their limbs amputated. Al-Falah school massacre!” she wrote on a recent video where she detailed the events.

Despite it all, Owda continues to cover the what by all rights seems like an extermination campaign ceaselessly, posting video updates every few days and shedding light on stories that would have otherwise gone untold without her voice.

Hind Khoudary (hindkhoudary)

Hind Khoudary was always a journalist, but pictures with loved ones and celebrations of life on her Instagram feed abruptly changed into a grey haze, filled with images of collapsed buildings and her decimated hometown.

Amid this, she shared glimpses into her own life, reminding us that those living in Gaza are so much more than the numbers that make up a death toll. The moments of humanness she shared included pictures from her birthday spent “among airstrikes and death”, meeting a seven-year-old injured in an airstrike that hit a school in Deir el Balah, and humanitarian workers who are the “most vulnerable in conflict”. Khoudary also remains vocal on X, writing about the everyday existences of those in Gaza and sharing crucial news updates.

Her tweets, often just a few words long, are haunting, presenting her stream of consciousness and simultaneously reflecting what is possibly going on in the minds of the residents of Gaza.

Khoudary was also nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize but questioned if it was even a big deal. “What Nobel Peace Prize when my people are being murdered?” she asked.

“What would this even mean if I have been posting for more than 300 days on all of the atrocities Israel is committing and nothing is slightly changing? I don’t feel anything towards any prizes. I am here stuck under a 24/7 drone. I am 700 metres away from the red danger zone not knowing where to go. I am just here watching the world watching the US,” Khoudary lamented.

“NOTHING is going to change how I feel towards the world.. like literally NOTHING,” she wrote in an Instagram story.

Ayman Al Gedi (aymanalgedi12)

“Misery, fatigue, despair, oppression, helplessness and a feeling that haunts everyone asking, ‘Where to, and for how long? And when will salvation come?!’” Aymen Al Gedi wrote in an Instagram caption on August 28.

Al Gedi’s content differs from that of other Palestinian journalists in that he showcases the lives of displaced Palestinians — their joy, their sadness, and their anger. From inside the encampments, Al Gedi shared a video of children singing ‘Dammi Falistini’ (My Blood is Palestinian) which amassed tens of thousands of likes on social media.

Through his accounts, Al Gedi has become a voice of Gazans we don’t see on news channels and showed the world the utter despair they feel — from a video of a woman sitting on the rubble of her destroyed home to a man kissing his martyred sister’s hand as her body lay in the back of an ambulance.

By highlighting the personal experiences of the people of Gaza, Al Gedi humanises them for his audience. He helps us understand that these people are more than a headline, more than a death toll — while we watch the destruction through our mobile screens, they actually experience every harrowing event.

The journalist also often shares his own unfiltered reaction to the situation in Gaza as he holds his head in frustration or screams at the skies while rain pours into his makeshift tent, soaking him and everything around him.

“Oh God, ease the rain for us. Oh God, we drowned.”

Mahmoud Alquqa (wwre)

Mahmoud Alququa is a digital creator and social activist whose content largely features the lives of the children of Gaza. “We want the war to end and to return to school,” a young girl said in one of his videos that showed the wishes of the children of Gaza.

Children’s suffering is arguably the most acute, as they lose entire families and have no one looking out for them. Their narratives are often sidelined but Alququa is helping change that, one video at a time.

“‘I wish my hair would be beautiful again so I could comb it.’ A Palestinian girl loses her hair out of fear of the sounds of the occupation’s bombing,” he wrote on Instagram and X accompanying a picture of a young girl with no hair. His showcasing of the horrors that every child in Gaza is experiencing and their visceral reaction to it is perhaps some of the most heart-wrenching imagery that has been shared during this past year.

However, his content has glimmers of hope sprinkled between the devastation, for example, children’s reactions after digging a water well in the northern Gaza Strip and being hosed down with cool water.

Nooh Al-Shagnobi (nooh.xp)

When you scroll down Nooh Al-Shagnobi’s Instagram page, most of the content is flagged as sensitive by Meta. “This video may contain graphic or violent content,” the message reads over a blurred screen.

This is because Al-Shagnobi’s videos show the full extent of the horrors Palestinians undergo on a daily basis. From a young girl pleading for help, trapped under the rubble following a series of bombings to the funeral procession for journalist Ismail Al-Ghoul, who was targeted while covering news in Gaza.

Often clad in an orange shirt or vest, Al Sahgnobi is also a rescue worker, which is where most of his videos come from. His contributions to the Gaza Strip are twofold — not only is he shedding light on Israeli atrocities, he is also actively involved in helping the people of his homeland.

Al-Shagnobi’s content is bone-chilling, often marked with people crying for help as he tries to console them in a soft voice during rescue efforts, or the confused overlapping of workers exclamations as they work to save people from collapsed buildings. His content is crucial in showing the world the extent of what Gaza is going through.

Osama Rabea (dn_osama)

Osama Rabea is a photographer from Northern Gaza who turned video creator following the aftermath of October 7. Now, he captures the “untold stories of resilience and hope in Gaza.”

Unlike many other creators, he doesn’t feature in his videos, which are made mainly in Arabic. They focus on individuals living in Gaza and their narratives which are often lost in the barrage of news. His work puts faces to the stories we often only read about or hear, humanising the accounts of the oppressed.

In one video, a woman recounted a “horrifying experience where occupation forces set a dog on her while she was asleep. Despite her loud screams, the soldiers only laughed and ignored her cries for help… Now, her arm is severely injured, causing her immense pain and sleepless nights.”

Rabea records the plight of young Palestinians too — in a video, a 12-year-old boy details his experience during the war on Gaza. “From famine, to displacement, and an injury due to bombardment at a displacement school, his story reflects the story of million of children in the Gaza Strip.”

Rabea’s reporting preserves the dignity of those affected and creates a profound understanding of the real, lived consequences of Israel’s atrocities, bringing stories to the forefront in a raw, authentic way.

Amid the literal rubble, Rabea’s content holds hints of hope as children dance in the rain, an old woman prays for the well-being of journalists and a congregation prays taraweeh at a shelter.

Those who nourish

With children dying in the arms of their parents because of malnutrition, access to food is one of the most prevalent issues faced by displaced Palestinians. According to the UN, 34 Palestinians died from malnutrition from October to July, the majority being children. Meanwhile, the Refugees International Organisation found that “the ebbs and flows in hunger conditions are closely linked to Israeli government restrictions and concessions on aid access, and to the conduct of the Israeli military”.

In an area on the verge of famine, some people cook — and they cook for everyone.

Renad Attallah (renadfromgaza)

Ten-year-old Renad Attallah, best known by her username “Renadfromgaza”, shares regular videos of herself cooking “the Gazan way” with the help of her older sister. With a small brown stool that serves as her cooking station and a gas cylinder, Attallah films herself outside the displacement camps making food — from white sauce pasta to Palestinian maftool.

Attallah’s rations often come from aid organisations such as Human Concern International. The young chef also helps distribute food packages to the people of Gaza and urges her followers to donate.

“Never thought that at the age of 10, I would be packing bags of food to support my neighbours and families and children of Palestine. I imagined being in school, learning new things, and playing sports. But thanks to you we have been able to take sadness, despair, darkness and lack of dreams and change that into hope, happiness and relief,” she wrote in an Instagram post.

Attallah shares the food with other children living in the encampments when cooking in larger batches. Throughout it, all her trademark remains her large, unwavering grin — a symbol of hope and fortitude. However, at times, even her smile falters.

Photographer Amjad Al Fayoumi shared a picture of Attallah, captioned: “Renad is a cheerful child. The world has become accustomed to her laugh and beautiful spirit… Renad like any other Palestinian child living in the Gaza Strip suffers from diseases due to the Israeli war of genocide… This is the other side of Renad’s life.”

Mokhtar Hamdi (dr.mo5tar)

Mokhtar Hamdi used to work in the dental industry. Two months before the war on Gaza broke out, he managed to open a dental laboratory, investing everything he had in it. On the fourth day of the assault, his lab was bombed and he lost “everything at once”, he said on his GoFundMe page.

As Israel’s attacks intensified, Hamdi switched his line of work and became the self-proclaimed “camp chef”, making “the most delicious meals for the children of Gaza”. Cooking in large batches, Hamdi stares into the camera with a quiet smile, not speaking during the video. The only audio stems from pop music he may use, the sound of the knife against the cutting board or the excited noises from children as they wait for food.

Hamdi’s videos often begin with a two-second clip of Western influencers wasting food in attempts to gain views, before cutting to a shot of him looking into the camera and silently cooking. There is no anger in his gaze as he squints under the Palestinian sun but there is almost always a sense of happiness that one can only assume comes from providing nutrition to so many in need.

His videos end with him distributing the food among the children, who are always visibly delighted to eat.

“I do my best to spread warmth and happiness to the new children I meet along this difficult journey. It is these small moments of joy that give me the strength to carry on.”

Hamada Shaqoura (hamadashoo)

Hamada Shaqoura’s videos are unmissable — the chef stares into the camera with his piercing green eyes and rarely has any emotion on his face. Shaqoura went viral in March for using food from aid packages to make delicious meals, shortly after he began cooking in large batches to feed the displaced children of Gaza.

Prior to October 7, Shaqoura was a food blogger in Northern Gaza. Now, displaced, he lives in a refugee camp and makes do with the supplies he has. His aim? To make the food Gazans were able to have before Israeli aggression intensified on the Gaza Strip. In an interview with CBC News, Shaqoura said he tries to make dishes the people of Gaza really miss having, such as tacos. He used tortillas and meat from humanitarian aid deliveries to do the best he could.

“We are trying to live. We are trying to make food from the aid that is to a certain degree edible.”

His steely expression — which he says signals his disapproval of the dire conditions in Gaza, where the population is at constant risk of famine — stands in stark contrast with the joy of the children who receive his creations. Shaqoura, in an interview with AJ+ said he knew his videos went viral because he fed children — in one video, a young boy says he hadn’t eaten a popsicle in a year after Shaquora handed him a bright red one.

The chef also often partners with Watermelon Relief, a grassroots organisation aiding displaced families with meals, support and activities, and often helps distribute food packages and water with them.

On October 2, five days before the one-year anniversary of the Hamas attacks, Shaqoura was named on the TIME100Next list which celebrates “today’s most influential leaders… who are not waiting long in life to make an impact”. Commenting on the honour, Shaqoura said he did not feel like celebrating at “a time when me, my Palestinian people and Lebanese brothers and sisters are still facing death 24/7. But I’ll take the moment to emphasise to the whole world, that we — Palestinians — are here, and will always be!”

Donia Allidawi (donia.3lledawi)

If the children of Gaza City had a fairy godmother, it would be Donia Allidawi. Her recent videos, similar to Hamdi’s, feature her cooking and then distributing a myriad of treats among children. However, Allidawi keeps her head down and her face partially covered with a black hat. Her content, while showing the cooking process, focuses more on the joy of children when they are given food — children peering eagerly at platters of cinnamon rolls or running with friends in pure elation after being given an entire shawarma each.

Allidawi doesn’t usually operate alone and often partners with the Gaza Smile Project — a grassroots organisation that aims to bring relief to Gaza’s children and their families.

On her GoFundMe page, Alliwadi writes, “Despite homelessness and displacement, I will continue the series to reconcile children’s thoughts. We can provide food, psychological support for our children, and recreational activities for displaced children in the camps. Your donations will greatly impact the lives of those in need.”

Apart from cooking, she also helps children roaming around the unpaved streets near the encampments and asks them what they want before granting their wishes. In one video, a young girl, barefoot, says she wants cheese and bread. Allidawi proceeds to buy her what she wants, as well as candies, cake, slippers and a teddy to keep her company. The joy on the girl’s face — much like that of the other children in Allidawi’s videos — is unmatched.

The children of Gaza

Children are the greatest victims of war. As the war on Gaza rages on, Palestinian children’s innocence is being stolen from them. After a year of attacks and bombings, a year of death and injury as the world watches on, it is evident that some children’s lives matter more than others.

Zionists often argue that all adult Palestinians must be members of Hamas by virtue of their nationality, but can that same logic be used to justify the murder of almost 17,000 children? According to Al Jazeera, at least 53 children have been killed every day in Israeli airstrikes since October 7.

Yet, the children of Palestine persevere.

Aaed Ahmad (tasnemaaed)

Aaed Ahmed, better known as Ahmed the farmer, is an eight-year-old farming enthusiast who begins all his videos with an excited “Hello friends” as he squats next to his plants on his small, makeshift farm outside what appears to be a dilapidated building

With a toothy smile and two missing front teeth, Ahmed explains what each plant is, often picking fruit or adding new saplings to his farm. Each video ends with a smile reaching his eyes and a thumbs-up at the camera.

However, all wasn’t happy with the little farmer. His family shared that in January, Ahmed suffered from a severe tonsil infection and due to the conditions of Gaza and lack of available treatment, his condition worsened and affected his ability to walk for several days.

“After consulting with doctors, it became clear that a tonsillectomy was necessary to prevent further complications. Unfortunately, due to the current situation and the lack of available hospitals and medical services, the procedure was delayed for several months.” In September, Ahmed’s family decided to proceed with the surgery despite a lack of adequate resources.

Ahmed’s procedure was successful and the first thing he wanted to do after waking up was to check up on his farm.

Zina (zina_yosry)

If Gaza were to have a lifestyle blogger, it would be Zina — except Zina and her family of seven live in a tent under bombardment. Despite this, she continues to be a ray of hope and resilience as she makes beaded bracelets for her sisters or gets dressed for Friday, using a water bottle hanging from a tree as her faucet.

Although she is usually smiling in her videos, Zina often highlights the severity of their situation by pleading for help and donations. In June, she shared that her father and family in the north were infected with hepatitis and suffering from extreme hunger.

Hossam Al Ghazawi (hw_2)

Hossam Al Ghazawi is another young content creator from Gaza, with a joint account with Alquqa, Al Ghazawi shows what happens in the everyday life of a boy displaced by a vicious campaign against his people. His bright eyes and smile are unmissable, but often behind them is anger — something only the victim of unrelenting aggression can feel.

In one video, his voice breaks in frustration as he walks among rubble in the rain and screams, “Everyone has gone! There are children dying from the cold. The entire world watches these videos and no one stands behind us!”

In another, he walks out to see a decimated building, his eyes wide in horror as he vows, “We don’t forgive those who witness in silence.”

It is surreal to see such indignation and frustration on the face of someone so young, but the horrors Al Ghazawi and the children of Palestine witness every day are unlike anything other children endure.

However, despite this, there is still hope and childlike joy in Al Ghazawi. In other videos, he unboxes aid packages, sets up a coffee shop with his friend and claps to the beat of a drum with other children his age. Sometimes though, despite his efforts to keep busy, there is no light on Al Ghazawi’s face and while others around him smile, his expression is one of terrified shock.

“My eyes are full of anger,” he wrote in an Instagram post.

Abdul Rahman Abu Hattab (reachabed)

The younger brother of content creator Yusuf Abu Hattab, Abdul Rahman also documents his life in Gaza through snappy Instagram videos, voiced over by and featuring him. Abdul Rahman showcases how life has changed for Gazans after the war began, from shampoo prices that inflated from $2 to $20 to trekking miles for gallons of salty water.

The most heart-wrenching, however, is how his own life has been impacted — in an Instagram post he shared that prior to October 7 his hands used to ache from studying all day, but now they ached from carrying containers of water. Another video showed him “enjoying life”, making sandwiches, drinking milkshakes to “surviving life”.

After witnessing indiscriminate bombing for over a year, Abdul Rahman still believes that the best revenge against the occupation is “no revenge”. His attitude reflects an admirable desire for peace and the generosity of his spirit.

Those who bring hope

Among the death, destruction, displacement and desolation, some people are beacons of hope. These creators, who persist regardless of their dire situations, show the world the true spirit of Palestinian endurance.

Mohamed Al Khalidi (m7md_vo)

A tent with yellow walls, a tilted half, smiling face, and, more often than not, a woven hat with a red trim — these are things you’ll spot in Mohamed Al Khalidi’s videos. According to his Instagram bio, Al Khalidi went from a big house to a tent and tries to “smile despite the suffering”.

His concise, well-shot videos show the everyday life of displaced Gazans, from waking up and his family cleaning their tent together to the single hairbrush tied to a wooden pole in the tent for everyone to use. Regardless of his situation, Al Khalidi has a series of videos labelled “We live proudly in the tent”, where he shows what it’s like living in the tent and performing mundane activities like washing clothes amid a glaring lack of resources. A May 27 video showed how his tent was destroyed by a storm, but still, Al Khalidi and his series persisted, reflecting the perseverance of his people.

On June 11, Al Khalidi shared that his brother, Zain, was shot in the chest during an Israeli assault and died next to him. In a later video, he disclosed that he was unable to smile the way he used to after his brother’s death and the content that followed focused on his sadness and loss. Yet, he persisted. Al Khalidi, like hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, continued to wake up in a tent and try to live life after losing a loved one.

He made pizza for children to celebrate 1.5 million followers, planted plants next to his tent and continued to be a beacon of hope and strength.

“I never got used to this life, but I still smile to stay strong and be able to continue.”

Ismail Al Nimer (ismail.elnimer)

To see moments of utter joy and hope in Gaza, one must go to Ismail Al Nimer’s Instagram account. The singer shares videos of him singing amid crowds of people, often children, while his friend plays the daf — a Middle Eastern frame drum instrument.

Groups of people of all ages and genders join in as Al Nimer starts to sing in Arabic. “We convey our message through art, which the occupation considers more dangerous than anything else,” he wrote on his Instagram, under a video of young Palestinian men singing in chorus around a small fire.

While the moments may be fleeting, Al Nimer’s efforts bring true happiness to the faces of those around him, surrounded by dilapidated tents. As he starts the song, people’s faces light up in recognition and they join in, clapping and swaying to the beat of the daf.

But his feed is also peppered with moments that show the pain caused by his situation — he requests monetary aid or speaks of threats of restrictions on his social media. Despite everything, his videos often bear variations of the text, “From Gaza, we send you love”.

Saeed Al Err of Sulala Animal Rescue (saeedalerr2000)

“War is horror for both animals and humans… I think they [animals] have more love and kindness in them than humans,” Saeed Al Err said in an interview with Business Insider in 2021. The 51-year-old founded Sulala Animal Rescue, the Gaza Strip’s first and only charity rescuing abandoned animals, and has been rescuing animals for almost two decades.

The amplified Israeli assault following October 7 did not stop Al Err, his sons, and volunteers from their rescue mission. The rescue centre’s page and Al Err’s own Instagram are filled with videos of injured animals brought in for treatment and updates on their progress. To say the videos are heart-wrenching would be an understatement — donkeys with their skin scrapped off, trembling as Al Err’s sons gently apply medication; cats and dogs with severe infections, all in a place with little to no resources. Yet Al Err does not turn any animal away.

Due to the relentless bombardment, most stray animals are hiding all day, Annelies Keuleers, a volunteer, told Dawn.com. But when they do come out, Al Err is always there waiting for them with food and water.

Al Err and his organisation are a source of hope for all of humanity, showing that even during constant attacks, there are people with heart enough to care for creatures who cannot speak.

El Jawad Camp (jawadcamp1)

El Jawad, a school for the displaced children of Gaza, is a shared initiative between Sulala Animal Rescue and journalist Hadeel Al Gharbawi, who saw the children’s immense suffering and decided to open a school.

The rescue centre helped build the school tent and aims to provide supervision and practical support to the camp.

According to its Instagram page, “The school is an opportunity for children in the camp to have meaningful daytime activities, while receiving emotional support from on-site psychologist, learn languages, maths, kindness, essential skills such as hygiene to increase their survival chances in these times of diseases and epidemics. They will learn kindness towards animals as well as how to care for them.”

Their Instagram page, with approximately 2,000 followers, is filled with pictures of young children partaking in activities you would expect any regular child to be engaged in. They colour, they attend classes and they eat together. While most content features the children beaming up at the camera, proudly holding up their work or learning, the team behind Al Jawad does not shy away from exhibiting the young Gazans’ sadness and anger. A series of pictures show children glaring at the camera with their arms firmly closed or with their hands clasped over their faces in an X, in protest of the continuation of the war on Gaza and the halt of education.

Due to the partnership with Sulala Animal Rescue, the children of Al Jawad get opportunities to meet and spend time with the rescued animals. The school’s GoFundMe page details that they wanted to create a “context for children that can help limit the impact of the trauma they are living through.”

We decided to add the school on a list that predominantly features individuals because a team of Palestinians have come together to create a safety net and an opportunity at a better life for the children of Gaza. This team effort is the epitome of hope as they educate future generations, believing they will have a bright future ahead of them.

Yusuf Abu Hattab (reachyusuf)

Yusuf Abu Hattab is a 15-year-old content creator from Gaza, documenting his daily life during the war on Gaza. Big bold text in red and white mark the cover pictures of his videos, but they’re different from that of other creators because of Hattab’s Gen Z lingo. His recent video series follows his “winter arc” in Gaza, but regardless of his usage of Gen Z terms and ironic emojis — such as the skull emoji — Hattab’s content shows how difficult life is in Gaza.

During the winter, Hattab says, there’s little sun in the region, making it difficult for solar panels to generate electricity and subsequently charge his devices. But Hattab, like other Palestinians, continues to persevere, travelling to several different charging stations and standing for hours in the cold, braving the icy winds to charge his phone and upload his vlogs.

Like other regular content creators, his videos show snippets of his day with him eagerly narrating what he’s doing, his face barely lit up as he records in his dark room, but unlike other creators, his videos highlight the difficulty of life in Gaza. Hattab recently made a video on the trend which shows what life is like for people of a certain group, “we’re Gazans of course we fill our water cans every day, we’re Gazans of course we find moments to laugh, even in the darkest of times.”

His videos often feature trending audios and meme formats, and while Hattab himself doesn’t appear to be too downtrodden, it’s impossible not to feel a sense of heartbreak over the conditions he lives in. In one video he shared that the thing he misses most from his life before the war was hanging out with his friends because most of them evacuated the region or were martyred due to Israeli aggression. These are not things a normal teenager has to go through.

Yet, hope springs eternal in the eyes of this young content creator. He shared a series of images about “dad lore” he collected, such as becoming the breadwinner at the age of 14, and learning how to build a tent and survive with no resources. “My kids are gonna be so hyped when I get them all together and tell them these stories,” Hattab wrote.

Mohammed Herzallah and Omar Rasheed (omarherzshow)

Mohammed Herzallah and Omar Rasheed are two friends with “an adventure amidst the war towards success”, according to their Instagram. Their show documents their daily lives in Gaza as they try to start businesses to make money, arrange football matches for other young men in the area and try to find new homes after being displaced repeatedly.

Amid the games, laughter and brief moments of normalcy, Herzallah and Rasheed’s lives are still firmly rooted against a backdrop of destruction. The pair was struck by personal tragedy after fellow content creator and their friend Medo Halimy was killed by shrapnel during an Israeli airstrike in Khan Younis. Halimy’s death deterred the pair from making videos, however, they returned to Instagram shortly because that’s “not the impact Medo would’ve wanted us to leave on earth.”

However, the duo stays positive, and in a recent video they wrote, “Started a war to end their lives, bros made a show out of it”.

Herzallah and Rasheed’s videos highlight the power of friendship as they navigate the challenges of living in an area destroyed by aggression, turning moments of fear and uncertainty into reminders of resilience. Through their shared experiences, they offer hope and solidarity, showing that even in the harshest conditions, companionship can provide strength and comfort.

These are but a few of the stories of the people of Gaza — many of whom are not on social media. As we mark one year of the assault on Gaza, we remember that the death and destruction we see online is something they are living through, every single day.

All of these people are doing the jobs of paid journalists and content creators with little to nothing in return. Their content is not performative, unlike other creators — it’s their livelihood. As Palestinians continue to face a lack of food, money and resources, we urge everyone to help in whatever way they can. The GoFundMe pages for these creators are in their Instagram bios (all of which have been linked above). You can contribute monetarily or help them by amplifying their voices and resharing their videos.

The people of Gaza are the epitome of hope, resilience and steadfastness in the face of constant attacks. These are the real people of the land, who refuse to abandon Palestine despite 76 years of settler colonialism. May they live long to witness a free Palestine.