I recently had the chance to send a message to the President of Ireland, Her Excellency Catherine Connolly.
President Connolly is a vocal supporter of Palestine and remains one of the few European heads of state to explicitly accuse Israel of carrying out a genocide in Gaza.
She has a long history of this advocacy; while previously serving as a member of the Dáil Éireann—the lower house of the Irish Parliament—she famously argued that if Ireland couldn’t recognize Israel as a “terrorist state,” then the country was “in serious trouble.”
The President’s sister, Dr. Margaret Connolly also joined the Global Sumud Flotilla—a multi-boat humanitarian convoy carrying medical supplies and food attempting to break the siege on Gaza.
In May 2026, the flotilla was intercepted by Israeli forces in international waters, resulting in the detention of Dr. Connolly and hundreds of other pro-Palestinian activists.
Instead of developing my own message or constructing a commentary on what I think Gaza and the Palestinian people want, I chose to resort to my lifelong methodology of research—the framework of “people’s history” or “history from below.”
My objective was to center the voices of truly representative Palestinians and allow them to speak for themselves, unfiltered and directly to a head of state.
What follows below are the raw, unedited messages from Gazans themselves.
Message from Umm Mohammed
The first section is the result of an ongoing, intimate conversation with a Palestinian mother from northern Gaza. An Arabic teacher who now lives in a displacement tent, she has endured unimaginable loss in this war, losing three of her children, her husband, her brother, and a vast network of cousins and extended family.
She speaks entirely from the heart.
Peace be upon you, and the mercy of Allah and His blessings. We pray that God grants you safety, health, and wellness, our brother Abu Sami.
In all honesty, I truly, truly wish that you can convey our voice and that we can see a positive impact from it. We pray that your visit to the Irish President will bear fruit, that we will see its results right before our eyes, O Lord.
I pray that God grants you success in your visit, that He opens doors for you, gives you peace of mind, and unties the knot from your tongue so they may understand your speech. We pray to see the fruits of this visit with our own eyes, to feel that those abroad truly feel our pain.
You saw the Freedom Flotilla that came, and you saw what the Israelis did to them. We just want them to at least leave those who want to stand with us alone. They plot against us. But those who come wanting to support us, even just psychologically, why do they block them? We want to at least feel that people are standing with us through something simple, if not for nothing.
They haven’t lifted the siege, they haven’t opened the crossings, they haven’t started reconstruction, and on top of that, they don’t even want people to support us morally? Allah is greater… why? Why all of this?
Regarding the issue, or what our requirements are, and what we need:
First and foremost is the lifting of the siege. Frankly, as you can see, there is no electricity, no water, and no food or drink readily available. If anything enters, it’s only when they open the crossings. They barely let a few trucks in, and prices are extremely expensive—everything we have is expensive. We need reconstruction, and we need them to open the crossings.
For instance, here are my children. They are supposed to be getting an education, to have their right to study. I have a student in Tawjihi (high school exam year), but there is no studying, and there are no proper schools. Students are not being given their right to education, honestly. And even if there are educational tents, they are tents of heat, sweat, and fire. The number of students is huge inside a tiny tent. It is suffocating.
There are sick people waiting to leave, wishing to get medical treatment. There are people who want to learn—here, there are no universities left. There are people waiting for their wives and children who went abroad for medical treatment and now cannot return. Many families here have been scattered; the husband is here, while the children and wife are abroad, and vice versa.
This whole story about a truce is a lie. The Israelis are not making a truce; they are hunting us down like birds. No one lives in safety now. They say it’s a truce, but it is not. At any moment, shelling could happen. At any moment, destruction could happen. We are not living in safety at all.
So, frankly, we want a life… we want a dignified life. A dignified life with food, water, and even the ability to breathe. One feels very, very suffocated. We need so many things… so, so many things. We need psychological support, financial support, and moral support.
We have rodents that have worn us out, mosquitoes, fleas… and skin diseases are widely spread. Allergies, itching… all of this is because of what we are witnessing, all of it is the result of the siege. Honestly, this is a torment just like—just like the shelling, the bombardment, and the strikes. It is no less than the destruction and actions they are inflicting upon us.
They fight us with everything, absolutely everything. They don’t want us to enjoy our lives, even when we are sleeping in our beds. In our beds, the mosquitoes drain us, insects are all around us, fleas, and the heat is killing us. There are no fans and there is no electricity.
For all of this, Allah is sufficient for us, and He is the best disposer of affairs. That is all.
There is an important point, brother Abu Sami, that I want to emphasize. The most important thing is that despite the sacrifices, despite the siege, despite the destruction, and despite the humiliation we are living through, there is a fundamental principle that we will never renounce: the Right of Return.
Our right to return to our homes, our lands, the land of our country, and the land of our ancestors. This is a right we will never give up. All these sacrifices were made for the sake of this right. We pray that God guides us, blesses us, and allows us to return to our homes and our lands, O Lord.
Ten Gazans Speak
The subsequent section comprises messages from relatives, friends, and neighbors enduring the conditions within the displacement camps. Collected by my niece, Wafa, these voices were asked a single, direct question: What is your top priority in one line? These single-sentence testimonies represent their immediate realities and structural demands.
“We want food. We want clean water. We want to sleep in a clean and safe place.”
“I want my home back, and the sense of safety we once had. I want clean food, and to sleep without fearing for my children because of rats, insects, and disease.”
“I want my family back — the family Israel took from me.”
“I want to bury my children who are still under the rubble.”
“I want the body of my husband, which has been withheld since October 7. I want to bury him and finally find some peace.”
“I want to know the fate of my missing son. Is he alive or dead? Even the Red Cross does not help us obtain information about our children.”
“I want my father released from prison. We have no one else but him.”
“We want our homes rebuilt — the homes that took a lifetime of hard work to build.”
“I want to achieve my dreams and continue my education. So many years of our lives have been stolen without schooling or learning.”
“We want to live in freedom and safety. How much longer must we continue living through wars?”
