Texts, Tweets and Tear Gas: A Teen’s View to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

As you all may know by now, there has been a war happening between Israel and Palestine. There are a lot of factors for the war that is happening and some of them are:

The historical background of both countries and the roots of this conflict can be traced back to the 19th and 20th century with the rise of Zionism. Additionally both Israel and Palestine both claim to own the same land such as areas of Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The issue over  borders, control of territories are fueling the conflict even more.

This armed conflict between Israel and Palestine started on October 7th 2023 when Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel from the Gaza Strip. Ever since, Israel has attacked and destroyed  Palestine, especially Gaza, and has killed 34,735 Palestinians of which 26,000 are children. However, this kind of war has happened multiple times in Palestine, but only now people are realizing how bad it is and are raising their voices.

As a teen we can not do much, but we can raise our voice in different kind of ways to stop this genocide that is happening to the Palestinian people.

For example, we have the students of UCLA that have been protesting and have called for a ceasefire. We also have a big number of people protesting in different countries such as in Switzerland’s city Geneva, in Turin and in the Irish capital Dublin. In the UK’s capital London, approximately 250,00 people took part in the protest demanding a ceasefire in Gaza.

Also another way that we can help is to boycott the brands that support this genocide such as: McDonald’s, Starbucks, ZARA, Coca-Cola, Nestle etc.

UK Protesters

We have different kinds of ways that we can help and raise our voice, but sometimes they don’t take us seriously because we are too young or sometimes they can hear us and agree with us.

Social media has had a very big impact on this conflict. Some also shared misinformation which heated the tension even more. Some people write negative comments under the videos or articles they see that talk about the conflict. But, social media is also a great place for easy access where we can share our thoughts around this conflict.

The journalists that are in Gaza also document their lives and what is happening there and they post their videos in Youtube or other platforms where people can watch them.

I, for example, wrote a one verse poem that I shared in my social media accounts.

I really don’t think it’s humane what is happening in Palestine right now and I hope you don’t take this article too seriously because this was my point of view.

You don’t need to be a muslim to stand with Palestine but a human!