The Families of Gaza: Sumud as Collective Endurance by Abdalrahman Kittana

Since October 2023, Israel’s genocide has fueled two persistent and deeply polarizing narratives about Gaza, organized around a stark binary and circulated across Palestinian communities and globally. On one side, Gaza is positioned as unconquered: a place that did not surrender, whose population endured unprecedented violence without capitulation, and where the Israeli regime’s declared war objectives were not formally achieved. On the other, Gaza is described as a space of near-total destruction: vast areas depopulated and designated as red zones, entire cities reduced to rubble, tens of thousands killed or disabled, and social life pushed to the brink of annihilation.¹

This binary circulates relentlessly in everyday conversation, on social media, in political commentary, and within families themselves. It is neither false nor superficial; both narratives capture real and simultaneous dimensions of Gaza’s reality.