The bombing started on al-Hijriyah (the first day of the Muslim New Year); I was off of work because of the associated national holidays and was looking forward to a four-day long weekend. I have since spent those four days trapped in my home, in Remal, Gaza, an affluent neighborhood inside Gaza City. I am fortunate to not be living in the border areas nor in one of the densely populated—and Hamas-affiliated—camps. None of this means I feel safe.

From the moment the bombing started I cursed the newly built shopping mall that towers over our house. Not only did it break all of Gaza’s lax zoning laws, but its owner was known to be a Hamas sympathizer: each day I have been afraid that it could be one of Israel’s bombing targets. Israel’s target list will be inspected and debated in the aftermath of this operation; at present it seems to be a mixture of rocket-launching sites, pre-identified militants, weapons caches, and then there are the “symbolic” targets. Each of which carries a different strategic calculation for Israel, but from where we sit, the symbolic targeting of government buildings is as baffling as the decision to fight homemade rockets with bombs dropped from F-16s. And all of these risk civilian casualties, the “collateral damage” that rolls much too easily off too many tongues.

In the early morning hours on Saturday, Jawazat, a large police compound just a few minutes away from my house, and next to my favorite pizzeria, was destroyed. A deceptive lull in violence followed, creating hours of silence and waiting during which we dared not venture out. I sat at home with my family, speculating about the possibility of a ceasefire agreement: our fears and our hopes revealed themselves as we began to think that our leaders might be close to reaching an agreement that would bring an end to this horror. Then, in an instant, four heart-stopping explosions, one after the other, shook our once untouchable house. As the deafening explosions subsided I tried to regain some composure; you want to be stoic when the children catch your gaze. But then I realized that it’s me who is the child; I am the one who is the war amateur. My half-brother, who is seven, and my step-brother, who is twelve, are the veterans in surviving wars, for in 2008 they survived Operation Cast Lead, Israel’s bombardment and invasion, whilst I was absent and secure in London. We were only on day three of Operation Pillar of Defense by this Saturday; my young siblings had already undergone all of this for twenty-eight days, thirty-one if you include this operation.

The next day I recounted the destruction of the Jawazat to a close friend who lives a few blocks away. He’s a young gazawi, street smart and wise about the workings of the community. We started to discuss our proximity to likely targets: he said that he was simply waiting for them to strike the Abbas police station (a symbolic target, hit during Operation Cast Lead, too), a building that sits opposite the apartment block he lives in with his family. At around 2 A.M. the following morning, the police station was destroyed. The explosion was so severe that it blew out a heavy door in our home, shattered many windows, and put our household into a state of panic. I immediately sought to move the children away from windows and rushed to call my neighbor. He answered and in less than five seconds blurted out that while he and his family were thankfully not injured, everything else in their home was destroyed, and their building severely damaged.

In our house we have become military experts, specializing in the sounds of Israeli and Palestinian weapons. We can distinguish with ease the sound of Apaches, F-16 missiles, drones, and the Fajr rockets used by Hamas. When Israeli ships shell the coast, it’s a distinct and repetitive thud, marked by a one-second delay between the launch and the impact. The F-16s swoop in like they are tearing open the sky, lock onto their target and with devastating precision destroy entire apartment blocks. Drones: in Gaza, they are called zananas, meaning a bee’s buzz. They are the incessant, irritating creatures. They are not always the harbingers of destruction; instead they remain omnipresent, like patrolling prison guards. Fajr rockets are absolutely terrifying because they sound like incoming rockets. You hear them rarely in Gaza City and thus we often confuse them for low-flying F-16s. It all creates a terrifying soundscape, and at night we lie in our beds hoping that the bombs do not drop on our houses, that glass does not shatter onto our children’s beds. Sometimes, we move from room to room in an attempt to feel some sense of safety. The reality is that there is no escape, neither inside the house nor from the confines of Gaza.

It’s my first harb (war), and it has stirred in me feelings that I had tried hard to suppress. I never wanted to see Israel as an evil force. I said to myself that that sort of thinking, that sort of emotion, would not be helpful, would not be constructive, would not be “me.” I had wanted to work with Israelis; to reconcile, I suppose. After four years of living in Gaza, this has become an untenable position for me. I would have had less of a problem with Israel’s efforts to protect its population centers, including through targeted strikes of those it considers its enemies, if it had also worked convincingly and seriously toward peace, toward an acknowledgment of the humanity of those who suffer the consequences of its continuing siege. For all I know, Hamas are right now conditioning a ceasefire on the promise that the blockade on Gaza is lifted. Why should that be deemed an unreasonable demand? If Israel could facilitate the export of goods from Gaza, build a factory, or indeed help with the timely delivery of reconstruction materials, the transformative effect on Gaza’s economy, and social life, should not be underestimated. Reducing the thirty-per-cent unemployment rate, reversing the devastating trajectory that the U.N. predicts for Gaza, is what Israel—with the backing of the U.N., U.S., E.U., and Tony Blair—could make happen and make happen, soon. Instead, what I have witnessed is a systematic attempt by the Israeli government to deprive Palestinians in Gaza of basic freedoms and prevent them from leading a dignified life; maybe the hatred stirred amongst the Palestinians then is not an unintended consequence. All of this has been done in the name of self-defense, and yet none of this has demonstrably made Israel feel any safer (chest-thumping over the Iron Dome’s efficacy, notwithstanding); the door to needing operations like Pillar of Defense thus remains open.

It was only last week I was writing the words “stay safe” to a few friends in New York. It was heartwarming to see my Facebook wall light up with messages of support and solidarity for distressed New Yorkers; it was a moment that pierced the shallowness and self-promotion I normally associate with the medium. When the bombing of Gaza started I began to see receive messages telling me to “stay safe.” The words “stay safe” aimed in the direction of Palestinians takes on a different meaning; it requires the sender of the message to take a position that may cost them friends in their own circle. (In this instance to stay quiet might be the least costly of stances, and perhaps the least confusing, too.) However even this verbal support has since ebbed away. The result is a deafening silence from friends who, it seems, feel unable to send messages of support.

In the absence of real pressure from President Obama and the leaders of other Western states to rein in Israel, it becomes all the more important for the silent majority to speak out. It is why I believe we must work much harder to reach out to those unsure of who is the oppressed, and who the oppressor. We sometimes get caught up in our own social networks, assuming that an article shared amongst ourselves has the same purchase elsewhere. The truth is that the majority does not know and ultimately does not care. Many amongst them are still unsure if supporting Palestine is tantamount to endorsing terrorism. In the future I hope that many more of my Western friends feel confident that comforting me with the words “stay safe” is not as controversial as they might think, and that it means more to Palestinians in Gaza right now than anything their leaders might say.

Wasseem El Sarraj is a writer and activist living in the Gaza Strip.

Photograph by Tyler Hicks/The New York Times/Redux.