People talk about the women and the babies — and of course they should — but Palestinian men are always pushed to the side. Either demonized, labeled, or treated like they don’t count because they’re “men.” As if being a man somehow makes your death less tragic or your suffering less real.
These are the same men digging their families out of rubble with their bare hands. The same men watching their kids starve and feeling the kind of helplessness most people will never understand. The same men carrying trauma that nobody even asks about because the world has already decided who they are.
They’re painted as threats, as suspects, as “maybe Hamas,” instead of human beings who love their kids, who protect their families, who break down when no one is looking. They’re the pillars of their homes, and yet they’re the ones the world refuses to mourn.
So this is for them.
For the men who are still standing in Gaza, and for the men who should still be here but aren’t.
Happy Father’s Day to the Palestinian men — the ones the world overlooks, but we don’t.
