Life in the Rubble

Gaza is like trying to tune a radio to a station that doesn’t exist. The din of violence, deprivation and chaos invades every moment, deafening and incessant. At first, the noise confuses, drowns out all clarity, threatens to overwhelm. But over time, something unexpected begins to emerge from that din: you don’t find the station you were looking for, maybe it never existed, but you learn to search. You learn to listen through the interference, to perceive a silence that is not silence, that contains meanings you had never imagined.

Because you learn that Gaza is not just a place marked by borders on a map; it is a condition, a reality defined by uncertainty and indifference. The forces that shape this existence: blockades, bombings, geopolitical maneuvers seem distant from the lives they influence. Gaza doesn’t care about your plans, the dreams you nurture or the affections you love. It simply exists, imposing itself with an impersonal and implacable force. A place that offers no answers, only silence.

And yet, in this indifference, the people of Gaza find a way to resist. They rebuild homes from the rubble, plant gardens in the shadow of destruction, cultivate laughter amid the echoes of devastation.
It is here, in the heart of chaos, that I have seen rebellion, not through grandiose acts of defiance, but through the firm choice to live.

I have always thought that, faced with a meaningless universe, man has three choices: denial, despair, or rebellion.
Denial clings to illusions, imagining a salvation or solution that may never come. Despair is surrender, a
resignation to chaos and futility. Rebellion, on the other hand, is the conscious and deliberate decision to refuse silence. It is the act of living fully, of creating meaning, even when nothing is given to us.

In Gaza, rebellion is everywhere. It is in the father who hangs colored lights in a tent to bring some joy to his children during a blackout. It is in the teacher who gathers her students under a tree when the school is reduced to rubble. It is in the mother who kneads bread in the open air, determined to feed her family despite the empty markets.
These acts are not loud or revolutionary; they are silent, profound.
They are the acts of a people who have understood that the meaning of life is not something given to us, but something we create.

And then there is beauty. It is perhaps the most surprising and touching form of rebellion. Among the ruins, beauty finds a way to emerge, a fleeting but undeniable force.
There is the fisherman's song wafting across the waves at dawn. A child's kite flying over a horizon of destruction. The sunset that paints the sea orange and red, as if the horizon itself refuses to give in to despair.
These moments, fragile and fleeting, are so profound because they exist in harshness; they carry with them a strength that no conflict can erase. They are a reminder that while great powers may be indifferent, life within them is not.

This beauty is not a contradiction; it is a testament to the complexity of life. It does not erase suffering or deny indifference, but grace in a world of chaos. It reminds me that there is no deeper act of rebellion than living, loving and creating, even when the world offers no guarantees.
Gaza is a constant reminder to find deeper meaning in the little things, rather than waiting for a definitive solution. Gaza, in its relentless chaos, is a mirror that reflects the deep truths of the human condition. It reveals the harsh realities of existence: that life can be merciless, that loss is inevitable and that answers may never come. But it also reveals humanity’s incredible capacity to resist, rebuild, and find meaning, not in the promise of resolution, but in the very act of living.

This rebellion didn’t give me the answers I was looking for when I came here, but it taught me that sometimes it’s not in finding that you find meaning, but in creating. Creating in the chaos, in the void, in the ruins of a world that seems to offer nothing more. It’s the stubborn affirmation that life, for all its fragility and uncertainty, is still worth living. The people of Gaza not only resist, they exist with a strength that defies all logic, all expectations. Every day, through gestures of silent resistance, they build a meaning, a world, among the rubble.

And in this rebellion lies an indomitable beauty, a beauty that cannot be defeated, that challenges the darkness and whispers that, despite everything, humanity possesses a strength capable of generating light even where it seems impossible to find it. It is not the indifference of the universe that defines us, but the courage to illuminate what the world would like to leave in the shadows, to seek, build, live, despite everything.


texts and photos by Mattia Bidoli
NP March 2025