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Typically, dystopian societies are depicted through the pages of novels, like The Hunger Games and Divergent. They give us glimpses into distorted societies where justice and freedom are suppressed; where deprivation is a way of life; and lives are dispensable. They ask us to imagine a society where people are pushed to the limits of what they can endure — and, often, killed if they can’t.

But it’s just fiction, right? After the last page, it ends.

Wrong.

The most disturbing dystopian narrative of our time is no work of fiction. It’s a real place with real people.

It’s Gaza. The most tragic place to live on earth.

Where some people in the world battle poverty or violence or prejudice or intimidation or hunger or lack of healthcare or freedom of movement or imprisonment or mass unemployment or constant surveillance or insecurity or deprivation of basic essentials or hopelessness or poor education or enforced isolation or disregard for their human rights or the pain of losing loved ones, Gaza’s more than 1.8 million inhabitants battle them all, every day.

In full view of a, largely, indifferent global community.

Women. Children. Infants. The elderly. Those living with disabilities. The innocent. They battle all these injustices every day because, for the last eight years, they have existed — not ‘lived’ — under an Israeli-imposed siege.

A 17-year-old Palestinian boy, detained in an Israeli prison, described the everyday misery that Gazans endure.

“It’s like being a shadow of your own body, caught on the ground, not being able to break out. You see yourself lying there but you cannot fill the shadow with life.”

Simply put: a slow death.

Unless you’ve lived day in, day out amidst the suffocating siege and the onslaughts, it’s impossible to understand the despair that Gazans endure. Don’t forget: 70% of Gaza’s population are refugees.

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