Yeah, I don't know anymore.

I find myself trying to wake myself up from a haze.

Managing the encouraging messages, and emails of concern, reading through people and strangers who feel hope from the things I say or do. “You’re so strong!” one reads. “Your voice is needed!” another says. “You’re a powerhouse.”

What a load of rubbish.

I do not know how to lead, how to fight, how to stay “strong” in the face of repression and state violence. There was never a more weaker person than I.

I cannot even speak to my family of martyrs unless it’s written and behind a screen, for I am ashamed to even exist in this same world as them. I am ashamed that we both call ourselves Palestinians.

Yesterday, Mohammed Hussein Suleibi was murdered in Gaza. Mohammed was my husband’s first cousin. I met him two years ago when I visited Khan Yunis. I fell in love with his family, his father especially who is now as dear to me as my own father. I watched Mohammed get married. We danced at his parties and the whole family stayed up all night joking and singing and playing with my son Malik all in the cramped Khan Yunis refugee camp.

I replay the videos, specifically of his henna party. Nearly everyone from video is dead. Who would have thought these photos and videos would be the last we hear from them. Regret that I did not stay in Gaza longer. Regret we did not make more memories. Regret that I did not say all that I needed to.

Mohammed was killed on his way back from Duhr prayer with the rest of the men of the family. The drones that day were flying very low, and Mohammed allegedly told his brothers to go inside as it seemed like the Israelis were targeting someone. Mohammed’s cousin, Ahmed, told him to seek cover. Mohammed said “where would I go? does it matter even?”

Mohammed soon after was killed. His father, Dr Hussein Suleibi, shrieked at the roaring explosion before seeing his murdered son: “Mohammed is gone. I know it, they took him.”

I am here in exile not knowing what to do anymore. Just as my words are here, my mind and soul are confused. I wish I had the clarity that many in Gaza have. The faith and acceptance that they have: “thank God for everything,” my family says. “Mohammed and Ahmed always said that they would rather be martyred,” Dr Hussein, their father said, “now they received it.”

Is this strength, or is it just now easier to want to die as a Palestinian than want to live? Is death now just an act of mercy? Sometimes I think the latter too. I want to follow them, because I am not strong enough to see liberation close.

This is also not to say they were in any way “weak.” Their strength came from complete submission to the cause of the Palestinian people, to God’s will, and to their own fate.

My eagerness to follow them is because I lack the wisdom to make sense of any of this. I cannot make sense of the weight placed on my chest. I cannot make sense of the murders that take place every day. I cannot make sense of the pain, of the horrors of regular everyday life here in Germany.

I cannot make sense of any of it. I am not strong and I do not want to be called strong. I do not want to be a leader, to be an activist, to be anything.

The only thing is I feel it is a predisposition to react to this horror. Every time I try to quit, it is as if my body does not allow me to. That is not strength, that is simply desperation.