Before I talk about what’s going on in Nablus, I feel the need to quickly comment on the state foreign affairs, because frankly, the world’s gone mad. ISIL (or ISIS, depending on whether or not you’re an Archer fan) is killing and taking over cities in Syria and Iraq, with the threat of spreading to Tunisia, Lebanon, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. Lest we forget, these are the guys that AL-QAEDA disowned for being too extremist. Ebola is spreading through West Africa like wildfire, and Boko Haram is still hanging around nearby, killing and raping in the name of Islam. Then, of course, there’s Ukraine in open warfare, with the whole annexation-of-Crimea business. And then, most pertinent to myself at the moment, there’s the fact that Israel is bombing Gaza to smithereens as we speak (or type) and has been for the past month. Add to that the plane shot down over Ukraine, the one downed in Mali due to a storm, and the complete magic-trick that was Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 (all passenger planes), 2014 is looking like a crazy-as-all-hell kind of year. And we still have five months to go.

But back to Gaza. It’s the weekend here in Palestine (Thursday/Friday, because Islam), and we were chilling with the neighbors upstairs, watching the news, when a spokesman for Hamas appeared on the screen. Today is the third and final day of the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, and the mood is tense in Gaza as night falls. Hamas is demanding that the blockade on Gaza be lifted, and Israel is refusing to respond. Nobody knows what might happen tomorrow.

The one thing that is dependable, however, is the resilience of the people of Gaza. On TV we watched in Gaza City as its citizens paraded by the thousands, showing they are still together and that they’re spirit is not broken. I have to admit, there is a special kind of bravery in that. These people are supporting their community after having been bombed for an entire month. After losing nearly 2000 people to Israeli rockets. After displacing 500,000 civilians. They still want to fight for change. They don’t want it all to have been in vain.

But that means Nablus will host protests tomorrow, on Friday, the holiest day of the week in Islam. Which means I’ll be staying in after the noon prayers, waiting out the IDF arrests and gunshots.