I was born on November 20, 2000, when the Second Intifada was raging around me.
I was only a few days old, too young to understand what war meant, but somehow, war had already become a part of my story.
I grew a little older, and at the age of 8, the war of 2008 came.
Instead of knowing a peaceful childhood, I learned the sound of explosions, fear, and the long nights of waiting.
Then, at 12 years old, the war of 2012 came.
I was still a child, trying to understand why the windows were shaking, and why my mother was afraid whenever we heard a sound in the sky.
At 14, the war of 2014 came. I was only a teen, but that war made me feel as if I had grown up years overnight.
Then came 2021, when I was 20 years old.
I was a young man beginning to dream about the future, but once again, war came before my dreams could begin.
Between all these wars, there were other escalations in 2018, 2019, 2022, and 2023. Until the sound of war became something I knew better than the sound of peace.
Then came the war that began in October 2023,vwhen I was 23 years old.
This time, I was no longer a child. I was a young man watching my homeland suffer before my eyes, watching the dreams of my generation disappear, one after another.
Six major wars, countless escalations, and a lifetime that never truly learned what peace felt like.
I am Suleiman, born in 2000.
People say that we grow older with the passing of years. But I grew older with every war.
With every war, I lost another piece of my childhood.
Yet I held on to one thing:
the hope of staying alive, the hope of dreaming, and the hope of one day living without having to count my age by the number of wars I have survived.
I am not just a number in a generation that lived through war.
I am the story of a child born into war, who grew up waiting for peace.