Sacrifices aren't optional in Gaza, they are much like food and breathing, things nobody has the luxury to choose not to do, unless if they decided to leave, which isn't always optional due to the recurring closure of the borders with both Egypt and Israel, and the absence of aerial or naval ports, making the place a vast open air prison with more than 1.8 million inmates. Almost half of Gaza's population is made up of refugees; Palestinians who had to leave their lands and homes after the creation of Israel in 1948 and the Six Days war in 1967, they live in refugee camps scattered over the 150 square miles of the strip. Despite the fact that camps were upgraded drastically from standalone tents to cement buildings with several floors, both people of Gaza and refugees deal with the situation as temporary and provisional, one reason is that nobody can convince a Palestinian from Haifa or Jaffa or Ashkelon that he's from Gaza, or that they are not Palestinians, it's like trying to convince a Christian believer that Jesus never existed, or a proud indigenous Londoner that he's from Aberdeen -- not only that but preventing them from visiting where they belong. Why are people dying in Gaza? A question many around the helpless globe are asking as they see dead women, children, and men, piled in morgues, vegetable cold rooms, ice cream freezers, under ice blocks, or near the debris of their neighborhoods and what used to be their houses. Maybe the question is worded in a different way, why are those people dying and still showing support to groups like Hamas, Jihad, and other factions fighting Israel, and are they genuinely backing them or they're forced to? The answer many Palestinians give to such questions is "are we left with a better option?", even those who supported the peace process find themselves today with no choice but to fight; their choice after 23 years of direct talks with Israel fruited nothing but few kilometers of land without real authority over them, add to that tens of thousands of settlements that were built during the last two decades over lands that belong to the Palestinians. Even radical supporters of the peace process within the Palestinians aren't able to defend their position anymore. Israel isn't helping them, neither is the international community, and to them they are giving up rights without anything in return, to others in the best case those are naïve, and in the worst, they are betraying the cause. Therefore, if the world is still betting on the peace process and aiming at putting it on the right track then they'll have to pressure Israel to keep to commitments, despite the fact, today, numbers of those who tend to believe peace is possible are far less than those who used to believe so a couple of decades ago. Palestinians see no option today but fighting for their lives, it's not that they adore death and hate life, rather they find themselves between two options, either death with dignity or life with humility.
