I was born in Qalanswa, when it was still called a village. Mud streets, low houses, everyone knows everyone, and the sun always felt closer there. A small house, a family of seven. I, the youngest, share a room where feet get confused at night and silence is a rare gift. My parents were simple people. My father is a farmer, a strawberry grower with tired hands and a big heart. My mother, at first a social worker, then helped him in the fields, and finally cleaned other people's houses, but kept ours clean to the point of respect.

They prayed five times a day. The house was draped in carpets, smelled of tea with mint, and in a silence that didn't ask too many questions. Only I didn't make an effort to fit in. I always looked around and asked. Why does everyone think the same? Why are there rules that I don't understand? Why do I feel different?

At the age of 12, the second intifada broke out. In the evenings we would watch Al Jazeera. I was glued to the screen, following Shirin Abu Aqla’s reports. Then I noticed that the shadows on the wall were all coming from the same direction – the army killed, the occupation destroyed. And there was no other side. And I, a girl from Qalanswa, started asking: Why? And who started it? And what if there is pain on that side too?

I didn’t dare ask out loud. Instead, I wrote. Words in a green notebook, short lines of thoughts. I don’t know if I was more afraid of the answers or the questions themselves, but I felt like they were breaking something in me. Society called me all sorts of definitions – Arab, Muslim, Palestinian, Israeli Arab, Arab 48. But none of these definitions felt like home to me.

At the age of 16, I received a blue ID card. It says: “Israeli.” I trembled! Not from fear – from relief. For the first time, someone gave me a label that felt close to something real. Not political, not ideological – simply a physical belonging. To this land that I walk on, to this street that I cross every day.

At the age of 19, I decided to study communications. I wanted to tell what I wasn’t told. To show that side – the one that wasn’t broadcast when I was a child. That same year, I also changed my name. I became “Ella.” No longer a name chosen for me, but one that I chose myself. Short hair, no hijab, a small apartment – ​​and a fresh start. As if I had come out of the cave, seen the light, and now I’m not ready to go back in.

When I joined the army, I did it quietly. It wasn’t just service – it was a declaration. That I belong, that I choose, that I don’t apologize. I became the IDF spokesperson. Not fighting with a rifle – but fighting with words. In front of a camera, in front of journalists, in front of myself. Slowly, I became an officer. I reached the screen. My face spoke to the world. And every time I stood in front of a camera, I felt the 12-year-old girl standing behind me. Smiling. Telling me: "You knew."

The road was paved with walls. Anger, slander, hatred from all sorts of places. However, I saw my mother's eyes shining when I said a sentence on television in clean, proud, courageous Arabic.

There were memories that never left. The strawberry field, where my father planted what raised me with wounded hands. A room with five children, where I taught myself to dream of a place where there was room only for me. The smile in that picture, short, colorful jeans, a concrete wall in the back, a small garden. And every memory like that – was not nostalgia. It was a foundation stone.

Who asked what it was like to be both. I answered: It's not both. It's me.

And the deeper I went – ​​I realized that my cave was not just a place. It was a perception. And the light? Not always blinding. Sometimes it simply tells you: You are allowed to be you. You are allowed to choose your name, your faith, your path, your heart.

Today, when I stop, I see - this was not a journey to convince anyone. It was a journey not to lose myself. To reinvent myself, without fear. To hold up a small torch, to shine for those who are still afraid to walk. Because there are those. Many. And I want to tell them: Go out. Dare. There is light outside. And it is waiting for you.

Because a girl, once, came out of a cave. And from the moment she saw the light - she refused to turn it off.