The war in this region is no longer a breaking news story on our screens: it has become a subtle daily rhythm that inhabits our details, reshapes our consciousness and distorts our collective memory.

As an Iraqi, I see the war not only as a political or military event, but as a heavy presence that has been weighing on our chests for decades, leaving its mark in the language, in the faces of the children, in the tone of the mothers' voices, in the shaking of the doors when fear closes them.

Today, as I watched a scene of panic during the bombing of schools in Mosul, I was not simply seeing children running in panic: I was witnessing history repeating itself with disconcerting audacity. Their cries were not new: we have already heard them in our schools, in our alleys, in our shelters.

There was something painfully familiar in that chaos, in that noise that resembled the sound of the soul when it is taken by surprise by danger. I have seen people flee their places not because they are cowards, but because they are exhausted from being tested in courage every single day.

For us, war is not just material destruction: it is a slow dismantling of our sense of security. Living without trusting calm, being more disturbed by silence than by noise, interpreting every sudden sound as the beginning of a disaster: this is the hidden face of war. Persistent fear, anxiety and tension do not arrive as passing guests, they establish themselves within us as part of our psychological structure.

Even more dangerous is the way people's emotions are reshaped, manipulated and pushed towards sectarianism and hatred. War does not just annihilate bodies, it plants seeds of division in minds and trains hearts to suspicion. Suddenly, the other becomes a threat, belonging becomes a weapon, identity becomes a trench.

What hurts the most - perhaps what scares the most - is listening to the children. Their conversations are no longer about play, dreams or the future, but about planes, bombing and death. They buy plastic weapons, imitate war scenes and recreate what they see with their little eyes.

How far have we fallen? How have we come to teach our children the tools of war instead of the language of peace?

Unfortunately, this is not a passing phenomenon, but a profound change in consciousness. When a child grows up believing that war is normal, we do not just lose his or her childhood: we lose the possibility of building a future. A child who learns about war will grow up carrying it within him or her, even if it ends outside.

As far as I am concerned, war is not an idea: it is a personal story. I lost an uncle in the war; another uncle was a prisoner, and my father bears indelible scars on his body. I was born during the war in 1990, as if I had entered this world through a smoke door. I grew up a little only to find myself in the war of 2003. I was a student then, and that is where I started writing. Perhaps as a means of survival, perhaps as an attempt to understand what cannot be understood.

Then came the civil war in Mosul, and I was among those who tasted the bitterness of violence and terrorism. For me, it was not news flowing on TV, but days lived in fear and anticipation. Then we entered another war against the Islamic State, and death became a daily possibility, life a postponed project. Today we live in a new conflict, as if this land were destined never to rest.

None of these wars passed without leaving a mark. When they end, we do not just remember them: we also live them in their absence.

Here emerges the question that haunts me: when will we experience consecutive years of peace? Has peace become a luxury? How can such a beautiful word be so powerless in the face of the war machine? Perhaps because it is easier than building, thinking, dreaming. Yet, it costs us everything.

As an Iraqi, I am not looking for great answers or slogans. I only long for a moment of calm that is not interpreted as a pause between two wars. I dream of a childhood that is not measured by the number of explosions one has survived. I imagine a country that writes its history not with blood, but with words.

The great powers sharing spheres of influence see nothing in us but maps and interests, waging their cold wars on our burning bodies. As for the United Nations, since its foundation it has appeared impotent or complicit, merely counting the dead instead of protecting them. This international silence is not neutrality: it is another form of violence.

Between political calculations and power interests, it is the human being who pays the price alone, as if his life is worth less than a deal.

Jameel Al-Jameel - Communication Coordinator of Un Ponte Per in Iraq