we are not numbers
emerging writers from Palestine tell their stories and advocate for their human rights
The world watches Israel starve and decimate my people with impunity while I’m frightened and hungry.
Burning wood and plastic to make tea without sugar. Photo: Huda Skaik
These days I don’t leave my home in Gaza City to search for food because it’s very dangerous and there is none. And even when food is miraculously available, the cost is prohibitive. Each morning my mom and dad struggle to light a fire made of wood and plastic just to prepare a cup of tea and a little bit of bread for us. Recently my dad managed to find some lentils and rice at twice the usual cost.
We’re lucky. Many people don’t even have the luxury of occasionally having one meal per day and don’t have clean water for days at a time. I try to drink as much water as I can to stay alive, feel full, and maintain my balance. I’m lightheaded and dizzy much of the time. Every day I hear the sound of sudden bombings, airstrikes, and buzzing drones.
Israel’s goal, since October 2023, has been to eliminate the people of Gaza—not just to murder individuals, families, and communities but to destroy and displace an entire population and culture. As of June 18, 2025, the Gazan Health Ministry reports that more than 56,000 Gazans have been killed since October 2023 and, according to the United Nations, 90% or 1.9 million people have been displaced, some up to 10 times. It is genocide, plain and brutal. And Israel strives to achieve its aims by any means necessary.
Israel says it only seeks to destroy Hamas to protect its own security. But its actions—documented, televised, and confessed to by its own ministers—reveal something much darker. In public statements, Israel’s cabinet members, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, are calling for the complete destruction of Gaza and the reimposition of Israeli control over the Strip. And they are exercising the power to force their will on Netanyahu’s fragile government coalition.
When Israel ended the ceasefire in March, Smotrich explicitly endorsed another blockade of food and humanitarian aid intended to break Gaza’s resolve: “The aim was to make life unbearable for Gaza’s two million citizens to force Hamas to accept Israeli demands.” He continued, “I will starve the residents of Gaza, yes, this is our obligation.” Israel has blockaded aid from the United Nations and international aid organizations.
So now we are starving to death. Malnutrition has soared, not just in the North, but in the whole Strip. It is no longer a looming threat—it is a full-blown humanitarian emergency exacerbated by relentless bombings, shootings, and the systematic breakdown of Gaza’s healthcare infrastructure.
Batoul and Eleen. Photo: Batoul Abu Ali
Israel’s brutality is especially hard on parents. A few days ago, I talked with my friend Batoul Abu Ali. She shared how hard it has become to feed her daughter, Eleen, who was born on May 21, 2024, in the midst of the genocide. Now just over a year old, she’s already showing clear signs of malnutrition. “Eleen’s diet is missing everything a child needs—no fruits, no meat, and no dairy,” Batoul reports. “I can hardly manage two meals a day for her, maybe some tomato, zucchini, potato, lentils, or fortified biscuits.”
What troubles Batoul the most is finding milk for Eleen. “No one can bear watching their child go hungry. I do everything I can to find food, but it’s never enough. I’ve fallen into depression. I just want to keep my sweet baby Eleen alive.”
At the end of May, Israel set up four aid distribution sites in Gaza that are run by the U.S. and overseen by the Israeli military—the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). The scenes at these sites are hellish. Desperate people travel long distances to get to a site and, once they arrive, the wait is long and the risk to their lives is high.
As reported in The Guardian on June 23, 2025: “The rollout of GHF operations over the last three weeks—after a two-month blockade on most aid entering Gaza that has pushed the territory’s 2.1 million residents to the verge of famine—has been deadly.” Gaza is the hungriest place in the world. Medical authorities in Gaza say nearly 800 have died and thousands more have been injured. UN officials have described the scene as “death traps.”
Top genocide scholars, even those who were once reluctant to speak out, agree that Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute genocide, and the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in May 2024, citing alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Gaza. Except for occasional lip service, the nations of the world have been silent or have not backed up their condemnation of Israel with any meaningful action. They have failed to fulfill their moral duties and international obligations to protect the Palestinian people and end the genocide.
“Even you, Brutus?”
What is most painful is that we have even been abandoned and betrayed by Arab countries. While we face relentless bombardment, starvation, and the erasure of families, much of the Arab world remains complicit through silence, normalization, and superficial gestures, without any significant material or political action. Their failures stand in sharp contrast to the actions of foreign activists, particularly in Ireland, Italy, and the Netherlands, who have stood in solidarity with Palestinians by organizing mass protests, occupying universities, and advocating for widespread boycotts against companies complicit in Israeli aggression.
Carrying a crew of 12 people, the small ship Madleen—filled with humanitarian aid—set sail from Italy to Gaza on June 1, 2025, to break Israel’s blockade of aid and demonstrate solidarity with the Palestinians of Gaza. Sponsored by the Freedom Flotilla, the crew included international climate activist, Greta Thunberg and Rima Hassan, a Palestinian-French member of the European Parliament.
On June 9, the Israeli navy intercepted the Madleen in the middle of the night and detained all the crew as hostages. According to the human rights group, Amnesty International, Israeli naval forces blocked the Madleen, which was in full compliance with international and maritime law, and well outside Israel’s jurisdiction.
The crew of the Madleen was fully aware of the risks but knew its message was vital to deliver. Says Thunberg: “We are seeing a systematic starvation of 2 million people. The world cannot be silent bystanders. Every single one of us has a moral obligation to do everything we can to fight for a free Palestine.”
The Madleen. Photo: Freedom Flotilla Coalition
While Israel can block the Madleen from entering Gaza, it can never stop its message from being trumpeted around the world. The Madleen proves that it doesn’t take a superpower to reach Gaza. All you need are brave humans with the will to stand up against oppression and tyranny. In fact, at this moment another boat, the Handela, is continuing the work of the Freedom Flotilla and is on its way to break the blockade.
But meanwhile the world’s attention was diverted by Israel’s and the U.S.’s bombing of Iran. The ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas are an afterthought and a lie. Israel never intended to stop its destruction of Gaza nor pursue a real end to this conflict.
There is no safety in Gaza. At any moment I know I can be targeted by a drone or sharp shooter and be killed or lose a body part—that is, if I don’t starve first. Living in a state of perpetual terror and trauma, I am reduced to the numbness of a robot. I can barely sleep at night, thinking that my family might be dead when I wake.
In Gaza, we hold our souls in our hands. For now we only trust in a miracle from Allah to end this genocide. We breathe pain and despair, but we still hope for another day.
