we are not numbers

emerging writers from Palestine tell their stories and advocate for their human rights

Anonymous

    The “Anonymous” byline is used when authors wish to keep their name offline for reasons of personal security.

    Kite in Palestinian colors with test "WANN."

    my work

    Thank you for forcing me to question everything, everything inside me, around me, even my existence in this universe.
    My beloved friend was deprived of her goal to serve Gaza as a nurse. Why, why?
    Tasneem couldn’t understand why, in the play “Hamlet,” Ophelia had to die. I don’t understand why Tasneem had to die.
    My garden, that once pulsed with life, was reduced to a desert of ash. But it will grow again.
    Brushing teeth, combing hair, and bathing become immense challenges for civilians living through war.
    Gaza has become the city where happiness is snatched away without warning, where love and death walk hand in hand.
    Using canines to intimidate, injure, and torture Palestinians is government-sanctioned terrorism against civilians.
    Our children don’t imagine monsters once a year on Halloween — they face them in real life, every day.
    I thought I would be in the U.S. on a scholarship. Instead I was running for my life from yet another Israeli attack.
    The shock of being displaced, and then learning that my house was half destroyed, does not sap my longing to return.
    The world’s humanity did not save 1.3 million people crowding in Rafah from the horror of displacement.
    ‘I found a thrift store. Every jacket had Yousef written on it; everyone who worked at the store was called Yousef.’