we are not numbers
emerging writers from Palestine tell their stories and advocate for their human rights
I wrote part of a book about Gaza published in Spain. I still haven’t touched a copy.
The writer working on an essay for ‘El Libro Negro de Gaza.’ Photo: Sojoud Alkour
In September 2025, I received an invitation I was not expecting. A man named Gonzalo sent me a message on Facebook. He introduced himself as a Spanish journalist interested in the Palestinian cause. He was working on a book he planned to publish in Spain; and he wanted me to contribute to it.
I asked Gonzalo what the book would be about and he explained that it would be about life in Gaza. I said yes, I would like to contribute to the book but that I did not speak Spanish. Gonzalo reassured me, saying “I will be translating the book into Spanish.”
All the way from my devastated homeland to Spain—that’s how far my words from Gaza would travel. I was more than excited. I was writing about the war and living the war, documenting the events around me through numbers and news reports comprised of all the small details of our lives, determined to tell the world what was happening in Gaza.
I contributed two pieces to Gonzalo’s book. The first was a personal story about setting up an educational tent for children. I wrote about my efforts to provide them with access to education, about students trying to learn despite displacement, bombardment, and brutally harsh conditions. I also wrote an essay about a woman who lost all of her children during the war. Through her story, I tried to express a small but profound part of the pain experienced by Palestinians in Gaza.
I sent my essays to Gonzalo through WhatsApp. He encouraged me and told me how he could feel the emotions I was trying to convey through my words. His opinions meant so much to me; I was writing with war all around me, with power and internet outages, and with constant fear surrounding all of us.
After a month and a half, the book was completed. Seventeen writers from Gaza contributed, each writing about a different aspect of everyday life during the war. Our essays are about family, friendship, love, fear, displacement, and the many small details of daily life that continue to exist despite the genocide in Gaza.
Gonzalo translated our essays into Spanish. Meanwhile, we all agreed that the book would be called “The Black Book” and, at the end of November 2025, Gonzalo told us that a publishing house in Spain had agreed to publish the book. In Spanish it would be called “El Libro Negro de Gaza.”
It was a moment of great happiness for all of us.
Publishing our book changed me and my perspective. Throughout the genocide, I had been writing personal stories and reporting news, documenting the daily reality of life in Gaza, in both Arabic and English. Now my work was also part of a book, and in Spanish, a language I don’t know but one that is accessible to millions of people around the world. I told Gonzalo that I considered this one of my greatest achievements. I hoped the book would one day be translated into every language in the world so that even more people could understand life in Gaza from the view of the people living it.
In February 2026, the book was published in Spain. The publisher announced its publication and printing, and Gonzalo sent me an electronic copy through WhatsApp.
When I opened the digital version, I felt a mixture of emotions.
I was happy about the book; I was pleased that our stories had left Gaza and reached readers in Spain. I understood how important it was that 17 writers from Gaza had been able to share their lives and that I had become part of a book carrying our voices and experiences.
But alongside my happiness, there was also sadness. I had the book on my phone screen but I could not hold it in my hands. I could not open the book or touch its pages. Getting a physical copy into Gaza would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, because of the closure of the crossings, and the restrictions on bringing items into the Strip.
Copies of “El Libro Negro de Gaza” on display. Photo: Gonzalo Delgado
In early June 2026, the unexpected happened again.
One of our 17 contributors had a family friend, who was also a humanitarian worker, and this family friend was able to bring a single printed copy into Gaza. I was elated when I learned that an actual physical copy of the book had finally arrived in Gaza.
Our book was real and it had arrived in Gaza!
This copy had traveled a long journey. It had crossed borders, passed through checkpoints, found its way past closed crossings, and had finally reached the place where its stories had been created. Written by Palestinians living through war, our book had somehow made its way physically back to Gaza. Our words had found a way to return home, one copy in Gaza, while the rest remain outside.
I still hope that the crossing will open one day and that I will be able to receive my own printed copy and hold the book I helped write in my hands for the first time. I see myself holding the book in my left hand and a cup of tea in my right. The first thing I would do is open to the table of contents, find the page numbers of the essays I wrote, and start reading them, feeling as if I were reading them for the first time. I love the smell of books. To me, it is a special and comforting scent. There is something about it that makes me feel connected to the pages—the paper, the ink, and the stories held inside them.
The smell of my own book would arouse something even more special—not just the scent of paper and ink—but the scent of something I created. I would know that the words on those pages came from me—my thoughts, my experiences, and a part of my life. I imagine holding the book in my hands, opening it, and realizing that the smell is coming from pages carrying my own words.
Perhaps for a writer living somewhere else, this experience—of buying her own book and holding it in her hands—would be unremarkable. But for me, as I live through war, blockade, and closed crossings, acquiring a book I helped to write turned into a journey of its own—a journey that began with a message on Facebook, continued through words sent over WhatsApp, travelled from Gaza to Spain, and finally returned in the form of a single printed copy.
And I am still waiting for my copy.
