we are not numbers
emerging writers from Palestine tell their stories and advocate for their human rights
Oscillating between hope and despair, I fought to keep intact my dream of completing my Tawjihi exam and moving on to university.
Trying to study in the tent. Photo: MennatAllah Marwan Shaat
I had always looked forward to my final year of high school, Tawjihi, the gateway to my future. It was the beginning of the dream I’d nurtured since I was a child. I had imagined it so many times. I remember the happiness on my siblings’ faces when they completed their own Tawjihi year. I saw the pride in my father’s eyes, the prayers whispered by my mother every night. I used to tell myself, “Soon, it will be your turn.”
I began preparing in September 2023 for what felt like a turning point. I created a little study corner in my home, a small library tucked away in a quiet part of the house, far from the noise. It was a place I’d escape to whenever life felt too heavy or the road ahead seemed too long.
My corner was a special room on the quiet third floor of our home, the same room where my sisters, Layla and Fatima, had studied for their own Tawjihi years before me. My father prepared the space for me. He changed the lighting to make it brighter and decorated the walls with posters of poems I needed to memorize.
Above my desk, he filled the wall with motivational phrases like “Do it, you can!” alongside photos and notes of information I had to remember. I filled it with books, plans, and dreams. I finished eleventh grade with high marks.
My desk at home, soon destroyed. Photo: MennatAllah Marwan Shaat
But war doesn’t knock before it enters. It crashed into my life without warning the morning of October 7, 2023, and began tearing everything away—my space, my calm, and my plans.
I was supposed to take part in a history competition at the Rafah district level, something I had spent weeks preparing for. I’d poured myself into every detail, because I wanted the highest score. I woke up early, put on my school uniform, and got ready with all the excitement I had dreamed of. My father handed me my allowance for the day, I kissed his hand and left for school.
But as soon as I stepped outside, the world felt different, chaotic, loud, and terrifying. People were running, looking up at the sky. Parents were calling their children back home, pulling them off the streets. That was the moment it hit me that war had forced its way into my life.
Just four days earlier, I had been celebrating my birthday, happy to be stepping into my final school year. Now it felt as if everything was being ripped away from me. I tried to tell myself it was only a rough beginning, a temporary storm that would pass. But never, even in my darkest dreams, did I imagine that two years later I would still be waiting for the same competition I had worked so hard for.
We were forced to flee our home. I had to leave the quiet corner that had been my protection from loss. Now it too was lost, though a part of my soul still lives there. I lost the house. Even my school, my second home, was reduced to rubble. My teachers, my classmates, and my friends all scattered like ashes in the wind. I thought that was the worst a soul could endure. But I was wrong.
We evacuated to a new place that was unfamiliar. Faces I didn’t know. Streets that didn’t recognize me. Still, I held on to the dream. I started going to a makeshift school in a tent, just like the one I now lived in. I sat for hours on the ground, in unbearable heat, cramped in a space not meant for learning. But it wasn’t the same as my old school. The faces around me were not the friends I had grown up with, nor the teachers I had always known, and there were no walls that carried my memories. Everything felt strange.
In that tent, students had come from every part of Gaza: Rafah, Khan Younis, Gaza City. We were all displaced. We studied only the basic subjects, side by side, each of us trying in our own ways to hold on. I kept believing this was temporary. Days passed. Then months. Then a full year. I waited. I studied. I planted seeds of hope inside me, watering them with every bit of strength I had left.
Lessons in the educational tent. Photo: MennatAllah Marwan Shaat
Suddenly, the exams were postponed. I remember exactly how I found out. It was a cold morning in early February when I opened my phone and saw the announcement on the official Facebook page of the Ministry of Education: “Exams postponed until further notice due to the ongoing situation.”
At first, they said the new date would be Feb. 28, 2024, and I forced myself to hold on, to study with determination again. But then, only a week before that date, another message appeared—this time saying the exams would be moved to March 18, 2025. A whole year of waiting again. Each announcement felt like a cruel game, a cycle of hope and collapse. Around me, some students broke down in despair, while others tried to convince themselves that maybe next time it would finally happen.
For me, it was like the ground kept shifting under my feet. Every time I rebuilt my plan, drew a new study schedule, and told myself “this time will be different,” the news came crashing down again.
Meanwhile, friends who were lucky enough to escape Gaza early in the war were now finishing their second year in university. Some younger than I am are about to enter university this year.
The war took others from me forever. My childhood friend Shatha Mousa Khafajaand and I had studied together from first grade. We dreamed of graduating side by side. We made plans for our majors, our universities, even our graduation photos. I was thinking of studying languages and translation; Shatha, may she rest in peace, was thinking of pursuing something in a medical field. But she was killed in an airstrike, along with her father and her little sister and brother. And I was forced to keep going alone.
And I’m still here, while everyone else is moving forward. Life keeps going. Even the hands of the clock move. But I stand still, tied down, with a heavy heart and broken dreams. I wait for a new announcement, a date that might never come, or might just be postponed again. Every night, I ask myself: How much longer will I be stuck here? How many more times must I start over from nothing? How long can I keep holding on to this fragile hope?
I had a rival in ambition called Wadee, a classmate in the cramped, sweltering tent where we studied together. We pushed each other, always competing in Arabic and mathematics. Even our teacher would smile and say, “You two will be the core of excellence. Keep pushing yourselves.” He and I dreamed together. We planned. We drew maps of a future we believed in.
But war does not recognize dreams. My friend was killed before he could see his dream unfold, before he could write his name on the answer sheet, before he could wear a university uniform. In his absence, the challenge we shared was left suspended in the air.
Then came the truce on Jan. 25, 2025. We had been following the official page of the Ministry of Education for updates. When the truce was announced, the ministry posted a notice on their official website and Facebook saying the exams were “very close” and that the exact dates would be announced soon. It felt like the finish line was finally coming into view.
We were not hungry for food. We were starving for knowledge, for success, for the clean notebooks we longed to fill with answers. But the exams were postponed again. March 18, 2025, came and went, and we were still stuck between promises and reality delayed by war, by hunger, by darkness.
This new displacement brought new noise, another wall between me and my focus. Children’s voices never leave my ears. Heat and bitter cold take turns striking my skin. And yet, I did not stop. I joined private lessons for mathematics and geography map reviews, which were held in person, and I taught myself the rest. I learned how to be both teacher and student, going through my books carefully, watching lessons on YouTube, explaining concepts to myself, searching for answers, and refusing to surrender.
Sometimes I think too much about the future. I fear it might dissolve, snatched away like my classmates’ lives were. I think about loss, about hunger, about my mother who hides her tears and my father who tries to stand strong for us.
I think, too, about the other Tawjihi students in Gaza who, like me, have been denied their right to take the final exam. The Palestine News and Information Agency (WAFA) reports that there are 39,000 of us. I think about the 430 secondary school students killed in Gaza, and 20 more in the West Bank. About the 630,000 students in Gaza who are now completely cut off from education, including 88,000 university students and 80,000 kindergarten children. These aren’t just numbers; they are lives, each carrying a dream that might never get its turn.
Still, I remain on my feet. Despite everything, the challenge is still alive. The exams will come. The dream will not die. The promises may hang in the air, but my faith does not. I will keep going, even if I walk alone.
After all this loss and pain, some of us in Gaza still tried to move forward. A number of students, including me, were able to take online exams using our phones.
On September 7, 2025, I took my first exam.
Altogether, I took eight exams.
I had to walk long distances and try different networks just to find a signal strong enough to carry this burden that’s been on my back for so long.
In the middle of grief and loss, I finished this Tawjihi, stepping into the unknown, carrying with me the dreams of those we’ve lost and the heartbreak of every family who lost a student in their final year.
Those of us who completed the Tawjihi will learn the results in about a month.
I keep moving forward, with my pain, toward tomorrow.
