we are not numbers
emerging writers from Palestine tell their stories and advocate for their human rights
We used to wake up to birdsong, not to the roar of warplanes and their merciless bombing with no end.
Amal’s children in displacement. Photo: Amal Abu Marahel
At around 6:30 a.m. on October 7, 2023, I was forced to flee my home Al-Maghazi Camp due to sudden, intense bombing. There was no time to prepare or even to put on shoes. I left barefoot, holding my young daughter tightly in my arms, driven only by the instinct to protect her and survive.
My other daughter was still at school. We searched desperately for her amidst the chaos. The streets were filled with terrified people, the sky roaring with the sound of warplanes.
I found my daughter and carried my terrified girls to my husband’s grandfather’s house. We didn’t know where to go from there, or what awaited us. We were lost. I held my daughters tightly, wanting to shield them from the merciless bombing. After a few hours, I headed to my parents’ home, while my husband stayed with his parents at an UNRWA shelter. That was the beginning of a painful separation from my life partner, as I faced everything alone, a mother of two little girls, carrying nothing else but them.
Despite the danger, my husband returned to our home to retrieve some clothes and official documents. I was drowning in worry and fear—for him, for my daughters. The bombing never stopped. My eldest daughter trembled and screamed with every explosion, while I tried to soothe her, even as I yearned for someone to comfort me. My youngest clung to me and wouldn’t let go.
Electricity was cut off after a week, and we began to suffer through the darkness. The batteries in our phones were dying, meaning the loss of contact with loved ones. Over time, food supplies began to vanish—flour, sugar, and oil disappeared. My parents’ house was crowded with displaced relatives, and the food was never enough. I gave up my share of bread to my daughters and felt heartbroken, watching their childhoods being snatched away.
One day, a nearby mosque was bombed. The glass windows shattered and the house filled with black dust. My eldest was beside me; the little one had been asleep in the other room. I rushed to her cries and found shattered glass covering her. I gently brushed it off and held her tightly as she shook in fear. Later, I saw she was bleeding from her ear. We rushed her to the hospital—it was a minor injury, thank God—but the terror was anything but minor.
Shattered glass on my daughter’s bed from the nearby bombing. Photo: Amal Abu Marahel
The bombing continued, and so did my nightly attempts to calm my older daughter, who cried and asked, “Mama, are we going to die?” I had only lies to offer her—words I didn’t believe, hoping they would comfort her.
Amidst all that pain, the buzzing of drones never left us. That relentless noise haunted our days and nights, drilling into our heads like a permanent headache, piercing our souls, not just our ears. The quadcopter drones hovered outside our windows, their cold lenses watching us.
They filled our hearts with fear even inside our rooms. I covered the windows with blankets and hugged my children tightly whenever one approached, wishing to hide them from a sky that offered no mercy.
On December 27, 2023, a violent airstrike shook everything. We decided to flee once again. My family went to Al-Mawasi; I walked with my children to an UNRWA school shelter in Al-Maghazi Camp, where I reunited with my husband. The journey was terrifying. As we walked, a shell flew over our heads and struck an apartment in the nearby buildings. Death followed our footsteps.
At the shelter, we found ourselves sharing a single room with eight other families. No mattresses, no blankets. My youngest cried constantly, terrified by the noise and the crowd. She would only calm down if I carried her through the corridors all night long. I was forced to buy a sedative for her despite her young age. My eldest developed infections from the contaminated drinking water. Daily, I struggled to find clean water and access a bathroom.
We stayed at the school for a week. Then, one day, terror struck again—tanks reached the camp’s outskirts. My husband said, “We must leave,” but to where? With whom? At 3 p.m., he found a horse-drawn cart. We rode to Deir Al-Balah, where we found a tent by the sea. That night, we shivered under cold winds and shelling, without blankets. My daughters trembled from fear as well as cold.
Later, we moved to a partially destroyed house belonging to an acquaintance of my father-in-law. Its eastern side had been shelled and was sealed with asbestos sheets. After two weeks, I received the news that crushed my soul: Our house had been completely destroyed. I couldn’t hold back my tears. I felt as if I had lost my entire world—not just our home, but also my husband’s farm, our livelihood, the greenhouses, the trees, even the solar panels.
Heavy rains and bitter cold soaked our bedding and clothes. My daughters fell ill constantly. There was no clean water to drink or bathe in. After a week, I asked to return to my parents’ house, hoping their area would be safer. We returned, and I stayed in a small room. But the bombing never stopped. One day, the remaining glass shattered over my daughter’s bed. Had she not been asleep in my arms, she would have been hurt.
I couldn’t buy Eid clothes for my daughters. They cried, and I cried with them. I saw famine with my own eyes. I bought flour by the kilo and split pieces of bread between them. My youngest developed a “flour obsession.” One day, when her father brought home a sack of flour, she screamed with joy: “Mama! Baba brought flour!” When it ran out, she sat down crying, “No more flour!”—as if the absence of flour meant the end of safety.
The famine eased slightly with some aid, but what hurt more was my eldest’s nightly tears. “Mama, we want to go home,” she’d cry. I tried to comfort her, but I had no promises to give. Our house was gone, in a dangerous border area we couldn’t even approach. She said, “Let’s build a tent there instead.” I went silent. What could I say?
The war dragged on. Then a ceasefire came in January 2025. We were happy, but still couldn’t return home. The ceasefire didn’t last. The bombing resumed. Famine returned. There was no flour. I began grinding pasta and rice to bake bread for my girls. My daughter would say, “Mama, I’m hungry,” and all I had was pain.
Then came the second Ramadan under war. Food supplies were scarce again, and hunger loomed over us like a shadow. Despite the lack of nourishment, my eldest daughter insisted on fasting—she managed to fast more than half the month. I watched her with pride and sorrow, knowing that even her childhood faith was being tested by hunger and war.
And then came Eid. But there was no joy in its arrival. We couldn’t celebrate. The massacres did not stop, and the bloodshed continued. On the morning of Eid, they bombed children wearing their new clothes—children who had not even had the chance to feel happiness.
We are still living in war, with no clear end in sight. We don’t ask for much—just our home… our paradise, where we used to wake up to birdsong, not to the roar of warplanes. How could we smile on this second Eid morning, when joy itself has been buried beneath the rubble?
