we are not numbers
emerging writers from Palestine tell their stories and advocate for their human rights
Listening to my students, I feel as though I am standing between their childhoods and the war, trying to help them build a bridge towards hope.
The writer with her friend Sujood (at left) in the educational tent. Photo: Ohood Nassar
From the first day of 2026, I decided to approach life differently. I joined a gym next to my home and began going every day from 8 until 11 in the morning. A lot of the equipment had been damaged in the bombing and no longer worked. But that hasn’t stopped me and nearly 100 other women from working out there.
Exercise is more than a physical activity for me; it is a serious attempt to repair what has fractured inside me. I want to reclaim my body, my breathing, and my racing heartbeat. I often feel a sense of calm at the gym, listening to the peaceful, sweet music piped through the facility.
After the gym, I meet my friend Sujood Alkhour, and together we head to the school where we teach in the same classroom. Our school is not in a stone building; it is in tents that were erected in the Palestine Stadium, west of Gaza. The ground is dusty, and the air still carries the burnt remnants of our homes and towns. Even so, when the girls are in their seats with their notebooks open, the place feels like a real classroom.We volunteer for an organization called Gaza Great Minds, teaching a short story writing class to 13- and 14-year-old girls. We ask them to write the truth about their lives.
Many of their stories are filled with pain and suffering no child should experience. One student wrote about being rescued under rubble after a direct strike to her home. Others wrote about the death of their beloved fathers or their favorite brothers, or the destruction of their homes or entire neighborhoods. All of them have been displaced. All of them carry traumatic memories.
One of the stories that broke my heart was written by my 13-year-old student, Maryam. It was about the death of her favorite uncle while he was working at his factory. He had been missing for three days, and the family hadn’t been able to search for him because the area was surrounded by Israeli forces. Finally, the dreaded call came from her uncle’s cell phone. A stranger told them that he had found her uncle, and he had been killed. As Maryam read her story out loud, she cried with deep sorrow, and so did Sujood and I and the other students.
Listening to them, I felt as though I was standing between their childhoods and the war, trying to help them build a bridge towards hope. I would often repeat, “The suffering will end, and your dreams must not die.” I said it to them — and to myself.
February 10, 2026, began as a normal day. I went to the gym, did my exercises, listened to the soft music in the background, and focused on my breathing. As usual, I met Sujood, and we walked to school.
During a lesson, one of my outstanding students read her story about her love and talent for painting and about an art competition she entered that was scheduled for October 7, 2023. She had hoped to win it. The Israeli bombs ended the competition and her dream. Throughout the war, she refused to touch a paintbrush, fearing that her dreams of becoming a famous artist were a luxury she could no longer afford. After the ceasefire was declared in October 2025, she returned to painting and with it her desire to become an artist.
I saw myself in her story. On October 7, 2023, I was studying to become a teacher at the Islamic University, and my education suddenly came to a halt. When Birzeit University opened online enrollment for Gazan students, I was accepted, but I didn’t have access to the internet at that time and couldn’t attend. I too felt as though my dreams of becoming a teacher were slipping away.
But then Islamic University offered online courses and I was able to complete my studies and graduate with distinction. Using my story as an example, I hoped to show my students that when one road closes, another can open.
As school ended that day, I was suddenly hungry — perhaps because I had been more emotional than usual. Sujood and I walked for half an hour to a restaurant in the Al-Nasser area. We were surrounded by buildings bearing the scars of shrapnel, balconies without windows, and walls painted a pale gray from the ashes of war. I talked to her about my path to recovery from my trauma. Only five months earlier, I began sleeping through the night, instead of waking to the blasts of imaginary bombs. I was now trying to see the sky as simply the sky and not a source of destruction and death.
Then, as if on cue, everything stopped. A massive explosion tore through the air. It crushed my chest. The ground shook beneath my feet, and I saw shrapnel flying in all directions. Within seconds, thick, choking smoke filled the air. Before I could grasp what had happened, I was coughing and struggling to breathe.
I had experienced shelling throughout the war, but this was the worst; it pierced my sense of safety, a feeling that had emerged at the beginning of the ceasefire. In a single moment, the explosion threw me back to the trauma of the war, igniting a deep sense of fear and terror.
Time froze before I registered that the horror of war had returned: the nights of displacement, the roar of aircraft, the waiting for bad news. I checked my face and arms. No blood. No visible wounds. I turned to Sujood. She was in shock, but standing. She said in sudden realization, “We are still in danger.”
We turned around quickly and headed home. I ran as fast as I could. As I ran, I heard another explosion farther away, which caused me to shake. I wondered if I would make it home and whether my family was OK. I finally reached home but didn’t feel as if I had reached safety.
That night I thought about hope. Could we still find it? I thought of my lesson that day. My student returned to painting and I completed my education. When one door closed, another opened. Having hope in Gaza is hard and often fleeting; it’s a daily decision. It’s a decision to go to school in a tent despite the danger, to write about our pain and our hopes in the midst of bombardments, and to believe that our dreams will not be postponed indefinitely.
The next day, I returned to school. I listened to my students as they described their fears about what was going to happen to them and their families. I told them that dreams are not granted by others; we must seize them for ourselves.
