we are not numbers
emerging writers from Palestine tell their stories and advocate for their human rights
Living in Gaza means living in a constant state of fear, which took root with the first blast.
My nephew Mohammed, on his way to recovery. Photo: Hala Al Khatib
Living in Gaza means living in a constant state of war—whether external or internal. From the very first blast, fear takes root, shaping every moment into a new trauma you must face daily.
Since I was young, I have been used to hearing the sound of missiles, but this war is different. I had never known what it meant to be bombed, injured, or to lose someone. But with the genocide, these experiences have become the new normal for every Gazan.
From the very beginning of the war, many of our relatives were displaced. They came to our house—my sisters, my aunts and uncles, and even distant relatives we had never met before. Our home was in Al-Nuseirat refugee camp in the center of Gaza. Everyone thought it was safe.
There were more than 100 people in our house. The women stayed upstairs, while the men remained downstairs. My father, my uncle, and my brother had to sleep in the car because no space was left inside.
Only after coming so close to death did we truly understand what it meant to be alive. We stayed up late at night, talking about our dreams, our plans for after the war, and the things we wanted to change in our lives. The sounds of explosions increase at night and we were trying to distract ourselves. Deep down we knew that every night could be our last.
In the first week of the war, on October 13, 2023, we sat together as usual. At exactly 9 p.m., a missile from an F-16 struck directly in front of our house. Sand, stones, and shrapnel rained down on us from outside. The curtains crashed to the ground. Everything inside our home was hurled out of place.
I was sitting under the window. Glass and rubble crashed into my head and body.
Screaming and crying, and covered in ash, we ran out of the house through the back door. We fled to our neighbor’s house for the night.
This was the most terrifying night since the war began. The bombing was continuous, and unbearably close. We waited for the next missile to strike. We lied to the children, pretending the explosions were only fireworks.
From that moment, I carried my first trauma. The fear began to change me. What had been ordinary—the nighttime and sitting near windows—now triggered panic.
The displaced families left the next day while our family and my sisters’ families remained in the house. During the day, we moved around the house without fear, but as soon as night fell, we all gathered to sleep in my parents’ spacious, beautiful room. But the night haunted and terrified us.
Just over two weeks later, on October 29, at 3 p.m., I was sitting in my usual spot beside the balcony, reading Haruki Murakami’s novel Kafka on the Shore. My sister, Nisreen, in her ninth month of pregnancy, sat beside me. Mohammed, the six-month-old son of my other sister Suha, and his cousin, Rawiya, were playing under the window. I was lost in my book, immersed in another world, when suddenly, everything turned black.
My neighbors’ house after it was hit by a missile on October 29, 2023. Photo: Hala Al-Khatib
I couldn’t see. An immense force hurling me to the other side of the room. A large stone struck my head as I was thrown back, and I collapsed in front of the door, along with my sister and Rawiya.
We thought our house had been bombed. I started screaming hysterically, “Help us! Get us out of here!” My mind went blank—I couldn’t think, I could only react.
Feeling around in the darkness, we managed to get out of the room. I was crying, asking, “What was hit?”
My sister Suha saw me and asked where Mohammed was. I didn’t know. She desperately ran back inside the house to search for the toddler. Hearing an agonized cry, she rushed towards the sound and found Mohammed in my mother’s room. He was wrapped in curtains and soaked in his own blood.
My sister couldn’t bear to look at him. She handed the child to my father, and he was rushed to Al-Aqsa Hospital.
My injured nephew Mohammed, Suha’s son. Photo: Hala Al-Khatib
As I hurried down the stairs, brushing my hair away from my face, a sharp pain shot through my head. I looked down at my hand—it was covered in blood. I panicked and screamed, “I’m injured! I’m injured!” My brother-in-law, Salem, carried me out of the house, and a man took me in his car to Al-Awda Hospital.
At the hospital, I began to search for my family, completely forgetting about my head injury. I found my 15-year-old brother lying unconscious on a bed. I started screaming, calling for the doctors, begging them to help him as I sobbed. One of the doctors explained they were transferring him to Al-Aqsa Hospital because his condition was critical. Then he told me to go to the emergency tent to have my wounds treated.
There I found many of my neighbors and learned that the missile had destroyed three homes and demolished the front part of ours due to the force of the blast.
I had two head wounds—one was stitched, but the other was overlooked in the chaos and continued to bleed throughout the day.
That night, I returned to our neighbor’s house with my sisters—Nesreen, Nada, Amal, and Siba. With us were Suha’s three uninjured children—Nihad, Dana, and Maryam.
That’s when I learned that my little nephew, Mohammed, had suffered a skull fracture, along with his cousin Rawiya. My brother, also called Mohammed, had internal bleeding. They had to remove his spleen.
I didn’t sleep at all that night. Fear consumed me. I imagined the house collapsing over me again. The pain from my head injuries and my terror kept me hallucinating throughout the night.
Nesreen’s four-year-old son Khaled sobbed uncontrollably. He started screaming that he was scared of the “black bombing.” He kept calling for his father—the father he hadn’t seen since the war began.
Since that day, my entire family and I have carried with us new traumas. We now fear the daylight as well as the night, the houses, the rubble that might bury us, and the color black.
Most of my sisters went to stay at our friends’ house. But I couldn’t bear the thought of being in another place that might be bombed. Thinking I’d be safer in the hospital, I decided to stay there with my sister Suha and the two Mohammeds: her baby son and my teenage brother.
I couldn’t shower after my injury for two weeks. My wound was never properly treated and this led to an infection. Eventually, I had to cut off all my hair because it had been burned on the day of the bombing and was causing further contamination to my wound.
I had always wanted to cut my hair short, but when it finally happened, it felt different. My short hair, along with the scar that remained on my head, would forever remind me of the sense of safety that had been ripped away from me—and of the fear that has never truly left me, but instead hides deep within my heart.
A month later, despite our fear, we decided to return to our home in Al-Nuseirat camp. I thought I had become used to the sounds of bombing, planes, and tanks. I thought I had recovered from the shock of the missile attack. But every time you think that you are over it, something takes you back to the edge.
The following year, I went to stay with my sister Suha to relax and spend some time with her. It was September 17, 2024. That night, the airstrikes didn’t stop. Drones and helicopters hovered over the houses, roaring for no reason. Tanks advanced into the neighborhood next door. The situation became extremely dangerous.
I felt that night was going to be my last. When I finally drifted off to sleep, I had a nightmare and saw myself wrapped in a white shroud, lying exactly where I was sleeping. I woke up terrified. I went to lie between my sister and her children, looking around, imagining what would happen if an explosion hit nearby. I cried silently, hugging her children tightly while they slept.
Suddenly, three missiles hit the two houses next to my sister’s. Half-asleep, I opened my eyes to see shrapnel and stones flying around me. I rushed to my sister and stood beside her, waiting for the fourth missile to strike us.
Suha grabbed her son. I started screaming, “Suha, please don’t leave me! I feel like I’m going to die!”
My nephew and my niece look out at their bombed neighborhood. Photo: Hala Al-Khatib
Later, my sister told me that the most terrifying thing that night wasn’t the explosion itself, but my reaction to it. She said, “The look in your eyes made me feel like we were really going to die.”
Every time I close my eyes, I now imagine the house collapsing on top of me. Every time I hear a missile, I curl up, waiting for it to fall, not knowing whether it will hit me or not. And whenever I think I’ve overcome my fear and finally fall asleep, my nightmares bring it all back.
I don’t know when the fear will stop chasing me. I don’t even know if it ever will. But I know one thing: I will not allow it to overtake me. Fear destroys life. And I love life.
