we are not numbers
emerging writers from Palestine tell their stories and advocate for their human rights
Israel’s destruction inside Gaza is forcing displaced people to share rudimentary, unhygienic bathrooms.
A row of public toilets made of zinc sheeting, for women’s use in the Al-Mawasi area west of Rafah, November 2023. Photo: Duha Hassan
The real war begins when you are forced from your home, not knowing when you will be able to return or having to face the more terrifying question: whether you will return at all.
Every small detail I had previously seen and heard from displaced relatives, the family who had stayed with us since November 2023, and the families I worked with in camps started to make sense once my family and I became one of the thousands of displaced families ourselves.
As a project coordinator and social worker, I used to deliver awareness sessions in camps about hygiene and the dangers of war remnants: landmines and innocent-looking objects like pens, food cans, or even dolls that could actually be explosives.
As a family that was displaced not only once but 10 times, we learned quickly that on the first night in any new displacement zone we had to flee to, we could not eat nor drink in order not to need to use the toilet, based on our certain knowledge that there are no bathrooms in the place we are staying in. The first week is often spent in trials to settle in, arrange our belongings in a way to fit in in a very small space, and build a bathroom from scratch on a muddy ground, covered by fragile, makeshift walls.
My family house in Rafah, Tal Al Sultan, Saudi 2 neighborhood, was surrounded by many UNRWA schools, which is something my parents were glad about and considered when they bought the house in 2015. My father worked day and night for over 20 years to afford it. My parents felt reassured that my siblings and I could go to nearby schools and come back safely and quickly — until these UNRWA schools were turned into shelters for thousands of displaced families coming from all areas of Gaza City, taking refuge in what the Israeli military forces called “safe zones” in Rafah.
Our classrooms, where my siblings and I had studied, played, taken exams, and built joyful memories with our peers and teachers became temporary accommodations for displaced families. At least five families would be cramped into each classroom, the space divided by hanging light mattresses to create a fragile sense of privacy.
Ten times a day, from morning until night, mothers would knock on the door of our home in a rush, accompanied by their children, their hands pressed against their bladders as they asked to use the toilet. Some also asked if they could take a quick shower. Then they often began telling their stories of displacement on foot, under airstrikes and with military tanks behind them. Their stories struck me like a horror movie, an implausible scenario I would never experience myself. I refused to imagine myself in their position.
But their stories were preparing me. During their narration, they often gave us advice about what to take with us, what to wear, how to act — yet I found a way to convince myself that this advice would never be needed.
One time a woman came to our home. She was in her thirties, accompanied by her three children aged between 5 and 12 and her husband. They had fled their home from the Al-Tawam area with literally nothing in hand. The husband went to buy shampoo, and the rest of the family entered our house.
The lady started telling us about the poor living conditions in UNRWA schools, especially the bathrooms, stressing that five bathrooms in a school building are never enough for the hundreds of families staying there. This woman made sure her children showered every day so they would not catch diseases from interacting with other displaced children who had to use school toilets that lacked water and the minimum level of sanitation. Then, she showed us some photos for her house in Al-Tawam in the north of Gaza City. She had hope that her house was still standing and that one day she would be able to go back to it.
Later, in November 2023, my family hosted a family of 10: the grandparents, the parents, and six children aged between 3 and 16. All of them were squeezed into a small car with their belongings and mattresses tied to the top. The grandmother, though weakened by cancer and diabetes, seized our attention with her compelling storytelling. She’s the type of narrator who tells her story with face gestures, hand movements, and detailed narrative.
The most sensitive part of her story was how she needed to use the bathroom at 4 a.m. on their first night, staying in a hospital under construction where bathrooms had not yet been built. “I stopped eating and drinking and asked my grandsons and daughters to do the same,” she said. Yet her weak, old bladder failed her. She roamed a massive area, getting lost in this new place, looking for a bathroom. All her attempts were in vain until the morning light. “At that point, I prayed to God with a heart full of sorrow and said, I used to have four bathrooms in my villa in Al Qarara in Khan Younis City and now I have been looking for a toilet for hours and cannot find one.”
She kept repeating one piece of advice: if you are ever forced to leave your home, you must take a toilet, a water tank, and water pipes with you — you will need them. At that time, it made no sense to me. We, too, had four bathrooms in our two-story house.
Then, in May 2024, the ground invasion of Rafah began. We awakened on the morning of May 6 to discover that the military tanks were 10 minutes away. We had to evacuate!
We took nothing from the house. Deep down, we believed we would return. There was also no time to gather our things, and no transportation to carry our belongings. We could barely take the essentials and escape with our lives.
How do we build bathrooms from scratch? The answer for this question varies a little, depending on the displacement place we are staying in, whether it’s a tent, a house under construction, or a partially destroyed house.
In the case of staying in a tent, which is the most common case, we dig a two-meter hole in the ground and line it with whatever we can find — plastic, wood, anything available. Then we place a metal sheet over it. That hole is where all the bathing water and human waste goes, which allows the soil to absorb it. The hole is usually dug outside the bathroom itself.
Inside the makeshift toilet, we place a toilet seat and a sink, with the help of basic plumbing skills. To flush the toilet, we pour in a gallon of water. Because of overcrowding, toilets get blocked and flood quickly. That’s why we limit flushing them to only three times a day, to avoid flooding and save water, especially during severe shortages. Every flush costs a gallon of water.
The construction of a bathroom inside a house is the same, except it is placed on a cement floor instead of sand.
Most displaced families do not have $700 to spend on building such a bathroom. That is why they rely mainly on public ones, if they exist, in the camp. These bathrooms are often in catastrophic condition, lacking water, sanitation, and privacy. From early morning, children, the elderly, women, and men stand in endless lines, creating conditions where diseases spread quickly like hepatitis, cholera, typhoid, dysentery, and skin infections.
When we were forced by the military ground invasion to evacuate for the second time after fleeing my city, Rafah, we left with no clue where to go. Three families moved together: my family, my uncle’s family, and my aunt’s family. We had children with us, my disabled sitto (grandmother), and two elderly relatives.
Thankfully, a displaced friend hosted and welcomed us into a house still under construction, where he was staying with his extended family. The house was already overcrowded with five families before we arrived. With us, it became eight families living in the same half-built building. That meant eating together, spending most of our time together, and of course sharing the same toilet.
We found ways to make dark humor out of it. We’d knock on the toilet door the very second someone went in, telling them to hurry up. In the mornings, we’d race each other to see who would be the lucky one to get in first.
Reflecting on these displacement horror tales, there are some stories that I will never forget, stories about the first family who knocked on our door, the family who stayed with us in Rafah for eight months, my relatives who were displaced starting on Day One of the genocide, and much more. I think of them, of the people I worked with, and how all of our stories somehow ended the same way. We all had to go through this. Maybe in different places, under different conditions, but we were all pushed toward the same fate.
I watched their struggle first, and then I lived my own version of it.
And I’m not just talking about how Gaza was carved into smaller and smaller sections, with people displaced one area at a time. I’m talking about something bigger. A wider pattern. Everyone thinks this kind of suffering is distant, something happening to someone else, somewhere else. But that’s the dangerous part.
Your turn can come.
If the world continues to allow this to happen, if no real action is taken to end the occupation and rebuild Gaza, this will not remain Gaza’s story alone. Gaza will become a warning of what the future can look like for the world.
