we are not numbers
emerging writers from Palestine tell their stories and advocate for their human rights
The horrors of forced moves from one shelter to another for 20 months is nothing compared to losing my father, uncle, and brother.
Ein surveying the damage of her neighborhood in North Gaza. Photo: Ein Alhia Haneya
Before the war, I never thought I’d travel across all of North Gaza. But during the war? I have lived in places across all of the north—and more.
I have experienced things I never imagined I would—starting with the fact that I was separated from my father and half of my family for 15 months due to the Israeli army blocking access to the south. Sadly, I now know that separation would be the least of my worries.
We were living in our home in Shuja’iya when the war began. We left for Al-Zaytoun, then we were ordered to evacuate to western Gaza. So we went to Al-Jalaa, two days before the truce commenced on Nov. 24, 2023.
The whole extended family gathered in one place, thinking we’d leave the next morning, when the truce was set for 7:00 a.m.
But that night we would experience our very first ground siege. While we were sleeping, we suddenly woke to the sounds of tanks, bullets, and shelling. At first, we couldn’t believe it was a ground invasion. But the tanks stopped at our building and it became very real. They shelled the floor above us in our building. Many people were injured.
It was around 5 a.m. and we huddled together in one room for safety. Then our floor was hit. We had no medical help or equipment for the wounded and all we could do was to stay put amongst the devastation and pray for the truce to come into effect at 7 a.m.
I was trembling with fear. It was the first ground invasion of Al-Jalaa, and we were not used to it yet. At 6:55, the shelling increased, then suddenly at 7 a.m. the tanks began to withdraw. They had tried to inflict the greatest amount of damage and destruction they could before they were forced to pause. The wounded were eventually taken to the hospital. This was my first unforgettable trauma of the war.
We returned to Al-Zaytoun. Three days later, we were besieged again at night. This invasion was even worse as tanks surrounded us completely. I looked into my mother’s eyes; she wanted to tell us it would all be OK but she couldn’t. There was a narrow path leading to another neighborhood, so we used it to try and escape the bombardment.
Drones fired indiscriminately down at us in the narrow escape route, causing brutal death and destruction. I saw desperately injured people in front of me, and wished I could help, but we had to get away to safety.
The situation continued to deteriorate. This has been the one constant during this bitterly long war. We were starving. There was no flour. No food. Not even any clean water.
We walked through the streets which were full of displaced people from Shuja’iya, Al-Daraj, and Al-Zaytoun. For the first time, I saw tanks up close. I held my mom’s hand tightly, thinking it might be our last moment together. Tanks would fire randomly at unarmed civilians. Everyone would run, leaving their belongings and scrambling away to safety.
We didn’t have a clear destination. We were just walking with the crowds, not knowing where to go. It was still early in the war and every area was dangerous. Eventually, we reached Khalil Al-Wazir School.
The school was overcrowded. There was no space for us there so we went to Al-Shifa Hospital instead.
Al-Shifa was like a scene from a horror movie. It was empty and left in ruins. Blood on the floors, doctors’ coats tossed aside, rooms shattered, and the courtyard destroyed. The belongings of previous displaced families were still there where they had left them. My heart was racing and it felt haunted.
We entered Al-Shifa on Dec. 4, 2023, and lived there for 48 days, some of the worst in my life. There was no clean water, so people caught diseases. We waited in lines from dawn till dusk just to get a few buckets of salty water. And starvation changed us.
A view out of a window at Al-Shifa Hospital taken during Ein’s stay there. Photo: Ein Alhia Haneya
There was no internet, no phone signal. One night, my phone rang and everybody was shocked—a weak connection had broken through the Israeli siege. It was my dad, Ahmad Haneya.
Ein’s father, Ahmad Hhaneya. Photo: Ein Alhia Haneya
I cried uncontrollably. I couldn’t speak. He told us everything would be OK. That we would reunite. That we were strong. It was the first time I had heard his voice in months. I savor that memory now, despite it being from the haunted wreckage of a hospital.
Eventually, the hospital filled with displaced people. We were besieged again. A shell hit our floor. A little girl was injured. My brother, Fadi, and I carried her as she fell into a coma. Many others were wounded. There was death and destruction everywhere.
Ein’s brother, Fadi Haneya. Photo: Ein Alhia Haneya
We left for a house in Al-Nasr, near Al-Shifa. But things continued to get worse. People were starving and would flock to points on the outskirts of the city to collect food. So the Israelis would use the opportunity to massacre us beside the flour trucks.
Every day, there would be more injuries and more deaths. Men would go out at night and return either wounded, martyred, or miraculously alive—with or without flour.
My brother escaped death at least three times. I clung onto the hope that we’d both make it through these desperate days together.
We were besieged again in Al-Nasr for two days. We fled under gunfire and shelling. Back to Al-Zaytoun. Then again back to Al-Nasr.
During Ramadan in 2024, Israel re-invaded Al-Shifa. We were right next to it. We were besieged for five days, fasting and breaking our fast with nothing. Children were fainting from extreme hunger. Famine spread across the north. We couldn’t take it anymore. We prayed Istikhara (for guidance from God) and decided to leave, even if it meant martyrdom.
We raised a white flag and walked. Drones hovered above us. But we survived, and eventually reached my sister’s house. It felt miraculous that they hadn’t taken the chance to butcher us like they had done to so many others in the same position.
This account reflects only the most severe and traumatic displacements we experienced. In reality, we had to move repeatedly within the same areas—from one shelter to another—so that the total count of our displacements has reached more than 25.
Through famine, bombing, displacement, and siege—we had survived. Our home was bombed. We had been trapped under rubble but miraculously escaped. We had lost many loved ones. We had lost our future. And there was no end in sight.
Even after the truce that commenced on Jan. 19, 2025, when our families returned from the south, the war resumed as if it had never stopped. The suffering continued. And we kept enduring.
I was reunited with my father after many long months without him. My brother and I had survived that bitter separation together. Drawing strength from each other. I wasn’t naive enough to think that we would get a happy ending, though.
And on May 15, just a few days before my sixteenth birthday, the darkest day of my life arrived.
That night, I had been up late playing on my phone. I thought I heard my father call me from his room so I went in to see him. He told me to go back to bed and get some sleep. Just 15 minutes later, an airstrike hit our home.
At first, I couldn’t comprehend what had happened. Everything was dark and my room was filled with smoke. I was choking and barely able to breathe. A window had fallen on me and my back was covered in cuts. Despite my injuries, I got up quickly and called out for my father, uncle, and brother. I found my mother and younger siblings who were safe. But the explosion had hit the room where my father Ahmad, brother Fadi, and uncle Foad were sleeping. There was only silence.
Ein’s uncle, Foad Haneya. Photo: Ein Alhia Haneya
We began to scream their names, praying for a response. I rushed into the room, trying to search for them, but nothing was visible—just rubble and destruction. Our neighbors also came to help us dig through the debris, and soon ambulances arrived. Eventually we found them beneath the rubble.
The pain of losing my father, brother, and uncle is unbearable. The trauma I carry is beyond words. Since then, everything has changed. The silence of their absence haunts every moment. I am left to carry their memories and the weight of grief.
This tragic loss marks a new chapter in my story—one filled with sorrow, but also with a quiet promise: to keep their memories alive and continue fighting for a future they deserved.
