we are not numbers

emerging writers from Palestine tell their stories and advocate for their human rights

An older woman with hijab and someone's arm around her shoulder.

Reunited forever

The entire family of my Aunt Sanaa was killed, one after the other.
Young woman with hijab.
An older woman with hijab and someone's arm around her shoulder.
Aunt Sanaa. Photo: Nadera Mushtha

On October 28, 2023, we gathered in a small white room in my grandparents’ home in the Al-Shuja’iyya neighborhood. It was considered the safest place to be. My uncles, aunts, and cousins were all there, including my Aunt Sanaa’s family. They stayed with us for more than month, because their home was in an unsafe area in our street.

Laughter echoed around as we told stories. The sound of children playing was like a balm amidst the early days of a war that brought so much sorrow and exhaustion.

Every day at night, my siblings and our friends and I sat in the living room together, playing and telling stories about us and about our past. We were thinking about what we would do after the war and what the reunion with our relatives in southern Gaza would be like.

I loved my Aunt Sanaa’s stories. She was one of the 18 relatives gathered with us. I waited eagerly for her laughter and to see her radiant smile. She once said to us, “Whoever brings me the ceasefire announcement will get a great gift.”

She told us how she missed her young daughter Saja, who is in Egypt, and what she would do to prepare for their meeting again.

Mona, Sanaa’s daughter, laughed while saying, “If I die, I pray my body remains whole — not torn to pieces.” Mona’s niece added, “If I die, please put a light on my grave. I hate the dark.”

Mona spoke glowingly of her son (and Sanaa’s grandson), Yousef. He had just begun studying at the medical and dental college — only 11 days before the war erupted. He was bright and ambitious, dreaming of becoming a great doctor. He would tell us wistfully, “I just want to complete even one semester at university.”

Yousef kidded me when the Islamic University — my university — become rubble. He said to me, laughing, “My university is still standing and yours is not.”

A young man with celebratory flower necklace and balloons.
Yousef at his high school graduation celebration. Photo: Nadera Mushtha

That evening, I went to the kitchen to make tea. With no electricity, I used my phone’s flashlight to see what I was doing. As steam rose from the kettle, an explosion suddenly shook our home. The house trembled violently.

I abandoned the tea and ran back to the room where everyone had gathered. Children were crying, while my youngest siblings clung to my mother’s lap. Something felt strange — we could see gray smoke even though there was none. Later, we realized that it was fear that we saw.

Minutes later, a figure with trembling hands and a quivering voice knocked on our door. The person told us that Israeli warplanes had struck a location where Aunt Sanaa’s son had been staying with his friends. Screams erupted; everyone cried as that familiar heartbreak swept over us.

Hours later, we learned that he was the sole survivor of a massacre that claimed over 15 lives — mostly women and children. But he had lost a finger in the attack. His sister Mona somberly remarked, “His finger went to heaven before him.”

On November 21, 2023, at dawn, heavy bombardment jolted us awake once more. This time it struck Aunt Sanaa’s home directly; her home was in the same street that we live in. Her sons and husband were killed.

When I looked outside from our broken window that day, I saw Yousef, wearing a gray pajama, trying to find the martyrs under their home’s rubble. I saw some torn flesh in the street and above the trees, I saw the three martyrs. I saw Yousef with his cousins looking at the martyrs, in the last meeting with them.

That day was unbearable. Aunt Sanaa’s face was etched with an abiding sorrow.

On November 28, 2023, during a brief humanitarian ceasefire, we went to the house that Aunt Sanaa’s family had taken to as a shelter. Mona said, “I pray Allah reunites us all soon. How can we go on living without them?”

At dawn on December 2, 2023, there was another explosion near our street. My father and uncles went out to investigate where the missiles had struck. My father returned with devastating news: Aunt Sanaa’s entire family had perished.

Our dear friend Yousef also ascended to heaven; his dreams vanished along with his body. His mother would never see him donning a white lab coat as he had dreamed — she too became torn flesh, as she had feared. They didn’t just kill Yousef; they destroyed his childhood dream of becoming a great doctor.

Aunt Sanaa’s entire family now rests together in one grave. They are laughing together far away from war and death.

Mona’s prayer had become true. The reunion now is forever, the whole family killed one after the other, the whole family gone to heaven like the finger of my Aunt Sanaa’s son.

A year later, we were still under relentless bombardment.

And even now, with the ceasefire, we are still cold and hungry, but steadfast in our resolve: to turn our deaths into stories that endure; to remain after we are gone.

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