we are not numbers
emerging writers from Palestine tell their stories and advocate for their human rights
These symbols of joy had become a source of fear, but also of resolve.
The last birthday cake before the war, in 2022. Photo: Alaa Dmeida
I have always loved the month of October, the month of my birth. That whole month was full of joy and anticipation for the next-to-last day, the 30th, my birthday. And not just mine, but my twin sister, Amna’s, too. We flew through those days as if on wings, impatient for the sun to set on the 29th, the signal that the celebrations could begin, the family would gather, and the gifts would start flowing.
On our seventeenth birthday in 2022, my parents, my aunts, and all our friends gathered around the cake. Smiles covered their faces as they watched us blow out the candles. I whispered my wish in a hushed voice: “Oh, God! Grant us in Gaza happiness all the time and bless us with peace.” They responded in one voice, “Amen.”
The year ahead, though, was no ordinary year in my life. As a 17-year-old girl, I was in the last and most important grade in the Palestinian educational system, and I was planning for my academic future at university. After getting 98% in the science track at Tawjihi high school, my course was set to go to university for higher studies.
In the fall of 2023, I was very excited for my eighteenth birthday. I planned every detail of it.
But then, on October 7, the destructive war began — and the Alaa that existed before that day became a different person.
Nevertheless, in 2024 there was reason for optimism, and when I was about to turn 19, I was again filled with excitement, longing to celebrate my birthday in our home in Jabalia. My sister and I would be defying death, fear, and suffering.
But dreams in Gaza are fragile; they shatter too easily. The war continued, fierce and merciless, turning my anticipation into terror and my hopes into empty shells. Starvation was worsening. We were displaced, living in a tent in southern Gaza. Yet, I still hoped that our house would remain standing, waiting for us.
After a brief pause in the fighting, it returned in March, and I had to face the fact that my birthday could come with war. Still, I held onto the idea that our partially damaged home might endure long enough for us to spend that special day there. On June 11, 2025, however, missiles fell like rain, and our home — the heart of our memories — was reduced to rubble. My hope of spending another special day under its roof vanished in the blink of an eye.
On that day, my parents and I spoke to each other in the hardest language of all, the language of eyes. My parents did not have to say a word. I could understand those looks — sad, full of self-blame, and saying, “We’re sorry, our beloved daughters. We wish things were better. We wish you could have the joy you deserve.”
On October 11, 2025, my father burst into the tent we were living in as I was studying for my university final exams. He announced jubilantly that U.S. President Trump’s ceasefire proposal had come into effect. I was exultant. Could it be that the war would end before my birthday on October 30? Finally, I thought, my twentieth birthday will come without war.
Reality was something else though, because the ceasefire was not a ceasefire for Israel and its forces. They freely violated the terms of the agreement, the shootings were ongoing, and the deaths were beyond counting.
We did mark our birthday on October 30, but the smiles in our parents’ eyes were through pain. The moment of happiness we all wanted was no real celebration, not in a fancy place but a simple tent. As they sang “Happy birthday to you,” it just sounded flat.
Everything felt heavy when the moment came to blow out the candles. I gazed at their dancing orange light and it reminded me of the flames that come out of exploding bombs. When my sister and I leaned over and blew them out together, it was like turning off the light at the end of two dark chapters of my life.
The birthday treats offered for sale in a sweet shop, 2025. Photo: Alaa Dmeida
I have lived a fifth of a century. The past two years, 24 months, have felt like centuries. They were full of fear, displacement, and chaos. I could never have imagined what I’ve experienced — the search for food and water, the lack of safety, the loss of so many people I cared about. Also, the inner battles to smile and to endure pain, hunger, and fear.
As 2025 came to an end, the rest of the world exchanged cheers and promises of better times ahead, but we in Gaza were only able to say goodbye to a year that exhausted our souls and face another that carries only the burden of surviving.
What I and my twin sister have lost — our innocence and the possibility of believing the world is fair; a feeling of safety that I never appreciated when I had it; part of my childhood and youth; years that were meant for studying and dreaming that became years of searching for water, medicine, and food; years of the joy of being alive — is irreplaceable.
In the middle of all this destruction, which almost broke me, I discovered a force inside me I didn’t know I had: a patience beyond human limits. I have the ability to keep going. I have gained an understanding of life. I now value every bite of food, every sip of water, every piece of bread, and every moment of quiet.
I learned the meaning of hope by waking up every morning despite everything. It is warming your hands over a small fire, and studying, because education has become our only weapon in Gaza. Hope is drawing a smile on a frightened child’s face.
While the rest of the world wrote plans for the new year — plans for change and achievement — we in Gaza made lists for rebuilding what the war has destroyed; of the people we’ve lost, so they are never reduced to numbers; lists of ways to protect children and the elderly from the winter cold; lists of shelters, and lists of humanitarian aid organizations to register with.
My New Year’s wish is not for a new year, but for the year before the war to return, to a time of peace, safety, family, friends, and home. Gazans are trying to live a normal life, but with that being impossible, I repeat the only wish left to us: Enough. We have paid the price with our blood, our homes, our childhoods, and our dreams. There must be an end to this.
Happy 2026 to me, and to my twin sister, Amna — not just for reaching another year, but for surviving, for growing, and for daring to hope for a better future.
