we are not numbers
emerging writers from Palestine tell their stories and advocate for their human rights
Ibrahim’s crime was to stand near a target, and his death was sanitized by the term ‘collateral damage.’
Ibrahim Munifi (r) with the author, two months before his death at Deir Al-Balah’s beach. Photo: Said Alsaloul
There is a silence that is louder than any words. It is the silence where a friend’s voice should be. This silence aches in my heart, especially when I am alone with my thoughts.
Ibrahim Munifi and I did not grow apart, nor did we abandon each other’s company. Our friendship was interrupted by an Israeli airstrike that took his life and was justified by the killers as “unavoidable collateral damage.” In June 2024 I tasted the erasure of not only our friendship but also our future as business partners.
My name is Said Alsaloul, and I am a 26-year-old English teacher. My passion for English was ignited when I met Ibrahim in secondary school in 2016. I first noticed Ibrahim when our teacher asked us a tricky grammar question: “When do we use ‘were’ after ‘I’?” Without hesitating, Ibrahim raised his hand and said, “When we are speaking of impossible conditions.”
His fluency was like that of native English speakers. But he wasn’t just a student; he was more like a friend to our charismatic teacher.
I approached him because he had what I longed for — English fluency. We shared the same desk and we spoke English a lot, exchanged letters, and taught each other new words and idioms. We fueled each other’s love for the language all the way to university.
Upon graduating from high school, we both signed up to major in English literature. I enrolled at the Islamic University and Ibrahim at Al-Azhar University. The two universities in Gaza City shared a wall.
But studying English literature proved quite challenging for me and Ibrahim understood that I needed support. We frequently attended each other’s lectures at our adjacent universities — we sat side by side on the same bench, just as we had done in secondary school. His presence made me confident in my abilities.
In addition to his fluency in English, he was very eloquent in Arabic. He could recite poems and proverbs with ease, and they were a joy to listen to.
We both graduated in 2022 and resolved to build an English training center in Gaza City — a source of income, but more important, a way to pursue our passion for language. We would meet at a coffeeshop by the sea to discuss our business plan.
But no sooner had we detailed our plan on paper than the war started and shattered everything. We would resume our planning “after the war,” we told ourselves. But the war dragged on for longer than we had imagined. As the situation in Gaza became bloodier and starvation worsened, our focus moved from ambition to survival.
The war turned my friend, the future professor, into an e-currency trader and me into a writer documenting people’s suffering. This was all I could do — write about the unbearable agony of my people. It was not cathartic but more of a duty. Both of us were just trying to serve as buffers against starvation endured by our families.
The last time I saw Ibrahim, we were both empty-stomached, holding tight to our belief that what was meant for us would find us and that we should be content with what we had. We did not follow the example of those who mugged the feeble living on the edge of death just to grab their meager rations or those who robbed aid trucks.
Ibrahim’s generous heart shone brightly during Ramadan in 2024, when he suggested we give charity to families living in the tent camps. He gathered nearly $1,000 in cash. I contributed another $100. Our mission was to distribute the money to the hardest hit families before Iftar time.
A suffocating cash crisis crippled Gazans. While markets dealt in e-currency, they charged a devastating 40 percent commission. The banknotes in our hands were a rare and desperately desired cashflow.
We wandered through the tent camps, searching for those with the greatest need. We had to be careful; if we got noticed, a crowd would have surrounded us in an instant. After all, all of us were in need.
Because of Ibrahim, dozens of families broke their fast that night with happiness in their hearts.
On June 16, 2025, as I was scrolling through the Deir Al-Balah Telegram channel my eyes froze on a name: “Three martyrs in Abu Arief Street…Ibrahim Mustafa Munifi.”
For a few seconds, I was paralyzed. I turned off the screen. “That’s my friend!” I whispered, in a desperate attempt to control my breathing. “I saw it. It was Ibrahim.”
I rushed toward my room in search of a pair of clean jeans and T-shirt. While changing, my hands trembled as I grabbed my phone and dialed Ibrahim’s number, hoping he would answer. But there was no answer. Ibrahim always answered the first call; I never had to call back a second time.
On the 20-minute ride from Al-Maghazi to his home in Deir Al-Balah, I tried his number again. This time, the line connected.
“As-salamu alaykum! Ibrahim?” I said, overwhelmed with a sudden fragile hope.
Silence.
“Ibrahim!” I shouted.
The silence turned into muffled sobs.
“Your friend is dead, Said!” Ibrhaim’s mother moaned. “Your friend died. Pray for him.”
My heart pounded terribly. I froze for a second. I could not imagine my life going forward without him.
I tried to calm the distressed mother. “May Allah have mercy on his soul. I am sure he is happy now. He was a generous, good person. Where is he now?” I asked. I knew Ibrahim would be sad for his mother to be so distressed so I had to act like him, at least for the last time.
“In the morgue. Al-Aqsa hospital.”
At the morgue, I saw five shrouds lying side by side. Ibrahim’s name was on one of them, but as I moved to unzip it, a paramedic yelled, “Do not unzip the shroud!” In a soft voice he explained that earlier that afternoon a missile had fallen on a crowd, killing three instantly. Ibrahim’s crime was to stand near a target, and his death was sanitized by the term “collateral damage.”
Writing about Ibrahim is the only gift I can give to my friend and offers the last connection, the only thread leading me to my memories of him.
This article is co-published with Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.
