we are not numbers
emerging writers from Palestine tell their stories and advocate for their human rights
With more than 14,000 people unaccounted for in Gaza, countless families live with the agony of not knowing what has happened to their loved ones.
More than 14,000 people are missing in Gaza. Photo: Hassan Abu Sitta
There are many stories and tales from Gaza that remain untold and undocumented simply because they are unknown. Missing stories are like their missing owners: We do not know if they are dead, alive, prisoners, or still under the rubble of the houses. Elders, children, women, and young people—all are missing. Where do we search for them?
The issue of the missing is critical in Gaza. According to the Center for Political and Development Studies, a research center based in Gaza, more than 14,000 people are missing.
In the Tel Al-Sultan neighborhood of Rafah, the psychological impact on families with missing relatives is embodied in the story of Ahmed Younis, a 14-year-old boy who miraculously escaped death only to find himself the sole surviving member of his household and alone in a world where he has lost everything.
It was a sunny Friday in early October 2023. The war was just beginning, and everything was still available in the market. Most families eat meat on Fridays and Ahmed went out to buy some for his family’s lunch. But this was not to be an ordinary Friday. As Ahmed was walking towards the market, planes flew over his house, dropping their missiles mercilessly, and turning four floors of residential housing into a pile of rubble and ash.
Ahmed was not there to witness this terrifying moment, but he returned to find emptiness filling the place that was once bustling with life. The smell of burnt dust choked his breath, and the sound of people screaming deafened his ears. Under the rubble, his father’s laughter was stifled, his grandmother’s warm embrace vanished, his grandfather’s wisdom faded, and the strength of his uncles vanquished. They were all there, under this mountain of concrete and iron, their bodies embracing each other in an eternal farewell.
The sound of ambulances, sirens and honking civil defense vehicles surrounded him and his neighbors as they tried to dig out the bodies.
After long hours of searching and digging through the rubble, they retrieved the bodies of everyone in the house except for Ahmed’s five-year-old sister. They found no trace of her. She was not recorded among the martyrs, and there was no evidence that she had passed away.
Perhaps she had been in another part of the house at the time of the bombing. Perhaps she was thrown by the blast into one of the neighbors’ houses. She had disappeared. Perhaps she had melted into the dust.
This absence cast a heavy shadow over little Ahmed’s heart, making him live in an endless nightmare.
Leaving everything behind, Ahmed moved in with his divorced mother, who had separated from his father years earlier. He lived in his mother’s house for several months before they were forced to flee to Khan Younis when the ground operation in Rafah began in May 2024. They ended up in a tent in the Mawasi area and this is where I met Ahmed, when I was visiting a friend there.
Ahmed tries to live a normal life, but it is never complete, and the memory of his sister never settles. Every now and then, when he goes to fill up drinking water , he sees children the same age as his sister. He returns to his mother, his eyes brimming with tears. With a trembling voice, he says, “I want to go and search for my sister, she hasn’t been martyred.”
Ahmed’s words tear at the heart. He sees his sister in his dreams, remembers the touch of her small hand, and hears her laughter that used to fill the house with love. This overwhelming longing, and the certainty that she did not die, drives him to return repeatedly, asking his mother to search for her. He looks for any thread, any sign, any stone that might hide her small body beneath it. Hers is a small body that has never left his imagination.
Ahmed is not the only one who feels the uncertainty of his sister’s fate in Gaza. How many families are still waiting for a glimmer of hope, or even a sad certainty to end the state of uncertainty they are living in? These stories remain suspended in an unknown space, between the classification of “martyr” and “missing.” The missing do not have a death certificate, and yet they are not present. Their fate is suspended. Neither alive nor dead, they live in a hazy space that burdens the souls of their loved ones.
Ahmed still hopes that his little sister is alive somewhere, waiting for someone to rescue her. His mind still refuses to accept the possibility of his sister’s death.
