we are not numbers
emerging writers from Palestine tell their stories and advocate for their human rights
One displaced Gazan family bonds with strangers and finds comfort in a friend amid ongoing uncertainty and genocide.
The fallen dove. Photo: Hashim Alashi
The chilling blare of evacuation warnings pierce the fragile silence but the Israeli army offers no map to safety and no designated safe haven. They simply unleash their relentless barrage, forcing us to flee into a terrifying unknown.
After hiding underneath our dining table from the continuous shelling, and with more than 30 warnings of indiscriminate bombing, we decided to leave our home at Al-Karama and travel to my mother’s family home in Tal Al-Hawa.
By the time we reached my grandparents’ house, also in northern Gaza, warning messages were rife there too, so we went to Al- Zahra city.
At midnight, under the indiscriminate bombing and with thousands of other innocent people, we escaped to Palestine University in the downtown area before leaving again for my aunt’s home in Tel Al-Sultan, Rafah, in southern Gaza.
The next displacement, our fourth, felt like the final severing—a complete and abrupt cutoff from any semblance of our former stability. The only perceived refuges were the distant Deir Al-Balah and the coastal stretch of Al-Mawasi. We chose the closer one, Al-Mawasi, in the expectation that the seaside would provide solace. Our life became what felt like a never-ending encampment under an indifferent sky.
My father drove; the car was a hollow reminder of our previous existence. We had no baggage or soothing comforters, only the naked imperative to leave. Our initial flight had been fueled with the assurance of a quick return, making belongings appear unnecessary. Disorientation swept over us as we traversed Al-Mawasi’s wild landscape. We knew no one.
Al-Mawasi, our beautiful camp. Photo: Ahmed Alashi
Searching from the car window, I said, “Dad, stop.” Alone, I approached a landowner by the sea, a figure of authority, and politely asked for a small piece of earth to create a shelter. He was Abu Mohammed Barhoum, a stranger. We started the cumbersome process of putting up our tent. Frustration rose as we discovered that parts were missing from the tent we had just purchased and darkness fell. Abu Mohammed, our surprise savior, offered us a tent of his for the night. Thus our kinship began.
We slept nestled together on the sandy floor. He provided food and warmth with a smile and said, “I house strangers here for one night, their first night of displacement. From this moment you are no longer strangers; we are all family now.”
The following day we went to the market to return the defective tent and buy a more expensive yet flimsy one to call home. Abu Mohammed’s nephews—Risha, Hamdan, Obaida, Kamal, and another Mohammed—formed an unusual construction team. We built our shelter, and then tent after tent for others, a crude defiance to being attacked.
Abu Mohammed’s family became our friends. We spent our days talking by the palm tree. Once, a dove fell next to Risha; he was surprised. I picked it up and flew it away. He laughed for half an hour.
I picked up the dove and flew it away. Photo: Hashim Alashi
We cooked maftool together—a Palestinian dish of hand-rolled couscous cooked with onions, chickpeas, and spices. Its familiar fragrance was a reminder of shared meals and a life before the bombing began.
My mother identified with their patient and powerful mother, and my sister with their sweet sister. We were family, united not by blood, but by a common trauma and the unexpected generosity that arose in its aftermath. I started working with my newfound brothers, helping to build a larger camp to accommodate the ever-increasing flow of displaced individuals.
Our tent, one of the first to appear on the sandy landscape of Al-Mawasi, was quickly surrounded by 400 or so new neighbors. In each of their features was etched the same mix of fear and determination.
Despite being a community of strangers rather than long-time neighbors, we were unified by our diverse refugee histories and our shared circumstances of displacement within the largest open-air prison in the world.
Ward, my university classmate, erected her tent half a kilometer away from ours. She had been my partner and confidant in a tiny business we had developed together. Our online store had thrived before the conflict burst through our lives, destroying our aspirations and scattering our hopes.
Ward’s presence in that bleak area provided a valuable link to a life before the bombings. As a native of Khan Younis, she generously shared her customs and enriched our makeshift community with her warmth and resilience.
I recall one evening when our combined desire for the comforting flavors of Gazan feta resulted in a funny realization. We lacked a vital ingredient: saj, the paper-thin bread that serves as the dish’s foundation. Ward, ever resourceful, insisted she knew how to create it. We described the precise talent required: talweeh, the nearly miraculous art of twirling the dough in the air to attain its delicate thinness.
Ward firmly declared that she knew talweeh. However, instead of performing the elegant aerial dance, she flattened the dough on her knee. From that moment on, every time we had saj, the memory of Ward’s earnest attempt and our shared laughter became a precious, light-hearted moment in the heavy tapestry of our days.
She became a compassionate and caring neighbor, reducing the enormous load on my mother, whose heart suffered even before the war. Living in the harsh conditions of a tent, with sweltering days followed by freezing nights, adaptation was a daily, agonizing struggle for her poor health.
Ward once hurried, carrying a huge pot of hot pork stew on her petite frame. It was a priceless treasure because meat was a scarce and valuable product in the destroyed markets at the time. She and her 16-year-old sister Sahed arrived, their faces filled with the joy of giving, eager to share their wonderful harvest with us.
Fortunately, my mother had made layali lubnan, a delicious and fragrant Lebanese delicacy. Ward took a small portion, savoring each bite, before carefully filling a large container to take back to her family’s tent.
Ward became noted for her distinct and adorable method of announcing her presence, her voice booming out with a cheery, “Auntttt Maha, Uncllllle Hashem!” She planned to return to her house in Khan Younis after Israeli soldiers began to withdraw, and as dawn broke the next morning, we felt the strong ache of her absence.
Suddenly her usual call rang across the campground. She had come to supervise the moving of their tent. We all spent the day together, as if we had carved for ourselves a temporary normalcy in that sandy expanse. Finally we accompanied Ward and her tent to the main road, ensuring her safe return.
After Ward and her family escaped, a comprehensive evacuation order for Rafah was issued. We remained at the camp until a night of horror destroyed our fragile peace. UNRWA shelters near our camp were bombed and many people were burned alive.
We fled from Rafah alone.
After staying two months with my father’s friend in east Khan Younis, Abu Mohammed Za’arab, the brother-in-law of Abu Mohammed Barhoum, offered his house in Khan Younis to shelter our family for our sixth displacement.
The house of my father’s friend in east Khan Younis. A 20-meter-deep hole blocked the entrance. Photo: Mohammed Alashi
We were so fearful of indiscriminate bombing that we only stayed for four days. A ceasefire had been negotiated and my family returned home to northern Gaza and stayed, even when the Israeli occupation broke the ceasefire and ordered residents to leave Al-Karama. Although Abu Mohammed Za’arab offered us his home in Khan Younis as a haven, we decided not to pack up and leave again. We had sold our car. My mother was no longer able to travel. We were too tired.
Then the Za’arab family was displaced to a relative’s home in Khan Younis as part of a wider effort to fully isolate Rafah from the rest of the Gaza Strip.
These unforeseen ties formed during displacement have become a vital part of my life. Solidarity binds these strange partnerships together. We will always support and care for each other as we face an uncertain future.
