we are not numbers
emerging writers from Palestine tell their stories and advocate for their human rights
For so long we have wondered, when will it be our turn to see our names on the list of high-scoring Tawjihi students?
A card of congratulations and box of chocolates celebrate my friend Moaz Yaghi’s Tawjihi results. Photo: Mohammed Al Ta’ban
I was looking for bread to eat on July 27, 2025. We hadn’t eaten bread for two days. Finally, I found one flour seller in the market. I stood in line, hoping my turn would come. My best friend Moaz Yaghi saw me and, as usual, asked about the Tawjihi exams and whether I was ready for it. Tawjihi is the all-important exam at the end of 12th grade that determines whether students will get accepted into universities and what they might be allowed to study.
I answered simply, “Today, I am writing my name on the bread list.”
Two years earlier, in July 2023, the day of high school results, I had watched closely as Moaz waited for his results. Everyone was counting seconds with excitement and anxiety. He and his family exchanged looks full of both fear and hope. He kept looking at his phone. Suddenly, it vibrated with a notification. He looked at the screen and then at us, exclaiming: “94!”
Cheers and ululations filled the air. Everyone hugged one another. Songs of success rang out. His father ordered sweets and boxes of soda to distribute to relatives and neighbors who visited nonstop to offer their congratulations. The result of 12 years of hard work was crowned by the message: “Congratulations! You passed the Tawjihi with a score of 94.”
I can’t count how many students in Gaza dream of receiving that message.
How I studied in Rafah after we were displaced in early 2024. Photo: Mohammed Al Ta’ban
When I hugged my friend and congratulated him on his great achievement, he whispered, “Now it’s your turn. I want to see your name on the list of high-scoring students.” He promised to help me through the coming years.
I was about to start high school, with less than a month to prepare. I chose the science track with the aim of winning a scholarship to study engineering at a respected university abroad. The track includes math and physics, which are hard subjects, so I enrolled for private lessons before the school year started.
In Gaza, we care a lot about the Tawjihi exam; we see it as a crucial step and a gateway to the rest of one’s life. As a result, preparations are serious and intense. Every home in Gaza feels the weight of the Tawjihi. It is like coming of age.
I set up a quiet study room at home. My parents excused me from household chores and provided all the support I needed. My mother made sure I had a cup of coffee or tea during study hours. She stayed up with me, whispering prayers before dawn and never sleeping until I finished. My father told my younger siblings not to play or make any noise that would disturb me.
The scenes of success and joy from Moaz’s celebration stayed with me and kept me going during exam preparation. I still have the images of that beautiful moment. Words cannot explain how much I looked forward to that moment — for me, my family, and my people. I wanted to experience the same happiness as my friend.
And then war broke out in October 2023. Schools and universities were forced to close. Despite the hard conditions, my friends and I continued studying as much as we could, trying to keep up with lessons, knowing our future depended on it. I studied the school material on my own. When I got stuck on a lesson, I asked my friend Moaz for help, or turned to friends who had graduated in 2023. Even when everything around us collapsed, we didn’t give up. We held on to our dreams, and when it seemed impossible, we found a way forward.
By March 2025 we were facing a hunger that had been manufactured by the Israeli blockade of food, water, and medical supplies.
Overnight our priority was not to study but to get in line early for bread and aid. Overnight we searched not for a quiet study space but for water and electricity.
How I studied before the war. Photo: Mohammed Al Ta’ban
When the war began, we thought it would last no more than two weeks. But two weeks turned into months, and months turned into years.
My close friend Hassan Abu Qamar and I had hoped that we would be able to take our exams on time — in June 2024. Even when we were displaced in Rafah earlier that year, we worked hard, tried to ignore everything around us, and focused only on our studies. My friend Moaz kept in constant contact to help me with any difficultly as I was grinding through my preparations. I stuck to my program, focused and disciplined.
When we couldn’t take the exams that June, we were full of despair and frustration. Our frustration peaked when the results from the West Bank schools were announced on July 27, 2025, for the second year in a row.
While we mourned the loss of our year in Gaza, our fellow students in the West Bank celebrated their results. We were busy lining up for water, bread, and aid instead of standing in line to get our graduation certificates.
And now a third enemy has appeared: hunger. Since Israel imposed the siege on the Gaza Strip in March 2025, we have all put aside our studies. It is impossible to concentrate. We are hungry, displaced, and targeted by bombs and bullets.
It is not surprising that we have lost the ability to focus. We have also lost hope in ever being able to take the exams. All of us, without exception, roam the markets and the streets. We no longer search for answers to tough exam questions, but instead search for something to quell our hunger, something to regain focus, something to hold onto — for hope, or life itself.
Today, I see my peers in the West Bank enrolling in universities, while I join lines for water and bread. They continue their education, while I continue to search for a bag of flour.
In the West Bank, they sit on sturdy wooden desks, writing their futures in black ink on bright white paper, their dreams shining like raindrops. They leave the classrooms laughing, taking photos and counting the days until the results are announced.
And in Gaza, on the same land, we stand in endless lines, holding bread cards instead of exam cards, writing our names on aid lists instead of exam papers.
Their exam consists of 40 questions and lasts for two hours. Our exam has dragged for years and appears to be open-ended, with questions revolving around death, displacement and hunger.
In the West Bank, they have achieved their big dream of passing the Tawjihi with high scores. I wait to achieve my big dream too: to get a bag of flour.
There, ink writes the answers. Here, blood writes the story: We have war and no schools, and what we want most in the world is to return to school.
This article is co-published with Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.
Postscript from the writer: This essay was written in August 2025, at the height of hunger and despair; there was no glimmer of hope, no sense of relief. I took my high school exams in mid-September amid the famine and received my results (90.4%) in mid-October, just days after a ceasefire was signed. Gradually, life began to improve and food became available, though at sky-high prices. Now, having finally completed my high school diploma after being stuck in limbo for two years because of the war, I am seeking a scholarship to continue my education abroad.
