we are not numbers
emerging writers from Palestine tell their stories and advocate for their human rights
Grief, loss, and fear have destroyed the possibility of celebrating what should be the happiest occasions.
A car carrying a wedding couple, with two young relatives perched on top, followed by a musical band playing drums as part of the wedding procession, July 2026. Photo: Ohood Nasser
I never expected to attend a wedding and leave in tears.
I stood by the window of my aunt’s house in Beit Lahia, lifting my head in the hope of catching a glimpse of our home, now trapped inside the Israeli-controlled “red zone.” After two and half years of repeated Israeli airstrikes, I barely recognized my neighborhood, once as intimately familiar as my own home. The streets had disappeared, the houses were gone, and my home, the place where, until October 7, 2023, I was still a child with “normal” dreams and aspirations, was nothing but sand and rubble. I managed to identify our home only by using the Indonesian Hospital as a landmark — the only semi-intact structure left after everything around it had been deliberately and senselessly destroyed.
From a distance, I saw an Israeli tank and soldiers positioned near where our house should have stood. The view was blurred by distance, but it was clear enough to break my heart. I wished I could walk to the ruins, sit among the broken concrete, and mourn the life taken from us. But genocide includes forced separation from all we ever knew, and this was just one more right I would not be allowed to exercise.
Ironically, the reason I was there was not to visit my home, but to attend my cousin’s wedding.
Let me tell you something important about life in Gaza. Before the genocide, weddings were among the happiest days of our lives. Families, neighbors, and friends would gather together to honor the new couple with singing, dancing, and ululations that lasted late into the night.
I remember the wedding of my cousin Hassan, the last family member to be married before our lives became a living hell. His wedding was a large, boisterous celebration, filled with joy and optimism. Our entire family attended and we spent the evening dancing and singing together, sharing moments of genuine happiness. We didn’t know that life was about to become much, much harder, and that weddings would be replaced by funerals for beloved family, friends, and neighbors. And Hassan did not know that on October 10, 2023, he would be forced to flee his home and would, to this day, be living in a tent with his bride, and now their children.
We didn’t know about the horrors and terror that lay ahead on the day of Hassan’s wedding. With the women gathered together at my aunt’s house, we sang traditional Palestinian folk songs as one of the guests played a traditional drum, and we ended each song with joyful ululations echoing throughout the house. Are you familiar with ululations? We love to ululate, using long, high-pitched, rapid trilling sounds made by oscillating our tongues. It is a cherished part of our cultural heritage and we use it to express our happiness, our solidarity.
The most exuberant voice always belonged to my Aunt Umm, mother of Abdullah, the cousin whose wedding I was now attending. She loved traditional wedding songs and would sing blessings for the newlyweds in a deeply emotional, rhythmic voice:
“Congratulations to the bride and groom. May God fill your home with happiness and bless you with sons and daughters. Congratulations to the parents of the bride and groom — may joy always remain in your homes.”
Aunt Umm used to love weddings more than anyone. She was always smiling and would often say, “I hope this happiness never leaves my home.”
But happiness did leave her home after Israel murdered her husband in December 2025. To this day, Aunt Umm refuses to discuss the details of his death. But we know it was terrible and unnecessary, and that her life is now filled with the deep pain of this devastating loss.
Along with my uncle, part of my aunt also died. The woman who once filled weddings with song has disappeared. She no longer laughs as she used to. Even when someone tries to make her laugh, she can only offer a faint smile in return. Widowed in the prime of her life, Aunt Umm now shoulders the responsibilities of both mother and father for her eight children.
My aunt and her family have returned to the ruins of their destroyed home in Beit Lahia, near the Yellow Line. After spending more than a year sheltering in a tent in Khan Younis, the ceasefire was declared, the Israeli forces withdrew from their neighborhood, and they were able to return. Though Aunt Umm knew the house was not livable in, she was driven to return by her memories of my uncle and the life they had shared.
Almost nothing remained of the house where they had spent their married life raising their children, building and living their lives. She replaced the missing walls with canvas tarps and turned the shattered building into a place to live. And despite massive loss and grief, Aunt Umm managed to move forward with plans for the marriage of her eldest son, Abdullah, a responsible and hard-working 27 year old, trying his best to live the life he had envisioned before October 7.
On June 15, we set off for Aunt Umm’s “house.” What used to be a short trip — only about 20 minutes, before the genocide — had turned into a much longer and more exhausting journey under the current conditions.
The vehicle shook constantly as we drove over roads buried beneath rubble. When we arrived at the wedding “venue,” we found a simple structure made of wooden poles and tarpaulins erected beside their destroyed home. Colored sheets hung overhead with a few strings of lights, surrounded by mountains of debris and garbage. The air was thick with dust rising from the ruins, and the music played softly, as though even the speakers were muted by the ongoing genocide.
My aunt tried to smile at her guests, but the pain in her face was impossible to hide.
The wedding “party” was just a few close relatives. Many family members did not have transportation as the roads are mostly impassable; others feared Israeli attacks. Even my aunt’s neighbors were mostly absent; after their homes were destroyed, they were all forcibly displaced to areas further south. The wedding was held close to the Yellow Line, and throughout the celebration we feared that gunfire could shatter the evening. People kept whispering the same prayer:
“May God help us get through this day safely.”
We did our best to be cheerful but the celebration was tinged with sadness and ended abruptly at five o’clock in the afternoon. Before October 7, weddings would start in the afternoon and continue until late into the night. But fear continues to dictate our lives, and relatives displaced to southern Gaza were afraid of traveling back after dark. We all tried to feel happy and hopeful. We wanted to put aside our sorrow and memories of death and terror, but we could not. The losses have been too enormous and our fears remain. I kept asking myself and God what happened to our world. How is it that we must fear for our safety as we celebrate a marriage and the future it should represent?
I, too, had been afraid to attend my cousin’s wedding, and though I was sad when it was over, I left with something I had longed for — I was able to see the remains of my destroyed home. Even from a distance, even though I could not reach it, even though an Israeli tank stood beside it, seeing it meant so much to me. I could not touch its walls or sit on its rubble, but simply seeing it brought me closer to the home I have missed every single day, and to the memories of our lives before October 7.
Now married, Abdullah and his wife are doing their best to look beyond their difficult circumstances and build a stable life. For his six sisters and his younger brother Adam, Abdullah has become a father figure. He has the enormous and unjust responsibility for their well-being, guiding them, offering advice, and caring for them with the love and compassion of a parent. He does this without complaint, but his life is undeservedly hard and his future, along with that of his new wife, very uncertain.
