we are not numbers
emerging writers from Palestine tell their stories and advocate for their human rights
For the suffering people in Gaza, making jokes keeps us from losing our minds.
To Gazans, this Batman meme circulating online reflects how tired Gazans are from barely edible canned food. Posted by Qasem, a friend of Roaa Aladdin Missmeh
“Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.”—Mark Twain
According to Charlie Chaplin, “To truly laugh, you must be able to take your pain, and play with it.” In that case, we Gazans must be world-class comedians, because in Gaza, pain is all we have to play with.
The dictionary tells us that laughter is a spontaneous expression of amusement, usually in response to something funny. No mention of war at all. In fact, when we think of war, we can probably imagine everything but laughter. What kind of person laughs while bombs fall? A madman? A coward? Or maybe just a human trying to stay human.
But Gazans still laugh—a different type of laughter. What kind of laughter survives war? And why do we still laugh at all?
Laughs in Gaza used to be joyful, innocent, and contagious. If you heard laughter, you’d start laughing without even knowing why. We loved to laugh. Daily conversations always included a joke or two: “Hey, why do bananas go to hell? Because they strip in front of everybody.” People around me, myself included, used punch lines from famous Arab movies and memed them on social media. I was more of a “dad jokes” lover.
Whenever I found the chance to play with words and make some puns, I took it seriously. Once, together with some friends, my friend Asmaa was comforting another friend and told her, “You matter.” Asmaa then looked to me for a response. Without missing a beat, I said, “Well, of course you matter. Unless you multiply yourself by the speed of light squared—then you’re energy.”
My little joke got a tired laugh from both of them, and Asmaa rolled her eyes. “That helped a lot, Einstein,” Asmaa said, with a smirk. Moments like that reminded me how humor—no matter how nerdy—always finds a way in. Jokes and laughter were an important part of our lives.
The sound of laughter is not the same anymore. Yes, we still laugh, but our laughs are dry and hollow, even forced. It’s a sarcastic kind of laughter. When we hear the buzzing of drones, you might hear someone screaming, “Fireworks time!” And when we hear explosions, we rank them: “That was a solid seven.”
These kinds of jokes are not supposed to be funny, but we crack them and then giggle, because they help us comprehend what is going on. They prevent us from losing our minds. According to Freud, humor is a way to release repressed emotions. In such a traumatic setting, dark humor protects us from psychological collapse.
Not long ago, I was walking in the street with my mother. We heard an old man, sitting on the sidewalk with some friends, say, “Wallah, Gaza has everything—sun, sea, sand. All that’s missing is a little freedom with food, water, and electricity.”
Some of the men around him laughed loudly, patting the old man’s back. Others chuckled, almost as if ashamed of laughing during war.
I looked at my mother and giggled. She smiled and said in a low voice, “Exactly!” It made me think about the complexity of feelings we have towards Gaza. We love it so much that one might believe it provides everything. But in reality, we lack the basic necessities of life.
Scrolling on social media, I notice that young Gazans are using their accounts to crack jokes and post memes about their daily struggles. A girl puts on sunglasses while cooking on a wood fire because someone in the comments said it would keep the smoke from hurting her eyes. My friend Qasem posted a famous Batman meme, expressing how tired Gazans feel from eating the same canned, barely edible food over and over again. A group of friends who tried cooking something new with whatever leftovers they had started laughing at its horrible taste. Young kids were behind them, laughing, and I couldn’t help but wonder if they even knew what they were laughing about. It’s as if our elders whisper humor, the youth meme it, and younger kids mimic it without fully getting it.
A while ago, a rumor spread on social media that 200 cows had escaped from Israel and entered the Gaza Strip through the borders in the north. My brother said, “Even if it’s true, people won’t do anything with them. They’ll be cautious, because what if the Israeli Occupation Forces considered these cows hostages and decided to bomb them just like they did with human hostages?”
His comment was funny in a dark way, a way that brings back reality and the absurdity of the situation we are living in. But unlike the rest of my family, I didn’t laugh. The joke didn’t land for me, not because it wasn’t clever, but because it touched a deeper nerve. Online, people were joking about chasing down the cows just to get a piece of meat, making light of how desperate we’ve become. It was a reminder of how long it’s been since we’ve even seen meat, of how hunger dulls the sharpest jokes.
One night, my family and I were sitting under the night sky, discussing whatever came to mind. The conversation drifted towards women’s rights and whether men and women have equal rights. We were talking and debating as if everything was fine in Gaza except for women’s rights, when we were interrupted by the nearby sound of bombardment. Everyone fell silent.
“Well, seems like we should be discussing all human rights,” I finally said. “We definitely lack these.” Then I cracked up. My family laughed too, each staring in different directions at what seemed like invisible figures in the distance.
Was it funny? Is it morally correct to laugh at people who are suffering? But I too am one of those people. Does this give me the right to laugh at our situation?
They say that comedy is tragedy plus time, but what does it mean to laugh in a place that is always grieving?
I don’t even know if there are valid answers to these questions. All I know is that I, and everyone in Gaza, have been suffering. But amidst all the misery, we’re clinging to any sign of life. It might not mean joy, but it most certainly means survival.
It’s not always funny. Sometimes, it’s bitterness wrapped in noise. Sometimes, it’s fear in disguise or a sarcastic reaction to the absurdity of living in a war. It’s a coping mechanism or a defense mechanism. At the very least, it’s proof that something inside of us still wants to live.
