we are not numbers
emerging writers from Palestine tell their stories and advocate for their human rights
Emerging writers have flooded WANN with their stories and poems—documenting their lives, asserting their identities, and changing the world.
Ahmed Dremly works on the draft of an article, October 2025. Self-portrait
Despite two years of constant bombardment, WANN writers keep writing. They write from displacement and exile and from ruined homes, overcrowded shelters, and drafty tents. They write despite the specific dangers faced by writers.
With negligible response from the world’s powers, you might ask: Why do they keep writing? Their stories have not stopped Israel’s aggression nor ended the occupation. Is WANN making any difference?
We say, emphatically, yes.
After Hamas launched its attack on October 7, 2023, the Israeli Occupation Forces retaliated with many orders of magnitude more violence. It has continued its carnage-laden destruction for two years now.
WANN was unprepared for the level of chaos and destruction. Our Gaza office was bombed and our writers scattered. We weren’t sure how to keep going with limited resources.
We lost contact with our web manager in Gaza, who held the passwords to the back end. For several months, we couldn’t make any fixes or improvements to our aging website. We had to scramble to find a new web developer who helped us regain full access and implement a site upgrade.
Our director of operations and one of our co-founders had both moved on from the project just before the war; our other co-founder was reeling from the loss of 21 family members all at once. WANN was rudderless for quite a while as we rebuilt the team.
Typically WANN recruits writers from a large pool of applicants, selects a cohort of about 30, and over six months offers them a series of trainings in writing, revising, and other aspects of the writer’s trade; then we publish their essays and poems. The events following October 7 made this training regimen impossible.
The 18th WANN cohort, whose training was interrupted on October 7. Photo: Yousef Dawas (Yousef was martyred October 14, 2023)
Yet writers from the most recent and past cohorts kept sending in stories. We began to hear from others in Gaza, too, and a few from the West Bank and diaspora, who were eager to contribute. So we opened ourselves to pitches from all comers who met WANN’s criteria for young emerging writers from Palestine.
Over the past two years, our mentors (experienced, published writers from around the world who help writers develop theme and topic, shape narrative, and refine grammar and syntax) had to adjust to the communications challenges presented by war.
They had to figure out how to exchange guidance with writers who had lost or broken laptops and bad internet connections or who had to prioritize studying or family responsibilities such as fetching water, tending cooking fires, clearing rubble, and taking care of out-of-school siblings or children.
The mentors (and the editors who prepare stories for publication) had to determine, for each situation, how much to lean on a writer to turn around yet another draft. They had to be sensitive to the fact that when they are texting a writer to query a fact or revise a paragraph, he or she might be sitting in a tent with bombs falling in the background.
Some writers submitted their stories via a series of fragments sent by text. Some walked for miles to find a good internet connection so they could upload their drafts. Some wrote by candlelight or in the dark. Yet they kept writing. Those of us on the publications side had to double our efforts to keep up.
WANN’s output has been substantial, despite the ongoing genocide. Since October 7, we have published 458 original stories, 59 additional stories co-published with other online outlets, and 130 poems. This content was produced by more than 115 writers working with some 75 different mentors.
Since WANN launched its new website in April 2024, we have drawn 190,000 visitors from all over the world.
Additionally, we published a book that is a bestseller in Europe and has sold out its first print run in North America.
WANN co-founder Ahmed Alnaouq, reading at a Belfast bookstore from WANN’s anthology, which includes 75 pieces of writing from the first organization’s first 10 years. Publicity photo
With text and images, our writers have presented a kaleidoscopic picture of life inside Gaza as experienced by humans who love, mourn, breathe, care, study, work, and dream.
As Israel deliberately destroys the education infrastructure, our writers share with readers how they cope in tent classrooms, study for and take the Tawjihi (high school exam), complete their university studies online, and organize their own graduation ceremonies.
They mourn the dead: beloved poet and educator Refaat Alareer, well-known journalist Ismail Al-Ghoul, and others less widely known, including students, colleagues, friends, and family members.
They mourn, too, the destruction of their homes, universities, libraries, and cafés. They describe how they cope with currency issues, cooking over open fire, the constant noise of drones, and the pain of having loved ones who are missing.
In agonizing and intimate detail, they help document war crimes and genocide.
As the warfare continues relentlessly, our contributors explain how they live life despite the constant sorrow. They memorize the Qu’ran, play music, write novels, make and sell jewelry, take care of pets, and find joy by the Gaza sea. They set up solar power, teach in educational tents, offer community meals, lead crochet workshops, and create entertainment for the children.
They also write about their dreams: to complete their education, start their career, reunite with old friends, and live free from fear.
Farida Algoul celebrating the January 2025 ceasefire. Photo: Reem Algoul
Gazan journalists have been remarkable in their courageous work. Hundreds have been martyred, but like the roots of an olive tree, young writers keep emerging to fill the void.
We Are Not Numbers elevated many of these new journalists. Since October 7, our writers have published hundreds of works beyond our website, as documented in our WANN makes the news database. They have appeared in the international press (e.g., Al Jazeera, BBC), national newspapers (The Guardian The Los Angeles Times), regional papers (The Battleboro Reformer), literary and cultural magazines (ArabLit, The New Yorker), and scores of other print, radio, and video outlets.
WANN writers are now connected via group chat, offering each other advice on placing stories as well as sympathy, survival tips, and support. Connections with mentors are also bearing fruit; mentors have kept company with writers via text and phone through dark nights, launched fundraising campaigns, arranged for WANN stories and poems to be read at solidarity events, and helped writers place pieces in literary magazines and news outlets.
One mentor illustrated a chapbook of a writer’s poetry collection, while another helped arrange for her writer’s essay to be read aloud simultaneously by people across the state of Vermont. Several mentors helped create a separate project that has enabled university-level students, including WANN writers, to obtain scholarships abroad and evacuate, so they can complete their education and return to help rebuild Gaza.
Screen shot from video, Vermonters Read for Gaza, in which excerpts from an essay by Yousef El-Mbayed were read aloud across the state
When you have lost home, loved ones, prospects, safety—it’s essential to have something under your own control. WANN dignifies our writers with work. When we reach out to a hungry writer in a tent, we are letting them know that they are seen as a creative person who is more than a victim, and that we care not only about their survival, but also their self-respect and pride in authorship. Connecting human-to-human with our writers is an essential part of this project.
One writer wrote to us after seeing her first article appear at the website, “How beautiful it is to start the morning by achieving one of your dreams—to become a writer and publish your first article on a global platform. An article that bears your name… and reflects your identity, your story, and who you are.”
Another writer, publishing in The New Arab, asserted, “Remember that what helped me, Huda Skaik, survive Israel’s hell and genocide for so long, was the sea, and my writing that allowed me to document the truth.”
Huda Skaik on the campus of the Islamic University of Gaza, before Israel destroyed it. Photo provided by Huda Skaik
A tipping point has been reached. We Are Not Numbers is proud to have contributed to the massive shift in public opinion that has occurred over the past two years and that is increasing the pressure on governments to stop the genocide and advocate for a just resolution.
So to our writers, we say, stay strong and keep writing!
