we are not numbers

emerging writers from Palestine tell their stories and advocate for their human rights

A hand reaching out from under rubble.

Will I survive?

Yes, Yara / you will survive / but what is survival?
Young woman in front of paintings.
A hand reaching out from under rubble.
Screenshot from video by Niknaz Khalouzadeh, Flyers for Falastin

Yes, Yara,
you will survive,
but what is survival?
After the rubble
of your house
pressed on your chest
for hours,
after you inhaled air
filled with dust
you waited…
Hours felt like days.
Questions
swirled in your mind,
unanswered.
Tears and blood
stained your fragile body,
turning you
red as sunset.
You collapsed
then returned to life
with the call,
”Is there anyone alive?”
Next to you,
Lara,
just six years old,
moaning in pain.
Neither of you can speak
but survival comes,
even if delayed.
Then shouting…
“There is a hand moving under the rubble!”

A destroyed building on an excavated road in Khan Younis, Gaza.
Destruction in Khan Younis. Photo: Donya Abu Sitta

recent

subscribe

get weekly emails with links to new content plus news about WANN