“I want the world to know that Palestine has writers, artists, thinkers and, most importantly, lovers. I want the world to know that we are humans just like you.” So writes Anas Jnena in one of the many poignant stories featured in this important and timely collection.
The voices of Gaza’s youth have been palpably missing in the ongoing war.
They have been reduced to grim statistics by a media overwhelmed by the brutality of the ongoing genocide that has claimed the lives of more than 52,000 Palestinians to date.
This book, which started as an online platform, is the ultimate corrective, featuring a constellation of stories, poems and essays from 59 young Palestinians in Gaza.
Through their eyes we witness the richness and warmth of their culture, and the undeniable human impact of the war.
New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch
Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on
Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters
As Allam Zedan surmises in his piece: “I am the generation who has lived through three wars.”
Zedan, who as a cheeky sixth-grader sneakily crunched sunflower seeds in class, meets his teacher as a weary young adult.
Studying hard is no guarantee of a good job, youth unemployment affected 60 percent of Palestinians in Gaza before the latest war began on 7 October 2023.
Like others facing countless hurdles when seeking work, Zedan’s hopes of self-employment are stymied by his inability to open a bank account.
“The fate of young adults like me is to die or languish,” he writes.
His teacher, who lost his son when an Israeli shell struck his home during the 2014 war, imparts one final lesson: “Don’t give up… Be patient and stay to fight another day.”
‘The colours of hope’
Hope and resilience shine through this anthology in much the same way as the stars’ brilliance illuminates Gaza’s night sky – a side effect of constant power cuts.
The essays start in 2015 and take us up to the present day. Neighbourhoods and streets familiar in news stories become populated with the laughter, hopes and dreams of young people.
This book bridges a gulf, by giving us an insight into the lives of young Palestinians in Gaza, it gives weight to their voices.
‘Banality of evil’: Artist turns Gaza settler dream into disturbing installation
Read More »
These are not remote news stories, these are young people, who love the feeling of sand in their toes, sweet knafeh and adore Sufi music and Adele with a passion.
Nada Hammad writes of “the Colours of Hope” campaign following the 2014 war, of young women lugging paint buckets to Gaza’s al-Mina sea port and splashing the walls a vibrant rainbow as a counterpoint to the grey rubble left in the conflict’s wake.
Book lover Khaled Alostath yearns for the weight of a novel in his palm, rather than squinting at a PDF on his mobile phone.
Reading fiction, he explains, is his way of feeling alive, cursing the protagonist of Gene Wolfe’s sci-fi novel Peace – “come and see the hell we live in here”, as the ground shakes beneath his own feet.
He scrolls through photographs of the great libraries of the world – London, Washington, DC and Alexandria – and fantasises about perusing their stacks.
Akram Abunahla writes with deft humour of the perils of online shopping in Gaza – his wish to own a collection of traditional music CDs thwarted by a series of byzantine laws that he navigates with gamer-like dexterity.
A 15-year-old Iman Inshasi relocates from UAE to Gaza, initially she berates the choking spigots, the lack of clean water, the intense heat (fans are intermittent because of the lack of power).
Eventually, however, her dislike turns to respect as she watches people thrive and survive on very little.
‘7 October did not come out of nowhere’
In a beautiful piece on friendship, the poet Mosab Abu Toha recalls working in a beachside cafe with his friend Ezzat, and describes their shared love of the Barcelona football team and his mother’s bee cell cake (a Palestinian pastry that resembles a bee hive).
Ezzat dies in an Israeli missile strike in 2014 and his father gifts Abu Toha his Messi shirt.
When he graduates from university, all he can think of is Ezzat’s ghost clapping for him.
‘If I must die’: An anthology of a stubborn, brilliant life in Gaza
Read More »
The anthology leads up to the aftermath of 7 October 2023 and the ongoing war, as Basma Almaza notes: “7 October did not come out of nowhere”.
Unlike any news story, We Are Not Numbers helps comprehend how hatred towards Israel was bred by imposing a 16-year brutal military siege on two million people who are forced to inhabit a 365 sq km strip of land.
Hope flows and also ebbs on these pages. History’s darkest chapters cast ominous shadows on the lives of these young people, curbing their aspirations of education, employment, travel – even health, with the Israeli blockade leading to a chronic and deadly shortage of medicines.
The Great Return March of 2018 is described as a festival-like atmosphere of a peaceful protest shattered by an exploding bullet; while Aya Alghazzawi muses if the pandemic has made the world impenetrable like Gaza.
Almaza writes how on 9 October 2023 her family home was destroyed, 19 years of memories gone in an instant and how whole families were obliterated in air strikes: “The Sabat family in Beit Hanoun, the Abu Daqqa family in Khan Younis, the al-Daws family in Zaytoun, the Sha’ban family in Nasr, the Abu Rakab family in Zawayda.”
Ugly scenes of this current war are narrated: the stark terror of the flour massacre of 29 February 2024 is tangible, the rush of “desperate souls”, the “fusillade” of Israeli bullets on aid trucks and the subsequent panic.
Yusuf El-Mhayed states how he was forced, along with several other men from his neighbourhood, to march to Yarmouk Stadium, stripped and severely beaten (his knowledge of English made him a target) and when told he could leave was cruelly shot at by an Israeli sniper.
In the updates provided on all these writers, we learn he is now the family’s sole provider and has been forced to relocate 14 times (he was originally from Shujaiya neighbourhood).
Tragically four writers to date – Yousef Dawas, Mahmoud Alnaouq, Huda Alsoso and Mohammed Hamo – have been killed in the ongoing genocide.
This anthology is dedicated to them and their teacher and mentor Refaat Alareer, who also was killed by an Israeli air strike on 6 December 2023.
The stories on these pages bear testimony to the resilient spirits that are Gaza’s youth and ultimately give hope for its future.
As El-Mhayed states: “I am still desperately trying to survive this ongoing genocide, and now am documenting it for myself, my people and for you – with the hope that sharing my story will contribute to its end.”
Gaza’s youth has spoken through this heart-rending and often beautiful collection. The least we can do is listen to them.
We are Not Numbers: The Voices of Gaza’s Youth is edited by Ahmed Alnaouq and Pam Bailey and is published by Hutchinson Heinemann 2025
