This section provides updates from our Partners and stories from the people of Gaza in their own words. Our thanks to all who have contributed to these posts: the writers and the translators who give us a window into the world of living in Gaza under challenging situations.
Partner Updates
We Are Not Numbers
We are thankful to We Are Not Numbers for allowing us to reproduce their stories and photographs so that we can experience life in Gaza through the eyes of young people trying to live their lives. Their stories are a reflection of our own experiences of dreams, joy, disappointments and sadness.
Abdallah Nasrallah
“As people were running, I stood still at the window, unable to move a muscle — not because I wanted to keep standing by the window, which was the worst place to be during a bombing, but because my body felt paralyzed, refusing to budge.”
“I started running toward the wall in the middle of our home. This is what we Gazans consider to be as safe as we can get — an internal wall away from the windows. The one in our apartment separated the kitchen from the living room, and we were used to hiding next to it during previous wars. But the wall wasn’t there anymore, as my mother had remodeled the house a month earlier. In our confusion and panic, we still ran to hide near the wall that wasn’t there anymore. When we realized what we were doing, we started laughing hysterically. We tried to hide the fear and trauma fighting to escape our eyes in the shape of tears, but I don’t know if we managed it.
Read about 13 year old Mohammed’s heroic battle against kidney failure and other illnesses over the last 10 years
Read full story by Hossam Wail Abo-Shammallah
Tour the historical sites in Gaza city with members of We Are Not Numbers.
Meet Abo Hanfi A-Sawwaf, Abu-Zuhair, Om-Anwar Al-Kassab; and see Omary Mosque, Al-Thahab (Gold) Market, Al-Alami’s house, and Al-Hasary herb’s shop.
The woman standing behind: “At home, she is the woman sitting behind a table rolling huge quantities of grape or cabbage leaves, stuffing them with half-cooked rice mixed with homemade tomato sauce and a little meat, to add flavor, in the kitchen that all her daughters-in-law share with her. The common kitchen embraced an atmosphere of mutual love and respect. She takes the pots, sets them on the blazing fire that she lights in the middle of the square of sand. Gathering the whole family in the square, she cooks beziena, boiled rice with tasty dough balls. When I would visit, she’d be standing behind the gas stove, brewing tea in her favored metal kettle.”
Read full story by Fedaa Alsoufi
The silver lining to a phosphorous cloud: “My tears that day were from the intensity of my joy, like rain that irrigates the earth after drought. I remember that night as one of the most beautiful nights ever. I imagined the reality that I was trying to achieve. Me, eventually becoming a doctor.”
Read full story by Roba Alotul
