For a child with autism like Hassan, war is a full-scale physical and psychological assault, trapping him in a state of constant terror. "I see my 14-year-old brother regressing to early childhood behaviors," Tareq Said Zaqout writes from from Gaza. "He hides under tables, screams uncontrollably and sometimes hits his head against the wall in overwhelming fits of despair. His frail body, once full of life, now twists with every explosion as if trying to escape his own skin. I look into his wide eyes and see a silent terror that tears my heart apart." 

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Amal Rafiq shares the story of her friend Malak, who has lost multiple family members in Israel's ongoing genocide: "I was sitting with my mother, my three sisters and my twin brothers in the small space that became our temporary home inside the U.N. school. And then an airstrike hit and an explosion followed. The walls trembled, the ground shook, and within seconds, everything turned to dust and screams. I left my sisters with a neighbor who was helping gather all of the children in a safer corner of the school and returned to look for my mother and brothers. I saw her body lying in a pool of blood and froze. I heard a crying sound and saw one of my brothers, who was still alive. But his twin was gone and so was our mother. Everything after that became a blur."

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"My family sold the last thing that connects us to our homeland—our house and all our furniture. We have nothing left in Gaza. Not because we don’t want to return, but because life’s circumstances forced us to let go so we could survive in exile," Reem Sleem writes from Egypt. "We came to Egypt fleeing death, but suffering continued to chase us. We never expected to remain stranded indefinitely or to be subjected to yet another form of siege—this time through Egyptian government procedures that forced us to pay thousands of dollars to enter the country without being granted any rights. My story is not unique. Today, more than 100,000 Gazans in Egypt are trapped in limbo. They cannot return home, nor can they move forward and start a new life here."

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These are the stories of young people from Gaza, born under Israeli occupation and blockade. They are people who have endured unspeakable struggles and losses, who keep fighting to be recognized not as numbers, but as human beings with hopes, dreams, and lives worth living.

We Are Not Numbers was founded in 2014 to give voice to the youth of Gaza. In this collection—vital, urgent and full of heart, spanning over ten years to the present moment—we gain an unparalleled insight into the past, as well as the current and next generation of Palestinian leaders, artists, scientists and scholars and imagine where we might go from here.

All of the above articles in this email were written by young Palestinians participating in the We Are Not Numbers initiative. The Washington Report is proud to regularly publish their testimonials in our magazine and on our website.  

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