“We will not cease to try to live and thrive even in the darkest moments. Inshallah we will make it out of this war, to a future that we deserve.” —Abdullah Hasaneen, age twenty-four
The people of Gaza endured several Israeli bombing campaigns before October 7, 2023, but Israel’s military response to Hamas’ attack and its ongoing genocide was unprecedented.
Amid news of air strikes and evacuations at the north end of the Gaza Strip, I waited for some sign that my mentee, Basman Derawi, was safe. Like so many Palestinian refugees, thirty-five-year-old Derawi was born in exile, specifically in Kuwait. His family moved to Gaza in 1992 when he was three years old. He started writing essays and poems after losing a friend in Israel’s 2014 Gaza assault known as Operation Protective Edge.
Derawi was lucky: On October 7, he was in Egypt, where he remains. In the months to come, he penned eulogies for his younger sister and her family, and for his colleagues killed by Israeli bombs. Some of them were writers published, like Derawi, by We Are Not Numbers (WANN), a nonprofit that mentors young Palestinians in Gaza and publishes their work.
WANN is dedicated to bringing together a new generation of Palestinian writers and thinkers, giving them a platform to amplify and celebrate their voices and stories.
The organization was founded in 2015 after Israel’s attack on the Gaza Strip the year prior with the goal of helping Palestinian youth share the “human stories behind the numbers in the news with a Western world that knows them only as stereotypes.”
Palestinian poet and professor Refaat Alareer, who was killed in an Israeli air strike just weeks after he penned the famous poem “If I Must Die,” provided training sessions to WANN writers. American journalist Pam Bailey and Dr. Ramy Abdu, chair of the board of directors for the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, launched the nonprofit.
Bailey was inspired to launch WANN after working with twenty-one-year-old Ahmed Alnaouq, who became deeply depressed after his brother was killed by an Israeli missile. During this time, he met Bailey, who encouraged him to celebrate his brother’s legacy by writing a story. Like many young people in Gaza, Alnaouq was studying English literature to improve his language skills. Bailey thought writing a story would progress his studies. It soon became an effective therapy, too.
Over three months, Bailey and Alnaouq collaborated on his story and the final version was published by WANN. Better yet, Alnaouq began to feel some hope for the future.
WANN pairs professional English writers from around the world with young storytellers in Gaza, who are paid for their writing.
The goal is to provide a counter-narrative amid a news environment that reduces Palestinian people to numbers—numbers killed, wounded, jobless, homeless, aid-dependent.
“Our writers tell their stories so that the world understands that they have dreams and ambitions, and they experience the world, just like everyone else,” Senior Editor Catherine Baker told me. “They are not numbers.”
She adds, “In the current war, our writers are helping to create a historical record of the genocide. Writing allows them to exert some agency at a time when they have little control over other aspects of their lives. Some also write to make sure that, if they die, they have left a mark on the world.”
This generation of Palestinian writers has witnessed and experienced relentless suffering, including forced evacuations, scarce access to food and water, little to no medical care, unreliable internet, and a tenuous connection to the outside world. The destruction of all colleges and universities in Gaza has hit many WANN students particularly hard. Yet the spirit to overcome these losses is reflected in their writing.
Last month, WANN writer Ohood Nassar published “Genocide Will Not Stop Me from Graduating” in The Electronic Intifada. In the piece, she explains that after Islamic University, her alma mater, was bombed in October 2023, she became defiant: “This war will not break me. I will graduate. Even if we have to leave our area of Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza.”
During a temporary ceasefire in November, she returned to Beit Lahiya to find her family’s home in ruins. She collected what remained of her textbooks. When Birzeit University in the West Bank offered online courses, Nassar jumped at the chance to continue her education.
The lack of internet access amid a war zone forced Nassar to drop out of Birzeit. When a resuscitated Islamic University announced in June that it would offer online courses, Nassar re-enrolled and, despite obstacles unimaginable to U.S. college students, is still determined to graduate. “My perspective on education has shifted,” she said. “It is no longer just a personal goal but a form of resistance.”
Writing as resistance was a guiding principle for Alareer when he taught English at Islamic University, inspiring hundreds of his students. Tributes to this beloved teacher include this poem by Derawi:
A Child from Somewhere in Gaza
You died, but not from a long-lasting illness. You were killed by a long-lasting occupation. But I live to tell your story, the tale of how we met. You taught “show, don’t tell” for We Are Not Numbers. I remember the sparkle in your eyes when you spoke about Mornings in Jenin, Sharon and my Mother-in-Law and Harry Potter, the young boy who seeks justice. You shared a story you wrote, about the murder of your brother Mohammed, in which you recounted how you insisted, as a child, that he be called Hamada. “Care about the little detail,” you told us. “Let readers into your world, as if they are sitting with your grandmother as you sip a cup of tea and she tells her tales.” Your words still resonate and guide me as I write. You always humanized, even your enemies. In your poem I am you, you talked to our occupiers: I strive like you did. I fight like you did. I resist like you resisted. With your poetry, you show the world our homeland: the laughter, the pain of your neighbor and the child from somewhere in Gaza. That child will see the kite, the kite you liked to fly when you were young, flying up above in free Palestine. He will think for a moment that an angel is there, sending love. He will look closely at the angel and see your smile.
Derawi references Alareer’s poem “If I Must Die,” which has inspired many similar works, including this by my mentee Tala Herzallah:
If I Must Live
If I must live you must see the resistant one you taught me to be, the one who holds your things tight and never lets go of your tale afloat in the homicide air. The kite is there in its same scene but it brings no hope of an end to our pain and disease. The child looks up for answers but his angel’s not there. I hold his hand and dream of that place you left us for, that embraces you in all its warmth and peace. If I must live let me be free. Let the child love and see.
Just as writing about his brother’s life helped lift Alnaouq out of a life-threatening depression, professional support and encouragement has been critical for a people under the daily threat of extinction. WANN losses have been acute: mentees Yousef Maher Dawas, Mahmoud Alnaouq, Huda Al-Sosi, and Mohammed Zaher Hamo, as well as Professor Alareer, have all been killed by Israel during this genocide.
Still, through their countless stories and poems, young people in Gaza commit to rebuilding their homes, their schools, and their lives—and to telling the world their stories.