We Are Not Numbers
The Voices of Gaza’s Youth

Following the 2014 Gaza War and decades of oppression and resistance, the storytelling platform We Are Not Numbers (WANN) was founded to give a voice to the youth of Gaza.

Since then, young Palestinians, mostly living in the besieged Gaza Strip, have used the platform to chronicle the human impact of occupation and blockade. In doing so, they have passionately fought to be recognised not as numbers but as human beings with lives, hopes, and dreams.

Ten years on, this collection brings together the most impactful essay contributions of the last decade from emerging Palestinian writers, offering a sobering, tender, inspiring, and humanising view of Palestine through the eyes of its next generation of leaders.

Powerful, humane and heroic ... the voices of Palestinians soar. This is the most important collection of writing published today. It’s a book the world must know. Jenni Fagan — Novelist and poet

This important book, a moving and powerful collection of Palestinian voices from this groundbreaking community of writers, is a victory for the human spirit in the face of some of history’s darkest forces. Matt Kennard — Journalist

In an epilogue covering the most recent war in Gaza, the collection’s editors, Ahmed Alnaouq and Pam Bailey, reflect on the personal tragedies they have faced — including the deaths of 21 of Ahmed’s family members in a single bomb blast — as well as those writers able to take WANN’s work forward and those no longer alive to do so.

In a rallying cry to onlookers around the world, We Are Not Numbers offers unparalleled insight into the real lives of the people of Gaza and imagines where we might go from here.

Photography: Mark Kensett