Life & Death in Gaza: Stories of Hope & Resilience
Description
On 22 October 2023, at five in the morning, an Israeli bomb fell on Ahmed Alnaouq’s father’s house in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza and wiped out twenty-one members of his immediate family.
Ten years earlier, a similar attack had killed his brother and inspired him to found We Are Not Numbers (WANN), a youth-led non-profit project which enables young Palestinians to tell their own stories. Its mission was to create a new generation of Palestinian writers and thinkers, committed to peace and human rights, whose stories would resonate around the world.
Life & Death in Gaza is a part of that project. Facing the unthinkable, Ahmed decided to talk to other Gazans who had lost their families in similar circumstances. Those conversations form the basis of this book. They proved to be profound and life-changing. Because, in spite of the grief and the horror, life in Gaza continues.
Gazans have rich, deep traditions that have survived generations of wars and intifadas. Amid the suffering, there is still joy. As families mourn their losses, there are still weddings and birthdays. The blockade has forced Gazans into poverty, but they share what they have with their community. The territory has one of the Middle East’s highest literacy levels yet the children of Gaza experience constant trauma. These contradictions are part of Gazans’ everyday life.
This book is both a celebration of that life and an act of defiance. It brings together people who have faced the worst but who refuse to be seen as victims. The dead will not be forgotten; their lives are preserved in these stories. Life & Death in Gaza is filled with the hope that the more we understand about life in Gaza, the less likely we are to let it be destroyed.
All profits from the book will be donated to We Are Not Numbers. www.wearenotnumbers.org