Displaced in Gaza

Yousef Aljamal, born in the Al-Nusierat refugee camp in Gaza, works as the Gaza coordinator at the Palestine Activism Program at the American Friends Service Committee and recently received his PhD at Sakarya University in Turkey.Norma Hashim is treasurer of Viva Palestina Malaysia, a nongovernmental organization focused on raising awareness of the Israeli occupation in Palestine and providing relief to Palestinians, primarily in Gaza.Noor Nabulsi serves as the communications specialist for the American Friends Service Committee’s Apartheid-Free Communities initiative.Zoe Jannuzi works as the Palestine Activism program coordinator at the American Friends Service Committee.Ahmed Alnaouq is director and co-founder of We Are Not Numbers. He grew up in Gaza, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in English literature from al-Azher University, but currently he is based in London. Ahmed was the inspiration for, and original project manager of, We Are Not Numbers. He later won the UK’s prestigious Chevening scholarship and earned a Master’s degree in international journalism from Leeds University. Today, in addition to his role as a Steering Committee member of We Are Not Numbers, he is cofounder of Border Gone, a media project that tells stories from Gaza in Hebrew. He also serves as advocacy and outreach officer for the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor. Ahmed’s writings have been published by the Gulf News, New Arab and other websites.

“The narratives may lack the embellishments of fiction, but they do not need them: the truth on these pages is more powerful than any novel….Displaced in Gaza is a collective cry for the world to listen and a monument to a people’s undying will to survive.”—Middle East Eye“This harrowing collection of first testimonies from survivors of the Gaza Genocide—featuring voices from old and young, fathers, and mothers offers an urgent, personal perspective on the realities faced by those forcibly displaced by Israel. It should be read by all people. Read them, then read them again—you will be left wondering how the world allowed such atrocities to unfold and be motivated towards meaningful action.”–Laila El-Haddad, Author of Gaza Mom and The Gaza Kitchen“The narratives of these survivors of genocide are an affirmation of their humanity, an ode to loved martyrs, and a record with which to fight for future accountability and justice. It is an archive of enormous importance, yet one that is also lacking: there should be a testimony to each and every victim of Israeli apartheid. Every person in this collection is fighting back against the effort to make our loved ones nameless and silent, to leave their bodies unidentified beneath rubble. They are forcing us to witness, to hold their stories as a living archive against this latest act of extermination, as well as the years upon years of Nakba, of the dispossession and murder that preceded it.”–Tareq Baconi, president of the board of Al-Shabaka, the Palestinian Policy Network“Displacement is not a coincidence but the outcome of a premeditated agenda. It's fundamentally a human rights issue and documenting the stories of displaced people in Gaza is an important step towards restorative justice.”–Nkosi Zwelivelile, grandson of Nelson Mandela“Displacing people in Gaza has become forcibly normalized. Some Palestinians have been displaced twenty times. The stories in Displaced in Gaza are a must-read.”–Ahmed Abu Artema, Palestinian poet, journalist, and co-founder of the Great March of Return“Before you can forgive, you must remember. In these testimonies, Palestinians insist on memory. We are aware how the world is ready to move past our memory as soon as the world determines we are now ‘after Gaza,’ that the genocide has stopped. But after the genocide is still a genocide. Palestinians know that we must overcome this ‘after,’ too. And so we tell our stories to honor the love in our hearts.”–Fady Joudah, Palestinian poet and author of The Earth in the Attic“These firsthand Palestinian accounts by survivors of Israel’s ethnic cleansing are chilling testaments to the devastation of displacement. Subject to genocidal violence as part of the ongoing Nakba—settler-colonial elimination—the individuals whose stories are included here are part of a crucial documentation project. This important collection is a call out to the world community to not only bear witness, but to assert our collective political will to end these atrocious war crimes.”—J. Kēhaulani Kauanui, author of Hawaiian Blood: Colonialism and the Politics of Sovereignty and Indigeneity“Displaced in Gaza presents an essential collection of real-life testimonies that challenge the narratives justifying the current erasure of Gaza and its people. In the Gaza Strip, where nine in ten Palestinians have been displaced since the events of October 7—some as many as ten times—these personal accounts humanize the staggering numbers. These stories remind us of our shared responsibility to ensure that the lessons of history and the pledge of ‘never again for anyone’ apply to Palestinians, as well.”—Laila Mokhiber, Senior Director of Communications at UNRWA USA

• Foreword by Ahmad AlnaouqIntroduction by Yousef AljamalCaring for Two Orphaned Children in Gaza by Aisha Osama Abu AjwaI Lost My Son, My Support in This Life by Fidaa Fathi Abu YousefIsrael Killed Ten Members of My Family in One Airstrike by Rehab Musa AljamalThe Occupation Killed My Grandchildren and Dispersed My Family by Yusra Salem Abu AwadI Lost My Beautiful Father at 12 Years Old by Youssef QawashThree Days without Food or Water by Fatima Ahmed Abu BakraMy Husband was Martyred. There is No Body: My Story of Pain Caused by the Israeli Occupation by Somia Issa Mustafa SalehThe Occupation Arrested My Sick Husband and We Live in Constant Suffering by Shaymaa AlissawiThe Occupation Killed My Husband and Left Me with Our Three Children by Shaymaa AldurraThe Stolen Childhood of Palestinian Children by Saeed AlhalabiOver 100 Displaced People have Sheltered in My Home Since the Beginning of the War by Rasmiyya Ahmed AbbasMy Mother Returned Home to Die: The Injustices against Elderly Patients in the Gaza StripBy Ali Al OwisiThe Need to Obtain Water is the Greatest Suffering We are Exposed to in the Displacement Tents by Nidaa Abu TohaMy Husband was Martyred While Searching for Food for Us by Najlaa Al KafarnaThe Occupation Killed Every Member of My Family by Bombing Our Home by Mohammed Al BibiDisplaced in 1948 and Today, Surviving Another Nakba and GenocideBy Mohammed Abdul Jabbar Abu SeifUnder Siege in Khan Younis by Manar WadiTeaching 200 Children in Displacement Camps: How I Turn Displacement Tents into Schools by Ikram Talaat AhmedToday, I Sell Chips, but Tomorrow, I Will be a Doctor by Aseel Al HawajriWidowed on the Fifth Day of the War by Fidaa AlshakhreetIsrael Killed My Daughter on Her Third Birthday by Tareq Fareed Al HajjCreating Joy Despite Displacement by Akram Abdul Nabi Al AjramiProviding Medical Services under Impossible Conditions by Ahmed Nasr HalasRaising My Martyred Son’s Children by Nasreen Naeem Al HiluThe Israeli Occupation Steals the Dreams of Palestinian Students by Mohammed AltaweelBirth and Death under Israeli Bombs by Hajj Abu SultanOnly My Brother and I Survived the Bombing of Our Home by Hala Adel Al NajmiRemember Us by Paul Catafago