Falastin Volume 4 Issue 1

FALASTIN

Volume 4 - Issue 1

December 2019

PACC

Falastin, a Palestinian American Community Center Publication Falastin Staff Editor in Chief, Reem Farhat Poetry Editor, Aya Mustafa Fiction Editor, Marah Siyam

News Editor, Aseel Washah Arabic Editor, Aseel Zeinati Arabic Editor, Hiba B’irat Copy Editor, Tala Ismail Layout Editor, Ibrahim Issa We’d like to extend a special thank you to Narmeen Hamadeh for the beautiful artwork featured on our front cover. You can find more of her work on her Instagram @narmeenh.illustrations.

We are always looking for new content and contributions! Submit your work to falastin@paccusa.org 388 Lakeview Ave, Clifton, NJ 07011

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www.paccusa.org

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info@paccusa.org

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973-253-6145

TABLE OF

CONTENTS

04 Letter From the Editor 04 Letter From the E.D. 06 Dear Palestine 07 Thobe 09 10 Trees, Olives & Oil 11 12 Returning to Yaffa 15 16 From the River to the Sea 18 Our Love Will Never Die 20 Interview: We Are Not Numbers 22 October and November Highlights Reem Farhat

Rania Mustafa

Deana Mustafa

Aseel Washah

Marah Siyam

Saja Awad Barghouti

Mariam Barghouti

Rabea Ali

Israa Mohammed Jamal

Reem Farhat

Shoruq

Letter from the Editor Reem Farhat With the launch of our fourth volume, we would like to renew our intentions as a magazine. Falastin is a reclamation of our narrative, one that has been contested, suppressed, and told in every language but our own. Falastin is a refusal to be silent, it is crying out in a room where we’ve been told to whisper.

As a testament to our dedication to story telling, we have decided to honor Palestinian journalist, Moath Amarneh, on our cover with a piece created by Palestinian artist, Narmeen Hamadeh. Amarneh is a journalist from Gaza who was shot in his eye by Israeli soldiers while covering the Great March of Return. We are inspired by his commitment to sharing the truth despite the many dangers that come with doing so. As always, we are nothing without everyone who has made this issue possible. Thank you to all of our wonderful writers and artists, to our wonderful editorial team who work tirelessly each issue, to our sponsors and the PACC board for all their support, and to you, our amazing readers.

Enclosed in this issue you will find an interview with We Are Not Numbers on the importance of sharing stories, a letter to our beloved Homeland, art depicting our continued resistance, and much more. In his final poetry book, Mahmoud Darwish shared the following words, “Grasp your own reality and grasp your name and learn how to write your own proof.”

And with that, we hope this issue inspires you to join us in our mission of sharing our realities, etching our names into an infinite existence, and writing our own proof. It is with great pleasure that I present to you the first issue in the fourth volume of Falastin.

Reem Farhat Editor in Chief

Letter from the Executive Director Rania Mustafa It’s been two and a half months since I returned from Palestine. As I read the pieces throughout this issue, I am overwhelmed with memories of my last visit. As I have a hawiyya, I have been unable to enter Yaffa since I was a child and with the ever-changing rules it has been more and more difficult to go back. This past summer, I was able to go back and it was an experience like no other. My cousins who were born and raised in Palestine gawked at the sight of the sea. It was the first time they had seen such a sight. They could not believe their eyes when they saw the train or the hot air balloon or the planes flying over their heads. Let that sink in for a minute. The beauty of the oceans is unmatched anywhere else in the world and it pained me so much to know that, though this land has belonged to my ancestors, I am not allowed to enter and the people lounging on the beaches have no idea what is happening less than a couple of miles away from them— completely oblivious of the occupation. I can go to any beach in the world, in theory, my cousins could enter any beach in the world—but not the beaches that were once their ancestors. Let that sink in.

At PACC, we have a very exciting 2020 coming up. We are going to be launching a new online class that will go into Palestinian history and identity and will liken the Palestinian struggle with other social justice struggles. We invite you all to sign up and join our many programs and events at PACC this upcoming school year. Thank you to our Falastin staff for successfully launching Volume 4. Thank you to our board of directors and sponsors for their continuous support. Last, but not least, thank you for picking this up and supporting Falastin.

Rania Mustafa PACC Executive Director 4

Remember the keffiyeh habibi

Arde (IG: arde.is.dope)

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Dear Palestine Deana Mustafa

Dear Palestine, I last wrote to you on August 2, 2019 as I was sitting on my porch, listening to the last Friday khutbah I would hear on your land that summer. Your beauty was my muse that day when I wrote to you about how different you made me, how much personal growth I saw in myself after being with you again. I wrote and wrote on that porch until my eyes welled up with tears remembering that come the next morning, I would be leaving you again. Now that I am here, away from you, I want to write to you to remind you of how much you have inspired me. While I was sitting at a gathering with some friends after class, we discussed what each of us had done this summer. Everyone shared their tropical vacations and beach trips with joyful energy. Then I was asked what I had spent my summer doing, and a smile crept up on my face as I remembered you. I explained to them that I, too, had taken a trip to the beach, but this beach was different. It had warmer sand than the rest, a warmth that hugs you as you take steps closer to the salty, crystal clear water. I had gone to the city on many nights, but this city wasn't like any other city.

ence, your willingness to remain steadfast and present at all times, and your strength. As I'm writing to you now, I can't explain to you how much I miss you. Part of me wishes I could be with you forever and that nobody ever had to leave you. The other part of me knows I'm going to continue working hard enough to come back to you as frequently as possible because I know you'll always be there for me to come back to. Even if I'm not with you now, I carry you with me every day, not only in my heart, but in my actions, in my thoughts, in my voice, in my eyes. For that, I want to thank you. As a child, I didn't know why I needed to be proud of you and what the big deal was with you. I was too wrapped up in my own comfort bubble full of easily accessible privileges from watered down Dunkin Donuts coffee to a full education. It wasn’t until I reached adulthood that I understood you in all of your beauty. You've taught me that there is so much more to life than the next exam I'm going to take or which color is fashionable this season.

I thank you for instilling hope and true love in me, teaching me life, and showing me grace. I did want to ask you; how are you now?

It was a city overflowing with music along its streets, fresh fruit juice stands on every corner, and friendly people with warm smiles all around. I visited farms with locally grown produce of every kind.

All around me were colors of fruits and vegetables, from lemons and bananas as golden as the sunshine, to pomegranates and figs as pink as roses. And at night’s end, I would sit on the porch again with a cup of minty tea from the same farmland I had visited. The next day, I ziplined over your tall, peaking mountains, dusted with the green leaves of olive trees. On another day, I walked historic holy ground with people from all different walks of life. Everyone listening to my stories looked at me with wonder and curiosity asking where I’d gone that had all of these beautiful places. I told them I went to visit you, Palestine. I told them so much about your resili

Are you in olive growing season now? Any new fig trees you're growing? More importantly, are those bullies really still bothering you? Just a heads up: don't you worry, bullies never win. I, and so many others like me, will keep fighting for you, you just keep strong as you have always been.

Love, DSM P.S. I will be back to see you again, and I'll keep writing to you.

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Thobe

Aseel Washah

Ilbasi benti Weave in, weave out, cross them What a classic stitch Weave in, weave out, cross them My grandma performing without a hitch

Weave in, weave out, cross them The styles continued to be enriched Weave in, weave out, cross them A staple in the Palestinian household

Hanna Ibrahim (IG: @findyourcreativity

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Photo by Marah Siyam

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Marah Siyam

My mom used to organize women’s marches in Palestine and refused to get married until she was twentyseven, all against my grandmother's wishes.

Then she asks me why I never listen.

There’s a small gold Quran that hangs around my neck every day, It’s in the left drawer of my dresser in Mukhmas.

Jerusalem to Cliffside Park really changes a person, But so does ESL. My blue-eyed cousins say to my olive skin, That I just missed out on some good crusader blood.

Checkpoint after checkpoint, the Israeli soldier that pointed an M16 in my face He lived three blocks down from my home in America when I was 16 We go to the same parks in Jersey, but in Palestine he just got a new gun to test out on the border of Gaza.

We are equal on land that is stolen, but on the land he stole we are not.

We both know it is not a religious issue, -it is a military occupation.

Would I ever leave those golden mountains, those fantastical cathedrals, and holy mosques for this country if my home wasn’t going to be demolished for a new Israeli illegal settlement?

Why would I ever leave my Grandma, my uncle, my soul to die in Palestine if I had a choice?

Go back to your country? Why wear a Hijab? Why be Brown? Why be a woman? Why be anything I am if I could help it?

In the same breath I think, Why wouldn’t I want to be from the land I grew up on running through the mountains singing ana demi falastini?

Why wouldn’t I be proud to be part of a religion that calms my heart during the times I didn’t want to be part of this entire world?

Why wouldn’t I want to be a woman and continue my mom’s work, honor my grandma who didn’t have freedoms like I do, make my sister who received her Master’s while pregnant proud?

If I’m to be killed for any of my identities that’s fine by me.

They are all worth dying for.

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Artwork by Kelly Izdihar Crosby 10

Trees, Olives & Oil Saja Awad Barghouthi

Trees, Olives & Oil. These words may just seem like words to some, but in Palestine, these words depict so much more. They are a source of life, a reason for existence, and the only “green” that we chase after here in Palestine. More specifically, in the village I live in.

the Israeli government. The story of this land continued up until 2000, when my grandfather heard bulldozers would be coming to uproot 100 olive trees that he owned. He showed up to his land, prepared to stop them in any way. What he did then was the epitome of what the Palestinian resistance truly symbolizes. He stood in front of the bulldozer being About 30 kilometers northwest of Ramallah sits driven by a teenage Israeli soldier claiming, “He’s my beautiful village of Aboud, -it’s made up of 1,000 only following orders.” Enraged, heartbroken and Muslims and 1,000 Christians, we live together in a fueled by an infinite love for his beautiful olive trees, land that is well known as the “City of Flowers.” A he was forced to watch each tree be uprooted and land that has never ending mountainous landscapes tossed to the side as if they were nothing. My grandcultivated with olive trees. Every family that lives father’s heart broke, and through each tree he saw here owns some olive uprooted, he felt it shatI only pray that we will someday trees, some that are tering more and more. older than we are…but have his courage and continue to grow But this pushed him to let’s take a minute, imdo something that even agine if we could only this everlasting love that our olive trees the Israeli soldiers were see through the barks, completely shocked by; deserve.“ branches, and olives of as quickly as he could, he these trees…what would they say? Would they unborrowed a friend’s truck, came back to his land, derstand the sense of importance they hold in the and hauled each uprooted tree onto it. He replanted lives of almost all Palestinians? Would they weep them in another piece of land, and for the past twenand share about the 100’s of years of torture they ty years has cared for these trees, so one day his chilwitnessed our fellow Palestinians live through? I’m dren and grandchildren can care for them and desure they would share all of these things and then fend them the way that he did. some. Our trees have been there through it all, even as people died and others were born, these trees My grandfather has been gone for a year and a were still present. Like a limb from our own bodies, half now, but his courage will never be forgotten our olive trees are treated as such. If these trees are and his memory will forever live through these uprooted, burned or stolen as so many were over the beautiful olive trees. He has passed them down, and years of the Israeli Occupation, parts of our bodies has given my generation the task to look after them. are ripped right out of us. It’s a disastrous feeling, a I only pray that we will someday have his courage feeling that my grandfather felt when his trees were and continue to grow this everlasting love that our robbed. Nonetheless, his story is a truly inspiring olive trees deserve. I pray that we won’t let him one, a story that should lift the heads of any Palesdown. tinian rooting themselves onto this holy land, gripping on to it for dear life.

I, a Palestinian-American born and raised in New Jersey, sometimes wonder why I seem to care My grandfather’s olive trees weren’t just any olso much about these olive trees, but then I rememive trees. These were trees planted on lands that he ber, just like our livelihood in New Jersey came from and his family have owned dating back centuries. the jobs and money we possessed, here in Palestine, Lands that, now, have been long gone and stolen by it’s from our trees, our olives, and our oil.

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Returning to Yaffa, but only as a ‘tourist’ Mariam Barghouti

Republished from +972 magazine

Photo by Mariam Barghouti

If I were given a dollar for the number of times diplomats, journalists, activists, and policy-makers have asked me “Have you thought about speaking with Israelis?” I could buy myself a chateau in Yaffa.

day to day aspects of the occupation, issued me a travel permit. Permits are difficult to get, because they are conditional on strict yet arbitrary criteria that Israel determines.

I choose Yaffa because that question rings loudly in my head whenever I visit the city. It is where my great-grandfather was killed in 1948, and where my grandfather spent his childhood and adolescence.

Like most Palestinian cities, Yaffa is de jure banned to most Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza

by Israel.

On an intimate level, getting a permit takes a toll in that it affirms that we are only allowed to enter historic Palestine as tourists. Our visit is to remain an ephemeral experience, never with a possibility of remaining or returning.

I was able to visit Yaffa some weeks ago, when the District Coordination Office (DCO), a part of the Israeli army’s Civil Administration that manages the

More generally, the permit system is a reminder that Israel dictates all Palestinian movement, determining where we can go and how often we can meet one another. Even cities like Gaza, which are considered Palestinian districts, are barred from certain 12

groups of Palestinians — I am more likely to meet fellow Palestinians from Gaza abroad than in Palestine, for example. Those in Gaza seeking to leave the strip for medical attention, often for treatment that is only available to them in the West Bank or Jerusalem, must also go through Israel’s permit regime. No matter the reason, Israel has assumed the role of providing permission for our movement — permission that can be revoked at any given moment.

I want to shout at her. I want to ask her if she ever questions her position, if it ever occurs to her what the history of that ancient building she carefully crafts her art in used to be. It is no wonder that the Palestinian plight is so camouflaged for Israelis. Our existence is narrated in the voices of an exaggerated heroism of soldiers and armies, of security complexes, of fearing the Arab and yet, somehow, fetishizing us.

I watch the beach waves undulate back and forth in Yaffa. I hear Hebrew all around me, mixed with the laughter of youth. Men, women and children lounge under umbrellas whipping in the sea breeze.

Occasionally, Arabic escapes from the mouths of Palestinians who are of the city.

The first time I saw my grandfather cry was a few blocks away from here, at the Clock Tower Square. It took my grandfather years of heartache, of resistance, of life in exile, to be afforded the “right” to visit the city he is from, decades after he was forced out. His old age graced him with the ability to visit — his fragile bones, atrophying body, and In 1948, after Zionist militias occupied Yaffa, a wrinkled, leathery skin mean he is not the threat he quarter of Palestinians were forced to flee. Israel’s once was to Israel. He held the stones of the Clock Absentees Property Law allowed for the official conTower and called for his father, long dead. There he fiscation of the emptied Palestinian homes and was, my 88-year-old grandfather, crumbling in front lands. Yaffa’s Old City has of a large stone clock in a city “To remember that while he holds so dear but can only been turned into an Israeli artist colony. I walk feeling so our reality may be tragic, we temporarily come back to. foreign, yet the city is so loud are not a tragedy.” with its Palestinianisms.

At some point in the evening, an older woman hears my AraI watch as Israelis roam freely, wondering if the bic and asks where I am from. “Ramallah,” I say ongoing violations of rights and injustice ever occur again, this time as I eagerly wait for my bucket of to them. A young woman, a police officer, walks fried shrimp at a Palestinian-owned restaurant in with a pistol on her hip. She doesn’t look older than Yaffa.

18. Her long, jet black hair matches her black skirt.

The purse over her shoulder reads “Forever Young” Although Yaffa used to be at the core of Palestinin big, bold letters. Have too many generations ian economy, Palestinians who have remained are passed to recognize the history in which Israel struggling to survive as second and third-class citidrowns? Have decades of negating injustice normalzens. It is an injustice reflective of Israel’s Jewish suized a new form of justice? premacy, where privileges are often afforded not only to Israeli-Jewish citizens but especially those of I enter one of the art galleries near the sea. The Ashkenazi (European) origin. I made sure that every curator is Israeli. She watches as two young women penny I would spend would support the Palestiniwalk in speaking Arabic loudly, laughing at this reans who remain, despite all odds. ality we were experiencing. The Israeli woman asks where I am from. “Ramallah,” I say, quickly. A privThe woman, also waiting for her own order, ilege of traveling with a permit is not having to consmiles back. I finally ask her where she’s from. “I am ceal my identity out of fear of arrest. from Akka. But the old Akka,” she says in Arabic.

She smiles and says, “Oh, I would love to come party in Ramallah.” My heart sinks. My veins feel like they are burning. I feel so angry, so hurt. All I can muster is a labored, “When Palestine is liberated, there will be a massive party. Until then.”

I was excited. Akka, a city in northern historic Palestine, had captivated me in a manner which I cannot describe in words. I learned that many Palestinians romanticize the struggle in a similar way. It has become a necessary coping mechanism, given (Continued on page 14)

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the incessant feelings of loss; to hold on to what is us in some beautiful way. To remember that while our reality may be tragic, we are not a tragedy.

I smile from cheek to cheek wanting to hug the woman, to smell Akka off her flesh. To feel like I saw Akka in Yaffa that night.

Something in the way Arabic rolls off her tongue feels outlandish, though. She said Akka al-Qadeema (Old Akka) with so much pride and such a true sense of belonging — but it turns out she is Israeli. A settler.

I feel betrayed. We focus on the settlers in the West Bank, but somehow purposely ignore the settlers of Akka, Yaffa, Haifa, and Safad. Israel built its entire state by forcing Palestinians out. What’s worse is that this is still happening today.

Israel’s discriminatory land policies make it even more difficult for Palestinians to keep or own lands.

As the state annexes and settles over more occupied land, it keeps the Palestinians living in those areas under military rule, disenfranchised. Israel feels so emboldened, it demolishes homes even in areas meant to be under full Palestinian control.

Before departing the table, the woman looks at my friends and I and asks if she could take a picture of us. Not with us, but of us. Were we exhibits? My mind returns to the art gallery.

I wonder if some decades from now settlements like Ariel and Modi’n will be drawn into maps as part of Israel, with Palestinians merely as “exotic” passersby to be photographed and fetishized rather than recognized. It terrifies me. I wonder if the woman recognized what she was saying in her broken Arabic, of the city that I can only see in momentary glimpses. It is hours — days, weeks, maybe some months if we’re fortunate — before my permit expires, when I would have to make my way back to the West Bank, or else Israel will deem my presence in my land as “illegal.”

“Have you thought about speaking with Israelis?” I have. More times than I can recall. I find that the Israelis who call out the occupation and recognize their settler-colonial position do not join Palestinians in “dialogue” but actively refuse to tolerate or participate in the continued displacement and oppression of Palestinians.

Photo by Mariam Barghouti

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From the River to the Sea A Home Like No Other Rabea Ali

Three whole championships and a future gone, with fourteen literal shots

Oh but we remember, you have children. So why not leave? Why not escape the impending massacre?

You tell me your story as we hurry across the markets of your childhood

Because this is home. You refuse to be forced from your home and instead will fight to the very end for your humanity to be recognized or “die trying.”

Children stopping left and right to greet you, shop owners with salaams echoing across the market

From the river to the sea, it is your home.

But you're a man lost in his own reality A couple of hours ago, you're telling a story about a massacre, hundreds murdered in a sacred place, A sacred place that is becoming harder and harder to get to for the worshippers,

But what you don't tell us is this story, it is your story and marks you for life For those flying bullets did not discriminate and hit your father You tell this story with a sense of hurt, but mostly with hope Hope that we'll share this story, and one day your nation will be liberated

From these foreigners sharing your story, But as we walk the markets, hours later, and I ask about your hopes You let go of the facade, and explain you have no hope for the future “Palestine will be ruined. War, a massacre. And we will lose. We'll be massacred by the Israeli army and no solution can stop this reality.”

It's terrifying to hear this, you are the first person to have little to no hope for this nation on this trip,

Photo by Rabea Ali

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This is Arde Arde (IG: arde.is.dope)

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Our Love Will Never Die Israa Mohammed Jamal Republished from wearenotnumbers.org

Ask us Palestinians about our love: It’s like the relationship between an olive tree and the soil. We, like the olive tree, are steadfast on the land of Palestine. But this is only a hint of our love, since it is boundless and comprised of countless stories. I'll tell you some of them.

I’m a Palestinian refugee living in the Gaza Strip. Because I’ve never seen my home village of Breer – my grandparents fled in 1948 during the Nakba – my stories are about life in Gaza.

I always say to myself that I’m strong enough to face the unfair and violent Israeli occupation because I believe in my legal right to this land. We Palestinians struggle with all our power to protect the land and our brothers, sisters, parents, children, spouses, homes, and souls from the occupation. It doesn’t have the right to control our ambition and prevent us from flying – and it won’t, because it’s Palestine and we will survive.

allow my father to take her to a local clinic, not the hospital.

When houses were searched, the entire neighborhood was placed under siege. They shouted through their megaphones, “No one leave their home! Everyone stay in place!” Even those who were praying at mosques weren’t allowed to return home without permission. If the military saw anyone in the streets, they would either arrest them or shoot, mostly in the legs. And if someone tried to escape, they’d be shot in the head. Fortunately, they did not find my uncle, who today lives in the West Bank.

Photo by Israa Mohammed Jamal

From the earliest stages of my life, the Israeli military seemed to me like a monster. Before 2005, about 8,000 Israeli settlers lived in Gaza, fortified by hundreds of Israeli soldiers. I couldn’t go out and play peacefully, nor could I sleep well, because I was afraid of the soldiers. I saw them break into homes with their big dogs, searching for youth who had thrown stones. One day they forced their way into my grandfather’s house, searching for my youngest uncle because he had been seen throwing a stone at their huge jeeps. My grandmother opened the door and a soldier pushed her down, causing her to hit her head. Her nose bled, but the soldiers would only

My Uncle’s Murder However, my other uncle, Sayed was not so fortunate. When I was growing up, my aunt and cousins lived without him in a home near mine, since he had been murdered.

I remember that day like it was yesterday, even though I was just 5 years old. My uncle had gone to a local hospital to have a glandular problem checked out. I was in the kitchen with my mother when a neighbor called from the window to her, “Sayed has died in the hospital!” We were shocked; my uncle was younger than 40 years old and had three children under the age of four.

After a long investigation, the Gaza authorities discovered the doctor had murdered my uncle, stole his organs and escaped to Israel. We don’t know more than that because the authorities were unable 18

to detain the doctor, since Israel protected him.

(There have been numerous charges of Israelis harvesting organs from Palestinians who die in their charge, but this was a first for Gaza.)

Saher’s and Shareef’s death, new angels came into the world to comfort us: Saher’s sister-in-law gave birth to twin boys, and they named them Saher and Shareef. These boys bring the family much happiness, hope, patience and strength. Nothing can affect this love. We are Palestinians and Palestine will survive.

To this day, my aunt still tells her children stories about their father. But Sayed’s youngest daughter is married with two daughters and has no “After a long investigation, the Gaza memory of him. His authorities discovered the doctor had Love from the diaspora son, recently married is not only the people and still unemployed, murdered my uncle, stole his organs Itinside Palestine who love cannot remember his and escaped to Israel. “ it; those who live outside father’s hugs. His olddon’t stop thinking about est daughter hardly their homeland and their relatives. recalls how he smiled at her antics. Now 31, she is married with two sons and two daughters. Life goes Nada Abu Ibaid is a Palestinian girl who came on. from the UAE to study at a university in Gaza.

While her immediate family is in the UAE, her extended family is in Gaza. Nada was in the UAE when Israel attacked Gaza on July 20, 2014.

Martyrs and angels I teach English, and for an exercise on verb tenses I asked my students to write about something that happened in the past. One, Ihab Farid Abu Mehsen, wrote about the martyrdom of his cousins: “I was in my second year of university during the 2014 war. We called one of the worst days Black Rafah, when Israel bombed our city incessantly and killed many people. I woke to the cries of my family, because two of my cousins – Saher and Shareef – had been killed when their car was shelled. After two days, we found their dead bodies and Saher’s mother almost fainted. She had been preparing for his wedding. My cousin Shareef left a very young son and daughter. His wife could not comprehend his death; when the funeral passed in front of the house, she ran to his body, wanting to touch him and see him for the last time. It was a very difficult period; sadness and darkness overcame us.”

Nada and her family saw the news on television.

“It was during Ramadan and the newscaster announced that Israel was bombing Gaza. My mother was so afraid she sent a message to my cousin to make sure he was okay. My cousin told her, ‘Don’t be afraid, the rockets are far from us.’

“Then at 6 p.m. in Gaza (8 pm in the UAE), my sister heard that an apartment building had been bombed, and the people killed inside were Hani Mohammed Al Hallaq, his wife, his son and his mother-in-law: my cousIsraa’s Uncle, Sayed ins. We were devastated.

My sister called to verify the news. Could this be real? Is it our cousins? The answer was yes.”

Despite this tragedy, Nada says she loves Palestine and hopes to live there one day.

This story has been modified for Falastin. To read it in its entirety, go to: https://wearenotnumbers.org/home/Story/

Yet Ihab’s story did not end there. Life indeed continues, and we deserve happiness. On the day of 19

We Are Not Numbers: An Interview with Issam Adwan Reem Farhat

Issam Adwan is the Project Manager at We Are Not Numbers, a Gaza based project founded by American Journalist, Pam Bailey, that provides a platform for Gaza’s youth to share their own stories.

Can you tell me about the organization We Are Not Numbers?

We Are Not Numbers is a project that has made connections between distinguished mentors around the world with youth in Gaza from ages 18 to 35, to train them to share their identities and their testimonies of living under the occupation with the aim of sharing that there are more than numbers behind the news. For example, for me, I was born in 1993 and I have lived my whole life under the occupation. We are writing about those experiences as well as the death and life perspective found in Gaza and about our perspective through the catastrophic situation we are living in.

What do you hope to achieve with We Are Not Numbers?

This is a global message, -it’s not about the Palestinian Israeli conflict. I do not like naming the situation as a conflict because a conflict is something between two balanced powers, which is definitely not the situation in Gaza. In We Are Numbers, we are not only writing about Palestinians, we are writing about Syrians, about Libyans. We are trying to connect the Palestinian suffering to other injustices around the world.

What is the importance of connecting the Palestinian struggle with other international struggles?

It makes individuals understand that the problem is the misuse of powers, and those who create a catastrophic situation for people, -it is the same everywhere. It is not about Israel, it is not about the United States, it is not even about the various occupations around the world. All these problems start in racism against minorities, against indigenous people, they all start from the same perspective, from the same point. Palestine is just one point of maybe hundreds of these instances around the world.

Tell us about some of the other projects you are working on.

As part of my duties as a project manager, we have been writing a book about the Great March of Return. When I participated in the Great March of Return as Issam and as a journalist, at the front scene of the march, I saw bloodshed, I saw people sacrificing their lives. But at the back end of the participation, I saw people dancing and playing football.

Here at We Are Not Numbers, we thought, yes it is important to report on the stories of those people who have lost their lives, but the more important thing to us is to show the humanity of the stories the media is totally dehumanizing. We also focused on different activities that people participated in during the Great March of Return. We tried to show more than what people show and hear about Gaza. This is all to one point and one reason: to humanize those stories.

For someone who has never been to Gaza, can you talk me through what it’s like there?

The thing about Gaza is that even in those areas where there is no violence or no wars in Gaza, people are still dying. If not because of the bullets or bombings, they are dying because of the lack of medical attention, because borders are closed most of the time. For example, for someone trying to cross the Rafat border, 90% of them will be denied.

People are dying here in Gaza in so many different ways. Most people that sacrifice their lives, I believe part of them have absolutely no chance to choose how they die. I do not blame them for this, people in Gaza are hopeless. At any sign, they are suffering because of the economic conditions and because of the medical conditions. And for people who, for example, participated in the Great March of Return, many of them believe they have nothing to lose. After a lot of suffering, you can no longer feel pain, 20

and you won’t be afraid of losing more, and this is what the nightmare in Gaza is.

We are struggling with feelings of depression on a daily basis. These hundreds of stories that pass in front of our eyes, we are struggling to write about them. We do not have enough resources to write about all of them. We are a project that is about writing stories behind the numbers in the paper, but we cannot actually do that fully. We are only a few people, we have few resources, and we are trying to work it out. The more we try, the more we feel the depression because these stories belong to us, and they are a part of our lives. It is difficult for a writer to write about someone, but it is even worse to write about something he is part of.

When it gets difficult, what gets you through?

It is all for the same dream, that someday these stories will raise awareness. That is our goal, and our faith. We receive those messages, daily and weekly. We are living out those aspirations. We have a language, a key, a platform, and social media

accounts to talk about the truth. We try as best as we can to select the most influential stories. And it is really difficult. It is really something horrible, to categorize these stories based on the ones that we will share.

How can we best support Palestinians like yourself living in Gaza?

As I am always advising my friends what is really important for people who cannot donate financially to our projects, or those who cannot educate themselves, is to share our stories and spread the truth. We are trying to raise awareness, but we need the help of different people from different countries.

This starts to build a community of We Are Not Numbers, because We Are Not Numbers is not just a project, it is an idea and a faith that we want people to hold within themselves.

To learn more about We Are Not Numbers and to learn more about how to support Issam and his team, head over to WeAreNotNumbers.org

Photo by Issam Adwan

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Shoruq is an organization founded in 2012 in Dheisheh Refugee Camp in Occupied Palestine whose mission is to provide political, social, cultural and economic prosperity and dignified life for all refugees in Occupied Palestine and the Diaspora, and empowering refugees in shaping a just solution and a better future for themselves and their offspring.

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