We Are Not Numbers launches 19th cohort for first time since onset of Gaza genocide
Some of the new cohort of 41 young Palestinian men and women from several countries who will receive intensive training in creative writing, journalism and human rights
Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor reports on 25 June 2026:
We Are Not Numbers (WANN), a project of Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, has launched its nineteenth cohort of writers for the first time since the onset of the genocide in Gaza in October 2023.
The new cohort includes 41 young Palestinian men and women from the Gaza Strip, the occupied West Bank, Jordan, the United States, Canada, and Ireland. Over the next six months, participants will receive intensive training in creative writing, journalism, human rights, documenting violations, and conducting interviews with victims and eyewitnesses, in addition to public speaking, photography, and media engagement.
The project’s in-person activities and training sessions are resuming in the Gaza Strip for the first time since the genocide began on 7 October 2023. The project was forced to partially suspend its activities following the outbreak of the genocide, while continuing to mentor writers remotely and publish hundreds of stories documenting the realities of life under genocide.
“Are Not Numbers was created to empower victims to move beyond a state of passive suffering and victimhood and become narrators of their own stories, documenting the pain they have endured, their resilience, and speaking directly to the world without intermediaries,” said Ahmed Alnaouq, co-founder of the project.
“For far too long, their voices have been silenced, while their experiences were reduced to cold statistics, distorted, or ignored. Yet these victims have every right to be heard and believed, because truth does not need permission to be true.”
Alnaouq added: “Today, more than ever, the world needs to listen to the people who lived these stories themselves, not through intermediaries or numbers, but through their full human voices. Dignity begins when a person is recognised as the owner of their story, not as a statistic, but as a complete life that deserves to be seen and understood.”
Euro-Med Monitor launched We Are Not Numbers in 2015, a few months after Israel’s devastating military offensive on Gaza in July–August 2014.
The project aims to support young Palestinians affected by occupation in sharing their personal stories and the stories of their communities through a human rights-based approach that goes beyond numbers, statistics, and news reports. At its core, the project seeks to convey the emotional and intellectual dimensions of the writers’ experiences, aspirations, and diverse interests.
The mission of We Are Not Numbers is to cultivate a new generation of Palestinian writers capable of amplifying their voices and driving meaningful change in the realities faced by victims of occupation. The project provides the international community with direct access to victims’ narratives without restrictions or intermediaries.
In her opening remarks to the new cohort, Maha Hussaini, Head of Media at Euro-Med Monitor, said that “despite the organisation being forced to close its Gaza office due to Israeli threats and intimidation campaigns, Euro-Med Monitor continues to carry out its activities and operations to the fullest extent possible, ensuring that it does not abandon the communities it serves during this critical time.”
She noted that We Are Not Numbers reflects Euro-Med Monitor’s broader philosophy of transforming victims of human rights violations from passive recipients of support into active advocates for their own rights and the rights of their communities.
“Today, our mission is to nurture a new generation capable of speaking for themselves rather than having others speak on their behalf, a generation able to tell its own stories and give names, faces, and colour to the faded numbers that appear in news reports about Palestinian victims,” Hussaini added.
Over the next six months, the nineteenth cohort of We Are Not Numbers will participate in a three-stage programme. The first stage consists of intensive training sessions covering creative and journalistic writing, human rights, the foundations of international law, and debate skills.
Workshops will be led either by professional writers based in the occupied Palestinian territory, primarily in the Gaza Strip, or by international journalists and authors visiting Gaza, many of whom also serve as mentors within the project.
In the second stage, participants will be paired with English-speaking mentors who will provide personalised guidance and regular feedback to help them refine their skills and develop compelling human stories.
The final stage of the programme includes publishing participants’ stories on the official We Are Not Numbers website and providing opportunities for them to publish their work through partner organisations and news outlets and receive payment for their contributions.
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