Gazan journalist says over 20 members of his family were killed in airstrike

When Ahmed Alnaouq's brother Ayman was killed during an Israeli airstrike in Gaza in 2014, he said he spent a lot of time next to his brother's grave. As he grieved the loss of his brother, he said he became so depressed he lost all interest in life and wanted to die. "I felt that we are unheard," Alnaouq told . "That people don't care about us, that our stories are not heard, that our suffering is not noticed from anyone in the world, especially the West." One day, Alnaouq heard from one of his American journalist friends, who asked how he was really doing. He started crying, and said he was spending his time in theBut he eventually decided to pen his story, and he got a positive response from readers.After going through the process of sharing his own personal story, Alnaouq wanted to offer an outlet for other young Palestinian writers to do the same. He started training writers from Gaza and pairing them up with international mentors to help them write their stories in English. The project then grew into him founding the organization We Are Not Numbers, and he's been working for the project ever since.