Ahmed Alnaouq on the war in Palestine, family and the power of stories
Changes with Annie Macmanus
Annie Macmanus
4.6 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 27 May 2024
⏱️ 47 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On 22nd October 2023, Ahmed Alnaouq woke up to the unthinkable news that 21 members of his family had been killed by an Israeli airstrike in Gaza.
Ahmed Alnaouq is a Palestinian journalist from Gaza and the co-founder of We Are Not Numbers - a non profit organisation that specialises in sharing Palestinian stories.
In this episode, Ahmed shares his story. He explains how the war in Palestine didn’t begin last year, but has been ongoing throughout his entire life. Ahmed talks about family members who have been killed, how this horrific experience has changed him and his outlook, the importance of sharing stories to incite change, what the end of this war could look like and what he thinks people in the West can do.
Changes is fundamentally about the power of sharing stories. It is through stories that we find hope, connection and spread empathy and that is what we hope today’s episode will do.
Warning: This episode contains explicit and upsetting content about the war in Gaza that some listeners may find distressing.
Find out more about We Are Not Numbers and read the stories here:
https://wearenotnumbers.org/about/
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to changes. I am Anni McManus. I'm really happy you're here for this episode in particular. |
| 0:14.0 | For a while I've been wanting to record an episode of changes where we acknowledge and talk about the horror and the tragedy that's been happening in Gaza, specifically since the 7th of October. the On that day the Palestinian militant group Hamas launched an unprecedented |
| 0:35.3 | assault on Israel. Around 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 people |
| 0:42.4 | were taken to Gaza as hostages according to Israeli tallies. |
| 0:46.3 | In response to the Hamas attack, the Israeli military, the IDF, |
| 0:51.0 | has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians in Gaza, of which a significant amount are children. |
| 0:59.0 | Now this podcast is not a news platform. You know that as a listener. We are not here to debate the ongoing conflict. |
| 1:06.0 | Instead, we are here to share stories of change. I've been doing this podcast for four years and so much of the reason that I do it and have continued |
| 1:15.1 | doing it is because I believe in the power of storytelling. It's through stories that we find hope, |
| 1:20.8 | connection and empathy. |
| 1:23.0 | And that is what I hope today's episode does. |
| 1:26.0 | My guest is Ahmed Alnauk, |
| 1:29.0 | a Palestinian journalist from Gaza, |
| 1:32.0 | who co-founded a non-profit organization called We Are Not Numbers. |
| 1:37.3 | Its aim is to share the Palestinian stories behind the numbers in the news and to advocate for their human rights. |
| 1:45.0 | Ahmed's own story is one of just unthinkable loss and tragedy and I am so grateful to him for sharing his story with us today. |
| 1:55.0 | I must caveat this conversation by saying that there are some really explicit shocking |
| 2:01.0 | and upsetting details discussed in this episode. |
| 2:04.6 | We haven't edited these out out of respect for Ahmed. |
| 2:07.5 | He was here to share the reality and truth of what happened to his family in Gaza, but please be aware up front that there is some upsetting stuff. |
| 2:16.3 | Let's get into it. Welcome Ahmed Alnauk to changes. |
| 2:30.0 | Why are stories and telling stories important in terms of creating change? Telling our stories is the most prominent feature of my life because I have been working my entire life on this field and what made me a storyteller, what made me interested and invested in storytelling and telling our stories. |
... |
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