COVER STORY
As Israel continues to pound Gaza, 70-year-old activist and lawyer Zainab Al Ghonaimy's war diary sheds light on the inhuman conditions in which Gazans are surviving each day.
11 January 2024
All wars must be resisted. By pen and in our hearts. For weeks, we have been trying to reach out to ordinary people who have been posting about their daily lives on social media from Gaza and refugee camps. In these 100 pages, Palestinians tell us their stories in their voices.
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Researcher, writer and translator Yousef Aljamal highlights the human impact of the political situation through his mother’s and sister’s stories
Art allows me to speak a universal language, transcending linguistic and cultural barriers, making it a powerful tool to convey a message and inspire an understanding of the depths of humanity, writes Bassent Dawoud.
Batoul Abu Aqlein last posted on October 23. It was a poem in which she expressed that the world is not bothered about Gaza. Her social media went silent after that.
Zak used to work in a mall close to Al Shati refugee camp before he and his family fled to escape Israeli attacks
In war, you will pass over the most important things unnoticed or without emotion, like talking about martyrs
‘Among the Almond Trees’ is a poignant, lyrical, philosophical reflection on life and death, art and politics, love and hope. This excerpt is about a monastery atop a mountain he used to visit as a child.
Iranian-French photographer Manoocher Deghati arrives in Palestine in 1994 to capture key moments such as the return of PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat. In ‘Eyewitnessed’, Ursula Janssen chronicles Deghati’s perilous journey.
Before the 20th century, Jewish history books were replete with accounts of the generosity of Muslim rulers who had granted them religious and social freedoms and saved them from the savageries of the West
Representing and reporting the truth about the atrocities in Gaza could have been a redemptive moment for photojournalism. Regrettably, it’s the same old story.
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Researcher, writer and translator Yousef Aljamal highlights the human impact of the political situation through his mother’s and sister’s stories
-
Art allows me to speak a universal language, transcending linguistic and cultural barriers, making it a powerful tool to convey a message and inspire an understanding of the depths of humanity, writes Bassent Dawoud.
-
Batoul Abu Aqlein last posted on October 23. It was a poem in which she expressed that the world is not bothered about Gaza. Her social media went silent after that.
-
Zak used to work in a mall close to Al Shati refugee camp before he and his family fled to escape Israeli attacks
-
In war, you will pass over the most important things unnoticed or without emotion, like talking about martyrs
-
‘Among the Almond Trees’ is a poignant, lyrical, philosophical reflection on life and death, art and politics, love and hope. This excerpt is about a monastery atop a mountain he used to visit as a child.
-
Iranian-French photographer Manoocher Deghati arrives in Palestine in 1994 to capture key moments such as the return of PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat. In ‘Eyewitnessed’, Ursula Janssen chronicles Deghati’s perilous journey.
-
Before the 20th century, Jewish history books were replete with accounts of the generosity of Muslim rulers who had granted them religious and social freedoms and saved them from the savageries of the West
-
Representing and reporting the truth about the atrocities in Gaza could have been a redemptive moment for photojournalism. Regrettably, it’s the same old story.
OTHER STORIES
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Others and I of my ilk have risked life and limb to bear witness and report from hostile zones with an aim to provide readers with a glimpse into the realities behind the headlines, writes photojournalist Altaf Qadri about covering wars and conflicts.
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Violence destroys the conscience and renders us captive to the reptilian mind within
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What is happening in Gaza now is a backward step in every way for the feminist movement, says Farah Barqawi, a Palestinian feminist, performer and poet, pursuing an MFA degree in non-fiction creative writing in Brooklyn
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In 2015, Israeli soldiers stormed into their house and arrested her husband after blowing up the door, says West Bank-based journalist Fayha Shalash, adding they didn’t even let them say ‘goodbye’.
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Mohammed Ayman, co-founder of the Free Gaza Circus, is determined to entertain Gaza’s kids
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No matter where the borders on this earth are drawn and redrawn by pre-colonials, colonials, and post-colonials, our Earth will always grow Palestinian trees, Palestinian children, and Palestinian hope, writes Ghia Haddad.
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Heba Haji is a Kuwaiti-Palestinian artist settled in Kuwait. She traces her ancestry to Palestine through the words of her grandparents.
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Heba Abu Nada, a poet from Gaza, was killed in the Israeli bombardment of the Manara neighbourhood of Gaza’s Khan Yunis area.
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She is a 21-year-old student in Gaza. She has survived many Israeli military attacks. The Israeli army assassinated two of her uncles and two of her cousins. This is her story
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A promising novelist and an engineer, Noor Aldeen Hajjaj, wrote this piece barely one month before he was killed in Israeli bombing on December 3 in Gaza.
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A collection of plays by Palestinian theatre groups about the daily lives of people in wartime in their ‘homeland’
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Palestinian journalist Plestia Alaqad has been sharing the everyday struggle for survival in the ravaged city of Gaza.
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Reem Anbar, a Palestinian oud player and a music therapist from Gaza, has been telling stories about her land and the ongoing war through her performances across Europe
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Rifat Kassis, a Christian Palestinian human rights activist, author, and speaker, who is presently living in the West Bank, feels Israel is paving the road for another Nakba.
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Nour Harazeen, a journalist, left Gaza along with her family a few weeks ago. Her five-year-old twin daughters are bewildered by the devastation they see all around
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‘In Gaza, Death Is Safer Than Life’: Palestinian Poet Mosab Abu Toha Recalls His Struggle To Survive
Mosab Abu Toha, a poet, recounts his struggle to stay alive in war-torn Gaza.
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The flair and flourish of Palestinian filmmaker Elia Suleiman
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Irrespective of how the current situation plays out, the Palestinian spirit is too deeply entrenched to be defeated
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Musings on the Palestinians’ struggle to be heard
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A 22-year-old Dabke dancer, who wishes to remain unnamed, says Palestinian artists are trying to send out a strong message to the world, that is silently watching the Gaza genocide
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Twenty-five-year-old Gazan journalist Bisan Owda’s social media posts capture the everyday struggles of Gazans and the horrific impact of Israeli attacks.
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Palestinian national poet Mahmoud Darwish’s works are seeped in the sights and sounds and sorrows of his beloved homeland.
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Chris Hook has been working with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)/Doctors Without Borders since 2015. He was recently the Head of Medical Teams in Gaza and describes what it’s like to do care work in a city under siege
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The social media revolution led by young journalists and content creators in Gaza is happening amid a continuous Israeli mass slaughter of journalists.
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The act of bearing witness is a primary responsibility of a journalist. That very act has been replaced by cacophony and othering of people in the media. This issue is polyphonic. That’s how we’d define it. A story of a pendant, a circus troupe, a theatre group, a dancer, a medical student and many more make up this issue. It is for the people, by the people and of the people.
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In the first week of December, the Aljazzar family was preparing for its forced emigration from Gaza. They didn’t know what to pack in their small backpacks.
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Four-year-old Salma often wakes up late at night crying violently. She stares at the smoke of the bombing until it fades away and asks, “People died?”
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Fedaa Zeyad is a Gaza-based poet and cultural activist, who wrote this on Facebook on December 13.
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A clutch of Palestinian films masterfully use the visual motifs of the West Bank barriers and Israeli checkpoints to capture the cruelties of war
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Refaat Alareer, a 44-year-old Palestinian poet and academic, was killed in a targeted Israeli air strike in Gaza.
