For Palestinians, the act of writing has always been a political act, and the price paid for telling the truth has increased sharply since October 7th, 2023.
Of the 124 journalists and media workers killed globally in 2024 – the most recorded since the Committee to Protect Journalists began monitoring this in 1992 – 70 per cent were murdered by Israel.
Since October 7th, Israel has killed 167 Palestinian journalists and imprisoned many others. Others survived through luck, exile or both.
One of those who survived is 22-year-old Plestia Alaqad. In her new book, The Eyes of Gaza, she recounts her rise from aspiring poet and social media manager to frontline journalist and social media sensation.
The book, mostly Alaqad’s diary entries from the first 45 days of war, begins with impressions from her childhood in Gaza, her years studying in Cyprus, and her return to Gaza. She began working for Press House, an NGO providing training and support to journalists, where she was mentored by Bilal Jadallah, a beloved figure in Palestinian journalism. He was killed on November 19th, 2023, by Israeli soldiers.
As Israeli warplanes began taking down entire buildings around her (including the one in which Alaqad lived) and wiped out entire families, Alaqad realized this war’s intensity far outpaced previous conflicts.
By day, she reported on each new massacre. By night, she slept on hospital floors or the homes of friends and relatives.
For Alaqad and the journalists who continued working despite the threat, reporting was imperative. Who else could Palestinians depend on to faithfully tell their stories?
“When the sword is as mighty as Israel’s,” Alaqad writes of her decision to pursue journalism, “then the pen becomes all the more important.”
With help from an uncle in Australia, Alaqad and (some) of her family eventually manage to flee to Australia, where she continues to report from.
The Eyes of Gaza is an astounding first-hand account of surviving one of the deadliest and most destructive military campaigns in recorded history, told by someone who, despite everything, manages to retain her belief in the power of stories and her hope for a brighter day.
In one of its most poignant entries, written with little sleep one morning three weeks into the onslaught, Alaqad remembers reading Anne Frank’s diary after learning about the World Wars in school.
“Why,” she wonders, “do we study history when clearly nobody ever learns from it?”
