Looking Back at the Long Year in Gaza

Israel’s brutal assault on Gaza, which will soon enter its fifteenth month, has killed scores of Palestinian writers and journalists, obliterated the region’s cultural infrastructure, and sent shock waves through the global literary community.

Book festivals, awards bodies, literary organizations, cultural outlets, and publishing houses have all been riven by fierce internal disputes about how to respond to what many have described as the most documented genocide in history. Meanwhile, thousands of authors from around the world have used their platforms to speak out in solidarity with the Palestinian people.

In its capacity as “the de facto clearing house for pro-Palestinian literary world sentiment,” Lit Hub has covered many stories at the grim intersection of the book world and the Gazan genocide.

We have also been proud, this year and in years previous, to publish a broad range of Palestinian voices.

Here is a selection of pieces from a dark and devastating fifteen months:

The long year in Gaza.

Writers and Journalists Killed

Since October 7, 2023, Israel has killed at least 15 poets and writers and at least 138 journalists in its assault on the besieged enclave.

On October 10, Mohammad Abdulrahim Saleh, the youngest poet to publish a collection in Palestine, was killed by an Israeli airstrike. He was just twenty-one years old at the time of his death.

On October 20, the novelist, poet, and educator Heba Abu Nada was killed by an Israeli airstrike in southern Gaza. A year later, Somaia Abu Nada wrote a remembrance of her slain sister.

Fady Joudah, the National Book Award-nominated Palestinian American poet and physician, lost over fifty members of his extended family to Israeli airstrikes in just the first month of the conflict, and many more in the year since.

On November 19, Gaza Press House founder Belal Jadallah, known as “the godfather of Palestinian journalists,” was killed in Gaza City.

On November 19, Palestinian poet and founder of the Edward Said Memorial Library Mosab Abu Toha was kidnapped by Israeli forces while trying to enter Egypt at the Rafah checkpoint. After being beaten, interrogated, and stripped of his possessions, Abu Toha was released and, on December 3, he and his family made it across the border to Egypt.

On December 6, the poet, writer, literature professor, and activist Refaat Alareer was killed in a targeted Israeli airstrike that also killed his brother, his sister, and four of her children (Refaat’s daughter and grandson were killed in an Israeli airstrike less than five months later). In the year since his death, Refaat’s final published poem, “If I Must Die,” has become a source of solace and a rallying cry for hundreds of thousands of people around the world. In October of this year, two of Refaat’s former students penned a tribute to their beloved former professor. For the anniversary of Refaat’s death, the Palestinian America writer Susan Abulhawa wrote a remembrance of his life and work.

On September 2, 2024, the young poet and actor Rashad Abu Sakhila was killed by an Israeli airstrike on the Al-Fakhoora School in Jabalia.

Literary Infrastructure Destroyed

The damage to Gaza’s cultural sector has been so devastating, and so clearly targeted, that it has been called a “cultural genocide.”

Gaza’s main public library was destroyed in the early weeks of the conflict, in what authorities condemned as a deliberate attack.

On February 6, Librarians and Archivists with Palestine—a network of information workers in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for self-determination—published a report detailing the archives, libraries, and museums in Gaza that had been damaged, destroyed, or looted by Israeli forces over the previous four months.

On February 15, Israeli forces raided and destroyed two publishing houses in the West Bank.

On February 21, Israeli forces burned down the publishing house and library of Al-Kalima.

In August, Al Jazeera obtained videos of Israeli soldiers burning and tearing pages out of the Quran in northern Gaza’s Bani Saleh Mosque.

Literary Awards Protested

Following months of escalating protest over its response to Israel’s war on Gaza—as well as the mass withdrawal of nominees and participants—embattled free expression organization PEN America was forced to cancel both its annual literary awards and its weeklong World Voices Festival. On August 2, the group Writers Against the War on Gaza (WAWOG) called for a full boycott of PEN America, accusing it of acting counter to its core mission. On October 31, after a year of intense criticism of her leadership, Suzanne Nossel announced that she was stepping down as PEN America CEO.

The 2023 Scotiabank Giller Prize ceremony in Toronto was interrupted by pro-Palestinian protesters, who held up signs condemning Scotiabank’s investment in notorious Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems. The protestors, some of whom were arrested, were later supported by more than 2,000 Canadian writers, who urged the Giller Foundation to drop the charges. On July 10, 20 Canadian authors (growing to more than 200 by November) wrote a letter to the Giller Foundation vowing to withhold their books and labor from the Scotiabank Giller Prize until the organization severs ties to companies “complicit in Israel’s ongoing occupation, displacement, and murder of Palestinians.”

In September, the Giller Foundation quietly dropped the Scotiabank name, but not the sponsorship, from its flagship award. On the evening of November 18, dozens of Canadian writers and book workers staged a “Boycott Giller” counter gala outside the Park Hyatt hotel in Toronto, where the 2024 Giller Prize ceremony took place (Anne Michaels was the winner on the night. Michaels’ speech, which she posted to Twitter, was not well received).

Nine literary festivals in the UK ended their partnerships with investment management firm Baillie Gifford after calls by campaign group Fossil Free Books (FFB) for the company to divest from fossil fuels and companies linked to Israel.

At the 2024 National Book Awards ceremony, Palestinian American writer Lena Khalaf Tuffaha won the poetry award and in her acceptance speech called on writers to demand an end to the genocide in Gaza. Syrian American writer Shifa Saltagi Safadi was awarded the young people’s literature prize and in her acceptance speech denounced the “dehumanization of Arabs and Islamophobia” and the war on Gaza. At the previous year’s ceremony, more than a dozen nominees joined fiction finalist Aaliyah Bilal on stage as she read a statement about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. (On the eve of the 2023 ceremony, prominent “Bookfluencer” and Israel enthusiast Zibby Owens—the daughter of billionaire Trump supporter and Blackstone CEO Stephen A. Schwarzman—withdrew her sponsorship of the awards, citing the nominees’ “decision to band together to use their speeches to promote an pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel agenda.”)

Naomi Klein spoke about “the horrors in Gaza” and the “power of words to harm or to liberate” in her acceptance speech after winning the inaugural Women’s Prize for Nonfiction in June.

Writers Respond

On October 26, 2023, a group of writers, editors and academics known as Writers Against the War on Gaza (WAWOG) published a statement of solidarity with the people of Palestine.

On November 6, Canadian poetry phenom Rupi Kaur declined an invitation from the Biden White House, citing the administration’s “support of the current atrocities in Palestine” as the reason.

On November 13, a group of more than 100 literary translators signed a statement of solidarity with the people of Gaza.

On November 16, Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times Poetry Editor Anne Boyer resigned from her post at the NYT, taking aim (in her resignation letter) at the language used by her employer in its coverage of war on Gaza.

Also on November 16, in a video address to the Munich Literature Festival, the human rights activist and author Arundhati Roy called the siege of Gaza “a crime against humanity.”

On December 11, dozens of indie booksellers, from stores across America, signed an open letter in support of Palestine.

On December 13, one of the main sponsors of the Hannah Arendt Prize (as well as the city of Bremen) withdrew their support of honoree Masha Gessen because of the acclaimed writer’s comparison of besieged Gaza to the Warsaw Ghetto. Uproar ensued.

On December 20, New York City media workers gathered on the steps of the New York Public Library to honor the lives and work of the journalists killed by Israel since October 7.

In January, 2024, more than 500 global writers, artists, filmmakers, and cultural workers (including Nobel Prize winner Annie Ernaux) joined a boycott of Germany’s state-funded cultural associations in order to bring attention to the country’s authoritarian crackdown on pro-Palestinian advocacy.

Later in January, thousands of KidLit professionals signed an open letter to President Biden, highlighting the disproportionately large toll Israel’s war on Gaza has taken on the children of the region, and calling for an immediate and permanent ceasefire.

Award-winning Bosnian-Serbian novelist Lana Bastašić cut ties with her German publisher in protest against its silence on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

Two prominent American writers, Kathleen Alcott and Angela Flournoy, broke with PEN America over the organization’s decision to platform controversial actor and outspoken ceasefire opponent Mayim Bialik.

Internal emails revealed that Columbia University’s newly established “Task Force on Antisemitism” was causing ruptures in its faculty.

On March 12, Book Workers for a Free Palestine held a vigil outside the London Book Fair.

Sally Rooney continued to speak out about Gaza.

In April, an open letter from North American scholars condemning the “scholasticide” in Gaza received thousands of signatures.

On April 23, the award-winning British speculative fiction author China Miéville announced that he was rescinding his acceptance of a prestigious German residency in protest of the institution’s willingness to be part of a “shameful program of repression and anti-Palestinian racism.”

On April 28, Booker Prize-nominated novelist C Pam Zhang and MacArthur fellow Safiya Noble withdrew as University of Southern California Rossier’s doctoral and master’s commencement speakers, citing the USC administration’s behavior regarding pro-Palestinian protest on campus.

On August 15, more than 100 journalists sent an open letter to United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken, urging the U.S. to “immediately cease sending weapons to Israel’s amid the country’s widespread killing of journalists in Palestine.”

On September 24, Publishers for Palestine, a global solidarity collective of more than 500 publishers in 50 countries, issued an open letter to the Frankfurt Book Fair demanding that it cut ties with Israel.

On September 26, author and activist Jhumpa Lahiri refused an award for artistic integrity from a museum that fired staff for wearing keffiyehs.

In October, in one of the largest commitments to cultural boycott ever made, thousands of authors signed a pledge not to work with complicit Israeli cultural institutions.

Palestinian Literary Voices

“The Interviewer Wants to Know About Fashion.” A poem by Hala Alyan

Stories Too Awful to Believe: Adaina Shibli on Bombings in Ramallah

A Palestinian Meditation in a Time of Annihilation by Fady Joudah

On Literary Empathy and the Performative Reading of Palestinian Authors by Etaf Rum

“What is Home?” A poem by Mosab Abu Toha

“Revenge.” A poem by Taha Muhammad Ali

“Dead Cats Continue to Meow.” A poem by Nasser Rabah

“Holy Land, Wasted.” A poem by Ahmad Almallah and Huda Fakhreddine