During the early days of the genocide, I was in the city of Rafah, displaced, sleeping under a roof that I didn’t know would still be there by morning. Shells were falling around the building where I had taken refuge with my family, and every night I thought about the possibility that it could all end in an instant. But what frightened me most was not death alone, but the idea of dying before my writings reached the world—that my story would disappear with me, and that my feelings, my memories, my identity, and my human experience would be erased.
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There is a difference between death and erasure. Death is the end of a person’s life, whereas erasure is an attempt to wipe out their existence—to eradicate everything that proves they lived there, felt, loved, feared, and tried to understand the world around them.
At that time, as all forms of cultural production in Gaza were coming to a halt one by one, and cultural centers and libraries were being destroyed, I began asking myself: what will remain of this experience if it is not written down? Who will bear the voices of the writers and poets living through this moment? How can we preserve the human aspect of a war that seeks to reduce human beings to mere numbers? I knew I was living through one of the most brutal moments a human being could face, but I also felt that this very brutality carried stories, emotions, and experiences that must not be lost. From this question, the idea for Gaza Publications was born.
The idea didn’t come in a moment of calm or through careful planning; rather, it emerged from the depths of danger. It was a small attempt to cling to something that would anchor a person in place and preserve their existence at the very moment their life was being taken away. I wasn’t thinking of establishing a publishing house in the traditional sense, but rather of creating a space to preserve our legacy where it was—for people who, in a few moments, might become mere numbers among the dead. To leave evidence that they had been here, and that they had lived full lives that extended beyond the moment of their martyrdom or disappearance.
We were trapped within a single moment: always in danger, always waiting, and always struggling to survive.
We didn’t have a printing press inside Gaza, and the working conditions were impossible. I decided that the printing would take place outside Gaza, but the work would begin from within the Strip. I assembled a team consisting of an editor, a proofreader, a designer, a marketing manager, and someone to oversee printing and distribution. I didn’t know some of these people before, but they believed in the idea and volunteered to participate because they felt there was something that needed to be saved.
We started with modest means. We designed a simple logo, created social media pages, and began searching for books that captured the Palestinian experience at a pivotal moment.
Even the Gaza Publications logo was based on our experience with the concept of time. We chose the hourglass, but we didn’t want the grains of sand to flow to the bottom. We placed a stopper in the middle of the hourglass, so the grains remain in place.
That was the metaphor that most closely captured our sense of time during the genocide. In Gaza, time did not move as it does in the rest of the world. Many things that gave people their feeling of living came to a halt: work, study, social gatherings, and plans for the future. We no longer lived between a past that could be reclaimed and a future that could be imagined; the homes that held our memories had vanished, and the plans that gave life meaning had ceased.
We were trapped within a single moment: always in danger, always waiting, and always struggling to survive.
But this standstill did not mean humanity itself had ceased. The hourglass reminded us that humans are capable, even in the most difficult moments, of creating meaning. And that writing gives the fleeting moment a chance to endure, even when the world is unable to stop and listen.
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Our first book was The Man Who Looked Back by Amer al-Masri. It was not merely about the bombing, but about the inner life that continues beneath the bombing; about the fear that gnaws at the family and sleeps with them; and about the person trying to hold onto their sense of self while everything around them pushes them toward losing it.
Why write in a moment of danger? Why do people turn to writing when every moment is a roll of the dice with death?
On the day the book was published, I received tragic news: my cousin’s daughter and all her children were killed when their home was bombed, collapsing on top of them.
That day was filled with two emotions not easily reconciled. There was something akin to happiness: the happiness that a book had made its way out of Gaza and reached the world, and that a Palestinian story had found its way to readers. At the very same moment there was an indescribable sadness: the loss of an entire family, and children who no longer had a place in this world.
I didn’t know how a person could carry these conflicting feelings within a single body. How can one celebrate a book and lose loved ones on the very same day?
In that moment I understood that the book whose release we were celebrating was not separate from the death that surrounds us; it was part of the very same struggle, the struggle to ensure that people’s lives do not vanish without a trace.
The question that stayed with me as I continued my work was: Why write in a moment of danger? Why do people turn to writing when every moment is a roll of the dice with death?
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After that, we moved on to the second book, the novel I Am at Your Door by Reham Al-Sabe’.
The novel delves into the war experience of Palestinian women. It speaks not only of displacement and fear, but also of the everyday details that form a person’s dignity. The novel touches on how the lack of personal toiletries, such as sanitary pads, hygiene products, detergents, and shampoo impacts women in particular. These items, which are taken for granted in everyday life, are linked to dignity, privacy, and a sense of self when they are absent.
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Then came the third book: The Owner of the Sea Shoe by Palestinian author Bisan Natil, a personal diary based on her experience working with children. The author depicts the world of children in refugee camps: the loss of home, the fear of bombardment, hunger, the absence of play, and the lack of joy. But she also delves into the small details: a child’s relationship with the neighborhood, with the destroyed home, with the line at the soup kitchen, and with the water shortage.
Writing cannot stop war, nor can it bring back those we have lost, but it can nurture something within a person when everything around them is falling apart.
As I was finalizing plans to publish my third book, I returned from the place where I had fled to what had once been my home. I found the house completely destroyed, but I returned to the place whose air, streets, and memories I knew so well.
Every child in the book has a story they carried with them, but I discovered that I, too, had my own story—the story of a person carrying their memories, their connection to a place, and the traces of the rubble the war had left inside them.
At that moment, I understood that returning was not the end of the journey, but the beginning of a new responsibility. There was more work to be done—not only to rebuild our homeland, but to preserve the stories that give it meaning.
These three books were three voices recounting a single experience: the voice of a man, the voice of a woman, and the voice of a child.
Throughout the project, we faced challenges unlike any faced by a typical publishing house. The internet would go down for days, and sometimes I would lose contact with the entire team. On one occasion, communication was cut off for a long time, and when it was restored, I discovered that they thought I was dead. I felt sad that they had experienced a moment of potential loss, but I also felt a sense of relief: one book had reached the world. One story had emerged from Gaza while we were living under the threat of disappearing. I felt as though I had planted a seed before I died.
But I survived. I returned to my team, and we continued our work. The books were printed in Poland and reached readers through distribution points in Germany, Jordan, and Cairo. We hadn’t anticipated the level of interest, but it confirmed to us that there is a need for these stories and voices.
When I returned again to my old home, the rubble was still there, but I saw a tree in front of the house, and next to it, a small plant untouched by the destruction. I gazed at that plant for a long time. I thought to myself: this is what writing is.
Writing cannot stop war, nor can it bring back those we have lost, but it can nurture something within a person when everything around them is falling apart. It preserves their legacy and testifies that someone was here.
This is the writer’s mission, and it is also the mission of a publishing house: to preserve for humanity an individual, a people, or a group that passed through this world, before the wheel of war and genocide grinds everything to dust. For a person endures not only through their physical body, but through the meaning they leave behind.
Gaza Publications is a small attempt to protect that meaning.
