A Historian in Gaza

‘The Gaza I knew, and whose length and breadth I’ve travelled, has ceased to exist.’

Jean-Pierre Filiu, acclaimed historian of Gaza, is intimately familiar with the land’s people and places; he speaks the local dialect. But nothing prepared him for what he encountered there in December 2024. This is his unforgettable, unbearably intimate account of one month in a place shattered by Israel’s all-out war.

When the historian returned to Gaza, he arrived under circumstances unimaginably different from his many past visits since 1980: only a limited number of convoys were allowed into the Strip, and he was one of the few humanitarians able to enter, this time by night. He remained inside for 33 days, and emerged determined to bear witness to the devastation—to the Gazans fighting simply to live, every single day.

Filiu’s haunting portrait of a land betrayed is a grim work of war reportage, documented with the acuity of a historian; and a lyrical narrative of human suffering, and human dignity.