Abdalhadi Alijla
What do we know about Gaza? Who are the writers from Gaza? Is what we have been seeing in the last three years the only thing we shall know about Gaza? Of course not.
In this video, the Arab Reform Initiative shares a reading list that brings together important and varied perspectives on Gaza, starting from its colonial history to stories of resilience, grief, the genocide, kitchen and survival. These books are not abstract academic works. They are histories, testimonies, and lived narratives written by Palestinians from Gaza, who have carefully documented their own experience. At a time when Gaza dominates our daily lives as much as headlines, this reading list helps move beyond shallow narratives and toward something fuller: context, depth, and humanity.
Gaza’s story cannot be reduced to statistics. The books show how Palestinians in Gaza have lived, loved, cooked, resisted, and created culture through decades of Israeli colonialism, and occupation. Some trace Gaza’s social life under British rule; others capture the mental and emotional strain of life under occupation and siege; still others document the immediate horror of Gaza genocide through diaries written in real time. Together, they offer a more complete picture of Palestinian life than Western media often provides.
By featuring books by Palestinians from Gaza, and about Gaza, it recenters Palestinian agency in the telling of Gaza story. That matters. Too often, Gaza is spoken about rather than with. This reading list pushes back against that pattern. It asks us to listen to those who have lived these realities, to read their words, and to understand their history, loss, and humanity.
The variety of genres is deliberate. Historical analysis such as Ilan Pappé’s close examination of occupation sits alongside Atef Abu Saif’s unfiltered war diaries. Gideon Levy’s sharp critique of Israeli colonialism is paired with Abdalhadi Alijla’s memoir. Even Laila El-Haddad’s Gaza Kitchen tells a political story: that Palestinian culture, food, and everyday life persist and continue despite ongoing attempts to erase them.
When it comes to Gaza, information alone is not enough. Real understanding also requires empathy, and empathy grows through continued engagement with Palestinian stories in their own words.
This reading list could be a starter to begin that engagement. Whether you are learning about Gaza for the first time or looking to deepen your understanding of recent events, these books offer what headlines cannot: context, nuance, and the full humanity of people whose land and lives are at stake.
Some of the books are available only in Arabic, which is an important reminder that Palestinian voices are often limited by language barriers that many Western readers do not face.
1. Gaza: A social history under British colonisation, 1917-1947. The Institute for Palestine Studies (IPS). Abaher Alsakka
The book presents the social history of Gaza city during the British colonial period up until 1948, offering a new and unprecedented interpretation from a sociological perspective. It analyzes the socio-economic and political structure of the city and its families, and explains the mechanisms through which social prominence was made and maintained. The book outlines Gaza's modernization processes and the complex relationships between the policies of its inhabitants and those of the British colonial powers, tracing the effects of this complexity on the administration of public spaces, architectural shaping, and services — including water, lighting, transport, the seaport, airport, and train station
2. Fearful in Gaza, Abdalhadi Alijla
Fearful in Gaza by Abdalhadi Alijla is a memoir weaving the personal and political into a portrait of life under siege, tracing the author's journey from a war-torn Gaza childhood to exile in Europe. Told through intertwined voices — his own, his mother's, and his sisters' — it depicts a family shaped by war, love, and the hunger to survive and speak. The book covers the period from the First Intifada (1987) through the Oslo years and Second Intifada of 2000, into the author's eventual attempts to leave Gaza. Abdalhadi resists linear chronology, moving between historical eras and connecting childhood memories with their later reverberations.
3. The Eyes of Gaza: A Diary of Resilience, Plestia Alaqad
The book is drawn from diary entries kept during the 45 days she spent in Gaza following October 7, 2023. As she flees from neighbourhood to neighbourhood, from hospital to hospital, she documents the destruction of beloved homes, waves of bombs, and the bravery and generosity of her people — all while trying to memorise the faces of those around her
4. Stones of the Grand Valley, Abdallah Sahrshara (Arabic)
At its core, the book attempts to approach the human experience under genocide through the narration of my own personal journey. What I sought was to convey the life of one human being — out of more than two million — in order to answer: how did he live? How did he face the details of survival and loss, and the heavy weight of daily existence under war?
5. The Gaza Kitchen by Laila El-Haddad and Maggie Schmitt — cookbook-meets-oral-history.
A richly illustrated cookbook that explores the distinctive cuisine of the area known prior to 1948 as the Gaza District — and that of the many refugees who came to Gaza in 1948 and have been forced to stay there ever since. First published in 2012 and now in its third edition, its 130 recipes codify this little-known part of the Middle Eastern culinary canon for the first time — in any language. Gaza's cuisine is not simply Palestinian food — it has its own character, shaped by its geography, its Mediterranean coastline, its Bedouin influences, and centuries of trade. El-Haddad and Schmitt excellently maintain the balance between documenting hardship and extolling an irrepressible culture
6. Don't Look Left: A Diary of Genocide by Atef Abu Saif, 2023.
Abu Saif's piercing diaries provide records of overnight attacks, friends and family members killed, decisions about where to find safety, and debates over whether to stay in Gaza or flee south, as directed by Israeli leaflets dropped from the sky. Excerpts were serialised — with edits and framing — in the New York Times, Washington Post, and Le Monde. This book presents the complete, unedited diaries: the journey of a man who arrived as a government minister and ended the period, like most other Palestinians, living in a tent in a refugee camp.
7. One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad
The book is not so much about Gaza as it is an angry denunciation of Western hypocrisy and double standards, littered with fascinating autobiographical references. El Akkad writes as someone who genuinely believed in the West's promises of freedom and justice, and who arrived at a devastating conclusion after two decades of reporting. He came to realise that people like him, non-Westerners who once believed in Western ideals, had been fooled. Rather than limiting himself to the atrocities in Gaza, El Akkad casts a wider criticism of Western imperialism and its associated machinations. His use of the future tense suggests more prophecy than historical documentation: "Once far enough removed, everyone will be properly aghast that any of this was allowed to happen."
8. The Biggest Prison on Earth: A History of the Occupied Territories by Ilan Pappé
Using declassified archival material, Israeli historian Ilan Pappé traces the legal, bureaucratic, and security infrastructure built to control millions of Palestinians since 1967. He presents Gaza as the "Ultimate Maximum Security Prison Model" — the final stage of occupation: a population totally sealed in, while Israel operates with near immunity from the international community. Written years before October 2023, the book reads today as a forensic blueprint for understanding how the current catastrophe became possible. Not a polemic — a documented, archival case. Essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the system behind the headlines.
9. The Killing of Gaza by Gideon Levy
Gideon Levy is one of the most respected critics of Israel's apartheid policies against the Palestinian people — an outspoken, award-winning journalist who has been writing on the conflict for decades. He writes not as an outsider, but as an Israeli who has spent his career defying his own country's official narrative. The book covers the period from 2014 through June 2024, divided into two parts: the first structured by year, the second month by month from October 2023 onward. The book's tone is anger and frustration laced with sarcasm, as Levy traces the series of missteps and bad choices he argues have dogged Israel's leaders from its earliest days. At the centre of the book is one question: "Can a society exist without a conscience?"
10. The Last Night in Gaza, Yousri El-ghoul (Arabic)
Written from inside northern Gaza, where Al-Ghoul chose to stay when hundreds of thousands fled, this book is one of the rawest literary testimonies to emerge from the war. A collection of narrative and human testimonies documenting what Gaza lived through over the past two years, blending literature with documentary history. Al-Ghoul writes of martyred friends, destroyed homes, fear in children's eyes, entire families wiped out, unidentified bodies in the streets, nightly searches for flour, and the lethal steadfastness of those who refused to leave the north. He opens with a stark declaration: "Reader, this book is our eternal hell — so that we do not forget, and so that we do not forgive." Part memoir, part witness statement, part literary defiance — essential reading for anyone seeking to understand Gaza not through statistics, but through one writer's unbroken humanity.