Gaza Rising: Voices from the Rubble

The highly individualized essays of Gaza Rising: Voices from the Rubble share a basic message that years ago was issued by a respected Palestinian civil society organization, "We Are Not Numbers." While an informative portrayal of Palestinian suffering by reporting casualties as divided among children, women, seniors, and the disabled may be a more concrete demographic profile of victimization, this breakdown of casualties nonetheless only amounts to a more detailed abstraction, while continuing to remain aloof from the individuation of the experience of every single Palestinian. What Gaza Rising contributes is an existential rendering of genocide as imparted by autobiographical storytelling as the only acceptable way to experience the unspeakable.

This is much more than a metaphor for Gazans. Gaza Rising provides a cohering tapestry of salient and diverse personal experiences, concrete existential stories of a series of richly textured lives of people subject to the lethal stresses of an ongoing genocide that has lasted over two years. As the authors gathered in this volume shared the daily realities of genocide as lived experience, memory assumes a crucial role in mitigating what has been lost by way of devastation. Anecdotes drawn from this unfolding genocide preserve "the presence" of lost or mutilated children or of parents, family life, friendships, joyous recollections of marriages and births, and celebrating martyrs, what Abu Kan'an aptly calls "beautiful moments." At the same time, the experience of genocide is not sugar-coated by sentimentality.

This book sheds light on the power of the Palestinian people of Gaza emanating from the voices of its own intellectuals, journalists, doctors, teachers, civil defense workers, artists, and community leaders. These powerful accounts illuminate Gazans' struggles and unwavering commitment to persist as a people against all odds, facing the future with enduring solidarity and unshakeable resolve.

Truly, can Palestine ever, then, be extinguished?