A Historian in Gaza

A Spectator 'Book of the Year'

‘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 thirty-three 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.