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October 23, 2025 – Palestine –
Palestinian journalist Plestia Alaqad has published her debut memoir, The Eyes of Gaza: A Diary of Resilience, which draws directly from diary entries she wrote during the first 45 days of the 2023 Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip after the October 7 attack by Hamas. Her book opens a raw and immediate window on life under bombardment, displacement, and survival.
At just 21 when the war broke out, Alaqad had already begun using social-media video dispatches to tell the world about daily life in Gaza. Then her narrative shifted radically: from beach outings, cafés, and ordinary friendships to nights of shelter, crumbling homes, and children learning fear of the sky. Her online posts and then-diary became the foundation of her memoir, which now seeks to humanize Palestinians beyond casualty figures and statistics.
In an episode of NPR’s Book of the Day podcast, Alaqad spoke with host Lelia Fadel about the challenge of turning trauma into narrative and holding onto normalcy amid chaos. She reflected on her grandfather’s memory of the 1948 Nakba, bridging a longer history of Palestinian displacement to the present moment.
Al-Aqad’s interview with Teen Vogue reinforces this theme, describing the surreal shift from everyday life to what she terms a “dystopian world”. She emphasized the difficulty of remembering the Gaza she once knew and the urgency of telling the world that Gaza’s story does not start or end with conflict.
While Alaqad now resides in Beirut and is enrolled in a media-studies program, her work continues to channel the voices of Gazans who have few other platforms. Her book is a call to remember the humanity behind headlines and to recognize resilience in one of the most heavily reported yet least-understood crises of our time.
reference –
https://www.npr.org/2025/10/23/nx-s1-5582834/nprs-book-of-the-day-plestia-alaqad-the-eyes-of-gaza
https://www.teenvogue.com/story/plestia-alaqad-is-publishing-her-diaries-from-gaza-a-dystopian-world
