A Historian in Gaza

Description

Noted historian of Gaza, Jean-Pierre Filiu, spent a month there between December and January 2025. This is his up-close, immersive documentary of reality inside the Palestinian enclave.

Filiu is a historian who specialises in Gazan history (Gaza: A History, Winner of the Middle East Monitor Palestine Book Award and a Guardian Book of the Year) and has travelled there regularly since 1980. He also knows the Arabic dialect spoken there. In December, 2024, he once again crossed into Gaza, albeit under unimaginably different circumstances: at the time, only two convoys per week were allowed through the border crossings. In January 2025, Filiu returned.

Writing in a lyrical but frank tone, he reveals a portrait of grim reality, delivering a book that is in part war reportage, and in part a narrative of human suffering. People living in Gaza must fight to find fresh water, eat proper meals, move from one city to another and struggle to obtain medical care if wounded. These quotidian are described in a manner that forces us to confront what is happening in Gaza every single day.

All royalties will be donated to Médecins Sans Frontières.

Author(s)

Jean-Pierre Filiu is Professor of Middle East Studies at Sciences Po in Paris, and has held visiting professorships at Columbia University and Georgetown University. He is the author of Gaza: A History; From Deep State to Islamic State and The Arab Revolution, all published by Hurst, and The Middle East: A Political History.