Plestia Alaqad: ‘The people who I hope read my book are not alive yet’

Over the past 18 months, certain faces have shown up on our feeds daily, updating the world on the brutal reality of surviving in Gaza. Among them are Motaz Aziza, Bisan Owda, Lama Jamous and 23-year-old Plestia Alaqad. The first video I came across from Alaqad was one of the very first that showed me the level of destruction that Gazans were facing.

Now, a year and a half later, Alaqad is bringing more awareness to the brutality Palestinians are facing, but this time through her debut book. Published by Macmillan, The Eyes Of Gaza is a powerful account of what life looked like for Alaqad before and after she put the camera down. Written as a series of diary entries, we learn about her life prior to October 2023, the 45 days she spent in Gaza before evacuating to Australia and everything that followed after.

“Journalism is changing and the way of reporting is changing,” she says to me over Zoom. “I believe I had the ability to reach a wider audience because growing up watching TV, never in my life did I see a journalist in her early twenties on TV. I never saw a journalist around my age to look up to.”

In the book, readers are invited into her transition from a 21-year-old with a passion for storytelling to a journalist on the frontlines, shedding light on the realities of life in Gaza. Something her book does well is humanise not just herself, but every individual she writes about. We meet her teachers, friends and mentors and travel to her favourite cafe in Gaza. She details intimate, raw moments balanced with personal anecdotes that remind us that all things considered, she still grew up as a young girl in the early 2010s with the same favourite One Direction member (Zayn Malik) and coming-of-age film (The Perks of Being a Wallflower) as the rest of her peers across the world.

At one point in the book, she recounts an uncomfortable experience with a journalist who asks her what she has learnt from the genocide, as if it were a moral test to learn from. When I mention it to her, she says, “They made it sound as if I went to a university lecture, and I go back home like, ‘What did you learn from today’s lecture?’ I see myself as an educated person. I am more than happy with [my] amount of knowledge, I do not need a genocide to teach me anything.”

Within a matter of hours of our conversation, 23-year-old Al Jazeera journalist Hossam Shabat was killed by an airstrike in Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza. Following his death, his team shared his final statement, which read: “I did all this because I believe in the Palestinian cause. I believe this land is ours, and it has been the highest honour of my life to die defending it and serving its people. I ask you now: do not stop speaking about Gaza. Do not let the world look away. Keep fighting, keep telling our stories – until Palestine is free.”

Similarly to Alaqad, Shabat had barely started his twenties when the genocide in Gaza began. They belong to a generation and a population who have had the chance to live life on their own terms stripped away from them. It is estimated that over 200 journalists have been murdered since the start of the genocide. In her book, Alaqad writes: “The world is so used to us being killed and tortured by Israel that it has forgotten that at the end of the day, we are humans who want nothing more than to live a normal life, safe in our homeland.”

Below, Plestia spoke to us about her relationship with writing, her message for students advocating for Palestine and what she hopes future generations get out of reading her book.

First of all, congratulations – the book is amazing. How are you feeling about it being out in the world for everyone to read?

Plestia Alaqad: Actually, I am excited for people to read it. And by excited, I mean I feel like now, with the ceasefire being violated, the genocide continuing, showing that it never really stopped, is more important than ever for people to read about it. At first, I was like, ‘Oh, it is about the 45 days, maybe it is not as recent – it should be about what is happening now.’ Then I realised the 45 days that I wrote about [have been] repeating themselves for more than 500 days now. So I feel like it is important. It will remind people of what is happening. It will actually humanise us all as Palestinians. But on a personal level, I feel naked. It is mixed emotions.

 “We all have a role to support and help Palestine, either way, in Palestine or out of Palestine" – Plestia Alaqad

I can imagine. In the book, there is a mix of the first journal entries before and after leaving Gaza. As you were writing these entries, did you imagine it would turn into a book?

Plestia Alaqad: Yes and no. At first, when I started writing, I started writing because it is what I do best, I believe. I have always kept a diary. Whenever I am overwhelmed with emotions, I want to document stuff. Then throughout it, I do not remember the exact day, I was like, I feel like I am going to die. I felt like death was soon. So I was like, ‘Oh my God, before dying, I have always wanted to write a book,’ but the first book that I imagined was a poetry collection. Rupi [Kaur] inspires me a lot [and I wanted] to write something similar to milk and honey. I did not really think that this will be my first book, but I did want to write the book.

Now that the book is finished, has it changed your relationship to writing? Does writing still feel like a helpful tool for you?

Plestia Alaqad: It just feels weird right now, because whenever I want to write about anything [else], literally anything, it feels weird. And I feel I need to focus on the genocide that is happening. I cannot write about anything else. Then I start writing an article about recent news or what is happening, and I feel like I am stuck in a loop. What more is there to say? What more [is there] to shed light on? But I do enjoy writing on a personal level. I still have a diary, not one that I want to post to anything. Writing does not feel as easy as it used to be when I was young, and before the genocide. Once you write about a genocide, you cannot see writing the same way.

Thinking about that experience you had with a journalist, I wondered – as a journalist yourself – is there a question you wish that people would ask you more?

Plestia Alaqad: I wish people focused more on the parts that we do not see on TV, rather than asking the obvious questions, like: How are you feeling? What did this make you feel? Did you lose your home? Would you go back to Gaza? I wish people would ask, for example, more questions about what is happening that we actually do not see on TV. Then I can tell them there are a lot of things happening that we do not see because journalists are sometimes recording with a phone, not even a camera, and we do not always have internet to upload or post this stuff.

I wrote about how there are two types of people. Some people, out of dignity, say: I want to be filmed, interview me and show the world what is happening. Then there is a second type of person, out of dignity, who are like, I cannot accept that this is happening to me. I am amputated or living in a tent. I do not want the world to see me like that. The world did not see me before, so why would they see me [like this]? I wish we talked more about the behind-the-scenes. I want the world to see people standing in lines to buy bread, or standing in lines to buy water or to fill their water.

These people are not ‘displaced people’. They used to be journalists, teachers, doctors, and stay-at-home mums. They used to have a life, but now all of that has changed. People do not understand the full picture, and I do not blame them. Right now, if I google Gaza, I will only see demolition. I will not see a house standing or a picture of Gaza before. So people, the world, when they see us Palestinians, only displaced, they will think that that is our life, that that is how we used to live. That is far from reality. I just want people to be able to see the full picture.

You write about the student encampments across the world from the last year. And I remember a part where you talk about one of the former prime ministers of Israel who said that the old will die and the youth will forget. These young people, though, are proving otherwise – what would you say to them?

Plestia Alaqad: I want to tell them to not underestimate what they are doing, and I want them to actually know the impact of their work. I know we all feel helpless, and how no matter what we are doing, it is not enough. But it is important for them to give themselves credit and know what they are doing is actually changing the world. Personally, for so long, I felt like, ‘Oh my God, I want to go back to Gaza, I do not have a role out of Gaza and survivor’s guilt and so on.’ Then I realised that we all have a role to support and help Palestine, either way, in Palestine or out of Palestine. We do not all need to be in Palestine to have a role. It is important that some people are alive and out of Palestine and advocating. They should understand this and understand the value of the work and how it is actually raising awareness.

One line towards the end of the book really stuck with me – you wrote: ‘Wars do not end when the bombs stop falling.’ Obviously, now with the horrible violation of the ceasefire, that is even more noteworthy.

Plestia Alaqad: I want people to understand that wars are not just about bombs or air strikes. There is displacement. There are mothers who know that their children were killed, and they cannot even find their dead bodies, and they are still searching for them. [Every day] there are people who think, maybe my home will get bombed, let me go and check, and they find their home bombed. There are literally graveyards getting bombed as well. There are children going to graveyards to see the graves of their parents, and they find it bombed as well. This is the aftermath that people are dealing with. It is not like war is over, homes will be rebuilt, and everything will go back to normal. There is a war within yourself, a war against forgetting. You do not see life the same after all of that, and life will never go back to normal.

“The people who I hope read my book are not alive yet: the future generations. I will be dead, you will be dead. We will all be gone. I want future generations to read it as a witness to history” – Plestia Alaqad

Who do you hope reads this book? Did you want to reach anyone in particular?

Plestia Alaqad: You know who I actually have in mind? The people who I hope read my book are not alive yet: the future generations. I will be dead, you will be dead. We will all be gone. I want future generations to read it as a witness to history. I do believe that content on Instagram is getting censored. Sometimes posts and stories get deleted. And who knows, after 70 years, if there will be a social media still or evidence, archives or footage about what happened. But this book will stay, even if it gets censored, not sold everywhere, people will still have it. So, in writing this book, I wrote it for the future.

While reading it, I remember thinking that this could be a book that is studied in schools one day.

Plestia Alaqad: It is history. I read the book several times, and the last time I read it was the final version of the manuscript, and I thought I focused on my emotions a lot because, as I told you, it is what I wrote when I was actually in Gaza. So when I was actually in Gaza, I needed space to write my emotions. The last time I read the book, I thought, oh my God, it is full of emotions, should I remove this or that? And then I was like: No, no need to remove anything.

What do you hope people feel when they read this book?

Plestia Alaqad: I want them to feel like they are sitting with me in a car in Gaza, and they can imagine everything, see everything, and feel like they were there. There are books I have read when I was little, in grade six, and I still remember the books. I just hope this will be someone’s favourite book and it will leave them feeling some sort of emotion. It is not about emotions themselves, it is about doing something with these emotions. They feel mad, sad and angry that this happened, and they will convert these emotions into actions.

The Eyes of Gaza: A Diary of Resilience is published by Macmillan and is available now.

In response to allegations that Meta/Instagram is censoring content about Palestine, the company said in a statement that “it is never our intention to suppress a particular community or point of view”, but that due to “higher volumes of content being reported” surrounding the ongoing conflict, “content that doesn’t violate our policies may be removed in error”.