Nour ElAssy, a 22-year-old Palestinian poet and journalist, wrote these words in an article for The New Humanitarian at the end of March 2025, almost a year and a half into Israel's retaliatory war on the Gaza Strip.
Israel’s conduct in the war has given rise to credible allegations of genocide. Since the beginning of the relentless military campaign and siege, we have been publishing first-person articles by Palestinians in Gaza. Each one is an intimate testament to how individuals’ lives have been upended and thrust into terror and uncertainty by unimaginable violence, deprivation, and intentional starvation. The articles document the immense physical and psychological toll of the war while also chronicling how people – even under the most extreme circumstances – manage to not only preserve their humanity but insist on it being recognised by others.
Throughout, there is a common current of hope that somehow – despite everything that has happened – their lives will be able to return to some semblance of normalcy. At the same time, there is an equal measure of fear that time is running out and that people outside of the besieged and shattered enclave will cease to care, even as those with the power to stop it continue to enable the atrocity they are being forced to endure. Each author and each article, in its own way, implores its readers: Don’t look away.
