Voices of Resistance

About

FOREWORD by GILLIAN SLOVO

INTRODUCTION by CARYL CHURCHILL

For two years, the world has witnessed image after devastating image from Israel’s genocide in Gaza: videos, photos, and Instagram reels showing blanket bombardment, cities in ruin, and entire families pulled from the rubble of their homes. Such enormity can be difficult to process, but behind each image lie ordinary lives full of hope, love and community.

In these diaries, four Gazan women – Batool Abu Akleen, Sondos Sabra, Nahil Mohana and Ala'a Obaid – offer first-hand accounts of Israeli airstrikes, forced displacement and engineered famine. These atrocities are documented alongside the everyday defiance of Palestinians: from the neighbour who fashions an ashtray from the shrapnel of an Israeli missile, to the street vendor who donates his last egg for a child’s birthday cake, to the community of displaced people who pool their resources to stage a traditional wedding.

Even when displaced, under fire, forced to bury loved ones, or thrown on the mercy of a devastated health system, the writers of these diaries never abandon their humanity, their individuality, or their belief in the future of Gaza. These are not stories of pity; these are stories filled with love, humour, and the beauty of Palestinian people and culture. In the face of genocide, the existence of these diaries, like the very survival of their authors, is an act of resistance.

‘This is the most powerful work of collective testament I have ever read. It is a breathtaking and spirit-forging book. It tells it as it is. It could not be more crucial or more urgent. Read it now.’ — Ali Smith

‘An extraordinary book. Voices of Resistance opens a rare window into the reality of young women living under brutal siege in the 21st century: their loss, terror and grief; their hope, ingenuity, curiosity and humour as well as despair. These testimonials come straight from hell, and yet – read them, you’ll see – they are radiant with undiminished life.’ — Olivia Laing

‘It isn’t true that there are ’no words’ to describe life in Gaza during the genocide. The words are here — brilliant, devastating, unexpected. Read them.’ — Kamila Shamsie

‘These diaries show us the human cost of Israel's UK-backed genocide in Gaza. When the F-35s drop their bombs, this is where they fall and this is who they fall on. Yet the women in these diaries exhibit strength and dignity that the barbarity of colonialism can never diminish. Their love of family, of community and of the land passed down to them through generations, is more enduring than all the weapons of imperialism. As these testimonies demonstrate, Gaza will survive and Palestine will be free.’  — Zarah Sultana MP

‘Read this book and weep, but read it also with such admiration for these four women and the community from which they come’. – Rebecca Servadio

'Heart-breaking yet illuminating, these diaries from Gaza are a must-read for all people of conscience.'  - Xiran Jay Zhao

‘The most important book in the world.’ - Max Porter

Press

'To read Voices of Resilience in English is not to be invited into understanding but into proximity with the untranslatable. It demands that we resist the impulse to make the suffering legible on our own terms. It demands that we sit, uncomfortably, with testimony that does not resolve into narrative, and with grief that insists on remaining private. In doing so, the book transforms both testimony and translation into acts of radical, unyielding presence.' - The Avery

‘Voices of Resistance stands as a vital work of testimonial literature that refuses to be forgotten.’ - The Markaz Review  

‘It is the matter of fact narrations in all entries that make this a deeply disturbing read. Between adapting and desensitisation – coercion and normalisation – what is next for Palestinians in Gaza?’ - Middle East Monitor