Voices of Resilience at Plymouth Theatre Royal

About the event

Of course they don’t mean to kill us, even when they drop 2,000-pound bombs on us.

Aged just 20 and 26 respectively, the writers Batool Abu Akleen and Sondos Sabra have survived two years of the genocide which has claimed the lives of at least 65,000 Gazans, forcibly displaced almost 2 million people, and seen huge areas of the Strip reduced to rubble — including homes, hospitals, universities and arts centres.

Sabra and Abu Akleen’s words are a stark record of the brutality of Israel’s genocide: the bombardment, displacement and mass murder of civilians, including family members. They are also filled with love, enduring humour, and stories of everyday resilience — from the neighbour who fashions an ashtray from the shrapnel of an American-made bomb, to the enduring bonds of friendship, family and a deep connection to the land.

They don’t want to see me as anything but a number, a voiceless creature. But they have failed. I think, I write, and I remember. I remember that I remember, and I will not have that memory erased.

The events will be accompanied by video from the Gazan filmmaker Hossam Abo Shamallah and followed by a Q&A with local Palestinians, academics and activists.

Writers: 

Sondos Sabra is a regular contributor to New Statesman Magazine. Her work has appeared onstage at the Barbican Centre, London and the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry. Her piece ‘We Kill Terrorism’, detailing the murder of four children in her family by an Israeli quadcopter, was read by the actress Maxine Peake to a crowd of over 15,000 people at a National March for Palestine in September 2024. Her diaries are published in Voices of Resistance: Diaries of Genocide, available from Comma Press. She remains in Gaza city, continuing to write.

Batool Abu Akleen is a poet and translator, born in Gaza City. Her debut collection, 48Kg (Tenement Press, 2025) was described by The Guardian as “[a] heartbreaking and risk-taking protest, with uncompromising clarity and tenderness, against continuing atrocities”. She is a winner of the 2024 London Magazine Poetry Prize. Her diaries are published in Voices of Resistance: Diaries of Genocide, available from Comma Press. Much like Sondos Sabra, Batool remains in Gaza city, continuing to write.

Readers:

Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan is an educator, writer and poet from Leeds and the author of the poetry collection Postcolonial Banter (Verve Poetry Press, 2019), the books Seeing for Ourselves And Even Stranger Possibilities (Hajar Press, 2023) and Tangled in Terror: Uprooting Islamophobia (Pluto Press, 2022), and the play Peanut Butter and Blueberries (Kiln Theatre, 2024). 

Leila Herandi is a British-Iraqi actor, theatre-maker and workshop facilitator. Her creative focus is to shine a light on the things that matter most to her, one of them being the liberation of Palestine.

Mohammed Ghalayini is a Palestinian scientist, translator, and journalist from Gaza. He survived the early months of the genocide, providing on the ground reportage, before being forced to leave his family home in December 2023. He is the co-creator of the play Light In Me Don’t Die (Moveable Type & Manchester Theatre for Palestine, 2024) and the Gaza Nights Manchester Cabaret (Amplify Gaza Stories, 2024), both in support of Amplify Gaza’s community kitchen projects.

Director:

Danielle McIlven is a theatre director and educator. She the artistic director of the Totnes Fringe Festival and the founder of Devon-based Moveable Type Theatre, for which she has directed plays including Future Days (Dartington Arts and Totnes Barrelhouse, 2022) and Light In Me Don’t Die (Plymouth Barbican and Totnes Barrelhouse, 2024). She is a teaching fellow in Acting and Drama at the University of Plymouth.