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Plestia Alaqad doesn’t want her readers to believe that anything in her book, The Eyes of Gaza, really happened. And even more so, she prays you’ll never be able to relate.
“I don't want to live in a world where people are relating to the book,” Alaqad tells The National.
“My target audience is the upcoming generations who will read this book in a free Palestine, and they will be in disbelief. They'll be like: ‘How is that possible? How did this happen? How was that OK?’
“I'm hoping when they read it, the world will be a better place – so much better that they won't even believe what I wrote really happened to us, or that such an evil existed,” Alaqad continues.
But as her book – which collects her diaries from October 7, 2023 through the day she was forced to flee her home and the months that she watched the tragedy continue from afar – hits shelves across the world, it’s still all too real to ignore.
“We say the Nakba happened in 1948, but in reality it never stopped. Today, we're in 2025 and the Nakba is still continuing. There is still a genocide that is unfolding in the Gaza Strip. Palestinians are starving, are getting killed, and we don’t know when the killing will stop,” says Alaqad.
Alaqad was 21 when the war began, living with her family in Gaza and just beginning her career as a journalist. She dreamt of one day becoming a writer – not of tragedy, but of beauty.
“I was always thinking that my first book would be poetry or a novel. Something with positive vibes,” says Alaqad.
But overnight, she became one of the most essential voices reporting from inside the besieged enclave, publishing short, emotionally raw Instagram videos that reached millions. For many struggling to process what they were seeing or to parse conflicting narratives – Alaqad was not just the eyes of Gaza, but its heart and soul.
“In Gaza, I feel we always take on jobs that can help our homeland, that can help our people. The reason I wanted to become a journalist is to show the world through my eyes – to cover what was happening and to humanise us,” says Alaqad.
As vital as her videos were in the first days of the catastrophe, the words she wrote when she put her camera down are quietly more devastating. In her first few entries, her instincts are more logical and immediate – where to go, what to carry, how to keep herself and her loved ones safe – but as the violence grows harder to fathom, her dispatches grow more internally complex and scattered. For Alaqad, that was the intention.
“I want the reader to feel all sort of emotions – to feel sad at a point, to feel hopeful at a point and then to feel hopeless. Because if you’re going to see Gaza through my eyes, that is the way I truly felt about it. You start your day feeling like, ‘Oh my God, I'll get killed today. There isn't food, there isn't anything. What is this life?’ Then five minutes later, a little child is being kind to you, and you start feeling optimistic. For me, this is Gaza.”
At times, the horror she describes is interrupted by humour, such as children worrying about donkeys left behind in the rubble, or friends clutching a houseplant while fleeing. Alaqad understands the dissonance. “Humour is a coping mechanism,” she says. “We don’t laugh because it’s funny. We laugh because it’s the only way to survive.
“It's part of who we are. I met a Lebanese comedian named John Achkar several months ago, and my friends and I were telling him stories and laughing. He said to us: ‘I’m confused, am I allowed to laugh with you? Will that be offensive?’ I told him: ‘Yeah, you can laugh – not because it’s funny, but because that’s how we get through it,” says Alaqad.
And that tension – between reporter and refugee, storyteller and subject, urgency and uncertainty – defines not only the book, but also Alaqad’s life. Since leaving Gaza with her family on November 22, 2023, the young writer has struggled to move forward with her life, or even find time to be Plestia the young woman, rather than Plestia the platform for peace.
“Whenever I try to move forward in life, it feels like what’s happening in Gaza pulls me backward. Even if I’m physically outside, with access to food, clean water, I can’t help but be in Gaza in my heart,” says Alaqad.
As a result, she’s put her master’s studies on hold, turned down full-time jobs, and refuses to commit to long-term projects. “How can I plan anything when I don’t know when the genocide will stop,” she asks.
“Earlier this year, when they announced a ceasefire, I thought the moment the borders opened, I’d go back. I even started talking to different organisations that can help me enter Gaza but, of course, none of them were able to help,” Alaqad says.
She holds on now to one guiding hope – that when the violence ends, her real work will begin.
“I want to go back to report on the rebuilding of Gaza, and that’s holding me back from doing a lot of things. In the back of my brain I’m like: ‘Maybe in two days, maybe in one week, the genocide will be over.’ So I can’t commit to this or that, to sign a contract, because I need to be able to go back the moment it’s possible.
“I’ve always wanted to start a podcast, but now is not a good time. What if I start talking to guests, and it ends, and I’m able to go back? Then I’ll have to drop everything, and that wouldn’t be fair to everyone, and so on. So I just don’t do it. I can’t just plan my life minus Gaza. I’m always holding on to the hope that the genocide will be over.”
In the meantime, as she takes speaking engagements across the world, works freelance and continues to raise awareness about the death and starvation where her home once stood, she’s spending her free time reading.
She’s reading a lot of bestsellers new and old – Tuesdays with Morrie and The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom, White Nights by Fyodor Dostoevsky, and various works by Agatha Christie.
“I think it helps me understand how the world works. I stick with bestsellers, because I want to know why these books resonated with millions of people. Because when you understand this, you understand what people are interested in.
“There are many books, in my opinion, that should sell millions of copies, and they don't. I think it’s because people don't want to know this truth. It will make them feel bad about the world we live in.
“People want easy truths. Everyone wants to feel better about themselves. No one wants to feel like, ‘Oh my God, there's a lot happening in Gaza, but I'm helpless. There's nothing I can do. That's an ugly feeling that no one wants to pick,” says Alaqad.
In many ways, Alaqad has become disillusioned with the world outside of Gaza. Each day, as she posted the day’s tragic updates, a part of her hoped that the world would come to the rescue overnight – waking up each day to find the blaze only growing greater.
“When I started writing, I was 21 years old. Now, I’m 23, turning 24, and I feel I’ve grown up a lot. I was naive. I no longer have a lot of expectations for the world because of what’s happening. I now know it isn’t only about Palestine. I have realised and understood just how ugly the world can be.”
But each day, rather than sink into despair, Alaqad finds the strength to stay positive. It’s a hope that’s defined her people since the tragedy began nearly 80 years ago – and a light that she will never let extinguish within her.
“I’m always thinking, 'what's the impact you're going to leave on people? What’s the message or purpose behind the work you're doing? Like, if you were to die today, would you be satisfied with what you’re doing?' I live for truth – that is my purpose.”
The Eyes of Gaza in available across the Middle East and will be released in the US in September
