[News] Remnants of books in Gaza: Reading as act of resistance

[Anti-Imperialist News]

 Remnants of books in Gaza: Reading as act of resistance

Thursday 26-June-2025 -
https://english.palinfo.com/reports/2025/06/26/342057/
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<https://english.palinfo.com/reports/2025/06/26/342057/#>
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GAZA, (PIC)

In a city consumed by fire and haunted by famine, reading shines as a faint
glimmer of hope.

Books in Gaza shake off layers of darkness, as if candles. Despite the
blockade, they declare that determination of Palestinian souls cannot be
deterred.

No one in Gaza can be killed, though besieged and starved, unless they stop
dreaming and reading.

Here in Gaza, at least 55,000 have been killed, homes erased, libraries
burned, pens broken, and children’s notebooks turned to ashes.

Yet, a lonely book cart still roams slowly over blood-stained roads,
affirming that intellect refuses to surrender.

“Read to survive,” 64-year-old Mohammed Madi’s voice echoes in Al-Nasr
Street, in the heart of a wounded city.

Even with the ongoing genocide, he still lays out books with various titles
beneath the blazing sun of June.


*Books in times of famine*From a three-wheeled cart, life emerged once
again.

“Readers are the few who remain,” says Madi, after losing 90% of his
customers, killed, displaced, or starved.

Still, readers still resort to books, not for entertainment but for
survival.

Madi gathers his books, from beneath the rubble: destroyed libraries,
collapsed homes, and scattered dreams.

While books are burned for cooking or warmth, the rest are sold for less
than the price of bread.

“Just 5 to 10 shekels,” Madi says. “Reading has become a luxury in the land
of hunger.”


*Reading as an act of survival*“I read to remember my identity,” Majed
Saad, says with a hushed tone. Once, Saad was an employee. But now, he is
homeless, seeking refuge in a tent.

Saad visits the book cart on a daily basis, not to buy, but to borrow. He
sits beneath a crumbling wall, reads, and ultimately returns to his tent.

Meanwhile, Saja, 18, came looking for psychology books. The war stole her
youth, stopping her from taking her final exams. But it didn’t steal her
dream of becoming a psychiatrist. “Knowledge isn’t exclusive to schools,”
she said, her eyes burning with the stubborn light of awareness.


*Book, dreams pulled from under the rubble*In Gaza, books are no longer
just a shield from ignorance. They are a refuge from madness. Children read
old adventure stories to escape the horrors of war.

While fathers spend their last savings on books to protect their children’s
minds from erosion, university graduates, who lost their campuses, search
for alternative lives in the pages of books.

Jamal Salman reads from his phone screen under the moonlight. No
electricity, not even a candle.

Imad Al-Jabari, a father of four, buys storybooks to keep his children from
falling into the void.

And Abdel Halim Al-Ajjouri, an unemployed accounting graduate, seeks out
management books to fill the killing emptiness.


*Libraries collapse, words endure*The aggression against Gaza was not just
an attack on geography, but on identity, culture, and intellect. In an
attempt to silence the voice of knowledge, the Israeli occupation army
destroyed 1,661 educational facilities, including universities, schools,
and libraries.

Yet from the rubble, Madi’s cart emerged as a small beacon, resisting with
ink and paper.

This is not just a story about a bookseller, but about a city’s memory.
It’s about intellectuals who only gave up their books under the pressure of
hunger and children sitting on sidewalks reading fiction while reality has
become a nightmare.

Reading in Gaza is not just a luxury. It is resistance. In a time when
schools are bombed and paper is burnt, words remain alive while Gaza people
continue to read.
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