London: We Are Not Numbers Book Launch, May 6

Join us to mark the publication of a new anthology of writing by We Are Not Numbers, the highly respected Gazan writing collective.

On May 6 at the Southbank Centre we will hear from Ahmed Alnaouq, who co-founded the group with Refaat al-Areer in 2014.

Mohammed El-Kurd called the collection “a rebellion against the singular story,” Kamila Shamie wrote that “picking up his book may seem hard because of the subject matter; putting it down is even harder,” while China Miéville called its publication “a profoundly important literary event” - so do join us to welcome this urgent new collection of work.

London: Repair and Return - Stories of Return and Ongoing Genocide, April 17

This event, presented by Theatre for Everybody (Gaza) and Az Theatre (London), is a public conversation live from P21 Gallery and online, that presents testimonies, videos, live interventions, giving accounts of the return of the people of Gaza to their homes, both from the displaced tent encampments and from the prisons and torture centres in Israel. These will also include accounts of the consequences of the end of the ceasefire and of the escalation of the genocide in Gaza and the West Bank.

The event will include a special segment from Basel Marqousi, the 2025 Artist of the Year as chosen by the Palestinian Ministry of Culture, describing his return to Gaza City and what he found.

Reserve your tickets here.

Philadelphia: Fragmented Return with Farah Barqawi and Huda Asfour, April 11

When Huda (b. 1982) and Farah (b. 1985) first met in Gaza in 1997, neither could have anticipated that their brief musical performance at the Latin Patriarchate School, also known as Deir al-Latine, would become the catalyst for a lifelong journey.

Fragmented Return is a multimedia performance by Palestinian artists Huda Asfour and Farah Barqawi, blending elements of their experiences with exile and attempts at return. Through words, music, and visuals, they weave a shared narrative of lives shaped by occupation, displacement, and borders, as well as by joy, resistance, and a quest for collective liberation.

Their intertwined experiences across cities such as Gaza, Cairo, and more recently Brooklyn, bring to the stage a retelling of their version of Palestinian diaspora and the constant struggle of belonging, all viewed through a critical political lens, delivered with humor and raw emotions.

Find more details and reserve your free tickets here.

Book of the Week

The Lakes International Comic Art Festival, working in collaboration with celebrated Palestinian cartoonist Mohammad Sabaaneh, has recently published Safaa and the Tent, the diary of cartoonist Safaa Odah from Gaza, translated into English by Nada Hodali.

Created between October 2023 and December 2024, the cartoons – some actually, originally drawn on a tent – offer “some of the most powerful and poignant images to come out of Gaza that are not photos,” in the opinion of cartoonist Joe Sacco. “They are to be found in this incredible collection of Safaa Odah’s drawings.”

Since the war on Gaza began in October 2023, Safaa has been displaced multiple times but continues to produce daily cartoons from her tent, sometimes using the tent as her canvas and posting them whenever she can on her Instagram account. 

In August last year, she was told that her house was fully destroyed. “Knowing full well that none of the houses will remain standing, I was still hit by a brick with this news,” she wrote. “A home is not simply an abode to live in. It is our homeland. My home is my parents’ sacrifices, being expatriates for over 40 years… Going through that simply to build a simple home. Today, all our memories were shattered, destroyed, dispersed, maybe even buried. My story is no different than any distressed individual, or anyone who’s affected, we might just have many similarities. I have come to realize that we are walking in a dark labyrinth, a labyrinth with no borders.”

Despite her situation, alongside many others, she continued to cartoon, documenting the personal situations of thousands of displaced Palestinians impacted by the war around them.

“Safaa Odah, the Palestinian cartoonist from Gaza, stood against the brutality of genocide with unfiltered sincerity,” notes Mohammad Sabaaneh. “Through raw instinct, she dismantled the official narrative that sought to dehumanize Palestinians, turning her art into a powerful rebuttal. When paper became as scarce as bread, safety, and solace, she did not stop – her tent walls became her new canvas, bearing witness to a resilience that could not be erased.

“We, as Palestinians, know well that Naji al-Ali, the legendary cartoonist assassinated in London in 1987, also began his artistic journey on his tent wall.”

Safaa and the Tent is out now. You can purchase it here. All proceeds from sales of the book go to support Safaa.

Media Roundup

Suad Amiry (1951–) – Mahdi Sabbagh profiles the Palestinian architect Suad Amiry, who refuses “to accept that certain worlds are destined for the bulldozer,” and envisions the potential in the destroyed architectures of Palestine. 

On Which Side of the Screen Lies the Ghost? – Lamia Abukhadra writes about the complicity of the art world in the Gaza genocide, concluding that “Gaza is the ghost of the world, the persistent presence that, despite all efforts to erase it, to make it disappear, remains and resists.”

Lonely as a Crowded Room – Alia H. Salim interviews Badar Salem about her debut novel, Lonely as a Crowded Room, which follows a listless journalist in Ramallah.

Under Relentless Israeli Bombing and Lacking Everything, a Gaza Hospital Is Triaging Genocide – Abubaker Abed writes about how doctors in Al-Aqsa Hospital are losing patients that would have otherwise survived due to the blockade on necessary medical supplies.

You Don’t Get Trump Without Gaza – Ben Ehrenreich argues that the Trump administration’s McCarthyite crackdowns on Palestinian students and on pro-Palestinian dissent could only have been possible in a climate of anti-Palestinian sentiment in the United States.

The Circus of Academic Complicity – In this longread, Gert Van Hecken describes the many sleights of hand by which universities quash criticisms of their complicity in the genocide in Gaza even as they perform institutional neutrality and encourage nuance.

After Recognition – Rozina Ali reads Ta-Nehisi Coates’ The Message through Isabella Hammad’s theorizations of “anagnorisis,” the moment in narrative when someone moves from ignorance to knowledge, to ask what purpose narratives of Palestine serve when they fail to alter the course of history.

The Haunting Road to Al-Ahli – Yousri Alghoul describes his journey to visit his father at Al-Ahli Hospital, and the destruction that marked the long walk there.

Gaza Families Struggle to Survive in Egypt After Displacement Last Year – Reporting from Egypt, Jenna Martin describes how refugees from Gaza do not qualify as 'refugees' according to international legal definitions, meaning that they have to find creative ways to support themselves and pay for their everyday needs.

Three Poems – Three new poems by Dalia Taha, translated by Sara Elkamel: “The poem you read during the war / And though it didn’t comfort you / It did, for a few moments, distract you.”

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