Join us for the launch of Witness to the Hellfire of Genocide: A Testimony from Gaza (2025) by Wasim Said, a searing first-person account from inside the siege. This book refuses the distance that writing about Gaza often imposes, it is a testimony that holds you to the reality of what Gaza has been subjected to over the past three years.

A 22-year-old living in Gaza, Wasim recounts his testimony as he watches the horrors that unfold in front of him. As much as it is harrowing, his testimony, also unveils a world that we must fight to save. In reading his words and bearing witness to the genocide, the book urges the reader to acknowledge their responsibility to join the struggle for Palestinian liberation. In that sense the testimony is transformed into a call to witness.

In conversation, Mezna Qato and Nihal El Aasar will discuss the book’s significance as a historical document, as literature and as a political intervention. They will discuss what it means to bear witness, how testimony functions under genocide and why this account demands to be read now.

Mezna Qato teaches history at the University of Cambridge. She is a founding steering member of LIbrarians and Archivists with Palestine, amongst other formations.

Nihal El Aasar is a writer, researcher, political analyst and an organiser with the Palestinian Youth Movement.

Hosted in collaboration with Palestinian Youth Movement and Mosaic Rooms.