(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "COME CHECK THIS")
UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTIST: Come check this.
LEILA FADEL, BYLINE: If you scrolled through Plestia Alaqad's Instagram account before October 7, 2023, you would have found snapshots of the young journalist set to music lounging by the beach in Gaza City, hanging with friends, getting glammed up, celebrating Palestinian culture.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
FADEL: It all took a dark turn soon after Hamas attacked Israel.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PLESTIA ALAQAD: OK. So during wartimes, the neighbors...
FADEL: Alaqad started chronicling Israel's response, showing the world what it was like to live under Israel's relentless and, as you'll hear, terrifying bombardment.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ALAQAD: And here is the family. They're gathering all together also in a place far away from the...
(SOUNDBITE OF EXPLOSIONS)
ALAQAD: I was trying to explain things, but I think you can hear them now.
FADEL: Every so often, Alaqad posted pages from her diary until she was able to leave Gaza. Those pages have turned into her new book, "The Eyes Of Gaza."
ALAQAD: This diary isn't my story alone. It's the story of millions of Palestinians. This book is a reminder that history didn't start on October 7. History for Palestinians started in 1948 and in Nakba.
FADEL: Nakba is the Arabic word for catastrophe, and it's what Palestinians use to refer to the forcible displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes in 1948 when Israel was created. She would hear stories about it from her grandfather.
ALAQAD: So I always thought these stories are exaggeration until I left them myself. And until now, the whole world is seeing them live, being reported and documented on TV.
FADEL: You wrote in your book and your diary, quote, "in the morning, you see people being forcibly removed from their homes, and it breaks your heart. And in the evening, you play with two kids for five minutes, and it heals something inside of you." I noticed that you often brought up children who you encountered during your reporting in your daily accounts. Why do you think you focused on kids so much?
ALAQAD: The thing is, the first seven years of your life, your experiences, it shapes who you are as a person, and then Gaza children are not allowed to be children. Right now, kids in Gaza are growing up afraid of the sky because when they look at the sky, there's either bomb, leaflets killing you to evacuate and even when there is clouds, you look at them and you can't differentiate, are these clouds or are these smoke from a bombing? There are a lot of babies who recently got born during the genocide and they don't even know what a home is like. They know what a tent is, but they didn't get to live in a home or experience it.
FADEL: You also wrote a lot about how you didn't want Palestinians just to be known by death and destruction, that there is joy and love. And I'd love to hear more about that effort 'cause I think about your Instagram, pre-October 7, really was about celebrating fashions and food and what Gaza is and what Palestinians in Gaza are.
ALAQAD: Instagram used to be, for me, at least, a platform where you open - you catch up with your friends. What are people posting? What are they doing with their lives? Oh, my friend got married. She posted a picture. Oh, she has a baby. Oh, she traveled. She went through uni. Like, that's what we used to see. But right now, you learn about your friend's death from Instagram. So right now, even Instagram for Gazans is different than the rest of the world.
FADEL: There is this moment in your book where you get on Instagram and you realize one of your high school friends has been killed, and that's how you find out. Or there was another moment where your best friend Dana - is she still in Gaza?
ALAQAD: Yes, she's still in Gaza. And I spoke to her, actually, yesterday.
FADEL: I remember in the book, where you get so excited when you see her name pop up on your screen 'cause you only hear from her sporadically. Is that still the case?
ALAQAD: That's still the case because she keeps evacuating a lot. So whenever she's, like, in a place, oh, she has internet, that's like for five days. Then she needs to evacuate again, try to find internet again. So it's like an endless loop of displacement that has been going on for two years.
FADEL: I never imagined it would go on for two years.
ALAQAD: Neither did I, to be honest. The last time we spoke together, I thought, oh, my God, Israel is outdoing themselves. There's nothing more they can do. But here we are a year later, and there's still more evil that Israel is doing.
FADEL: There was this section in your book that really struck me. You wrote, in Gaza, you'll find mothers of martyrs celebrating the sacrifice of their children. Does this mean that they're pleased that Israel killed their children? No. But are they proud that their children give their lives for Palestine? Yes. It's an act of giving meaning to the worst loss a person can possibly endure. We don't celebrate death, but death is all around us and we need a way to convert it back to life. Can you tell me about this passage, what you meant about making sense out of senseless death?
ALAQAD: Yes, this reminds me, actually, when I was once in the hospital with Leen (ph) and her family. Leen is a little girl that I used to tutor. And Israel has ordered all of us people in northern Gaza to evacuate. And that day, almost everyone felt it's the end, Israel will kill all of us. And Leen's dad started saying, don't worry, guys, at least if we get killed today, it's like we're getting killed for a cause bigger than ourselves. It's like we're getting killed for Palestine. So it's OK. But obviously it's not OK. But it was us trying to make sense of that moment.
FADEL: You start the book describing the Gaza before October 7, the cafe you and your friends especially loved to go to. I mean, if you could just describe in detail the Gaza and your neighborhood that you loved so much before and what is left of it today.
ALAQAD: Even though it's a simple question, I actually find it a difficult question to answer...
FADEL: Yeah.
ALAQAD: ...Because when I look at pictures and videos of Gaza, you can't even recognize it anymore. Literally, everything is getting wiped out - churches, mosques, schools, buildings, the streets, cafes, restaurants. It's hard for you to recognize the areas. So whenever I try to remember my memories and my life in Gaza, it's like I'm remembering something that in real life it no longer exists. Like, it exists in pictures, but in a way, it doesn't exist anymore.
FADEL: Plestia Alaqad. Her new book is "The Eyes Of Gaza." It was her diary in Gaza, and it is now out for the world to read.
(SOUNDBITE OF SHAKTI'S "PEACE OF MIND") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
