Gaza I Spy provides a fly-on-the-wall view of children’s daily life in Gaza since October 2023. Juxtaposing childhood joy and resilience with the reality of violent conflict, this powerful collection of poetry, prose and photography is a must-read.

Gaza I Spy
By Feda Shtia
Published by Sunono Publishing

“Sunono” is the Arabic word for the swallow, an international migratory species that returns to its nesting grounds each year. We traverse the globe, gathering tales from diverse countries, even those where flying is forbidden. Thus, we spy…

The Gaza I Spy book is a nonprofit publication. All proceeds from the book will go to support children in Gaza.

Children were dragging empty water canisters because that’s one of the most precious items. Now anything that you can put water in, it is one of your most precious valuables.

Louise Wateridge
2024
UNRWA Spokesperson in Gaza

They steal your bread, then give you a crumb of it…Then they demand you thank them for their generosity…O their audacity!

Ghassan Kanafani
1936-1972
Assassinated
Palestinian Novelist

A person can only be born in one place. However, he may die several times elsewhere: in the exiles and prisons, and in a homeland transformed by the occupation and oppression into a nightmare. Poetry is perhaps what teaches us to nurture the charming illusion: how to be reborn out of ourselves over and over again, and use words to construct a better world, a fictitious world that enables us to sign a pact for a permanent and comprehensive peace… with life.

Mahmoud Darwish
1941-2008
Palestinian Writer and Poet

You have something in this world. So, stand for it.

Ghassan Kanafani
1936-1972
Assassinated
Palestinian Novelist

WCNSF

UNICEF reported in February 2023 that at least 17,000 minors in Gaza were unaccompanied or separated from their families. The actual number is likely much higher now. Hospitals have coined a bleak new acronym to identify them: WCNSF – wounded child, no surviving family.

German Shepherd

My son has always wanted a German Shepherd – intelligent dogs. He has done his research, eager to convince me.

What he didn’t find in his research was the story of Muhammad Buhar, a young man with Down syndrome from Gaza. The Israeli army’s German Shepherd tore into his arm and chest, leaving him for dead. Buhar, who was 24 but had the mental age of a 5-year-old, was patting the dog’s head with his free hand, pleading, “Leave me, Habibi. Leave me, my darling.”

I can’t explain to my 8-year-old that this is the image I carry with me, etched into my mind forever.

A Husky is good for Scotland. The IDF won’t train them to torture Palestinians, to maim and brutalize them as they did in Gaza. “Yes, my son, you can have a Husky.”

Gaza I Spy by Feda Shtia is published by Sunono Publishing, priced £85.