Plestia Alaqad | بلستيا العقاد (@plestia.alaqad)

I’ll keep using every platform I can to speak about Palestine. Words may feel powerless, but they’re all we have, and I’ll never stop using them. Words by @gladys__lai 📸 @yasminsuteja Wearing @farageaustralia

Plestia Alaqad wrote her diary on the floor of Al-Quds Hospital. In the street, seated in so-called “Journalist Zones,” surrounded by reporters trying to upload dispatches with scraps of signal. In her lap while driving through rubble-strewn roads. On clean hotel bedsheets in Egypt. Forty-five days of entries that would become her book, The Eyes of Gaza. It’s a raw, intimate, first-hand account—and a document of a new era in Palestinian journalism, shaped by voices the world now knows on a first-name basis: Motaz Azaiza, Hind Khoudary, Bisan Owda, and others reporting from the ground, surviving the very events they were documenting. “Let’s know the Palestinians before they die. There is no reason to wait until they get martyred to know their names and stories,” @plestia.alaqad tells @zinya.salfiti. Read the full story at the link in bio. Head of Editorial Content: @aminejreissaty Photography by @prodantzoulis Art Director: @rashidbabiker Styled by @keanoushdarosa Digital Editor: @aminakaabi Visual Editor: @ankitaachandra Hair and Make-Up: @sara.ymakeup Editorial Assistant: @anchthawani كتبت بلستيا العقاد مذكّراتها على أرض مستشفى القدس مصر، جالسة في ما يُسمى “مناطق الصحفيين”، محاطة بمراسلين يحاولون إرسال تقاريرهم وسط إشارة ضعيفة. خمسة وأربعون يومًا من التدوين أصبحت كتابها “عيون غزة”.إنها رواية أولية حميمية مباشرة – ووثيقة لعصر جديد في الصحافة الفلسطينية، تشكلها أصوات يعرفها العالم الآن بأسمائها الأولى: معتز عزايزة، وهند خضري، وبيسان عودة، وآخرون يغطون الأحداث من قلبها، وينجون من الأحداث نفسها التي كانوا يوثقونها. “دعونا نعرف الفلسطينيين قبل أن يموتوا. لا يوجد سبب للانتظار حتى يستشهدوا لمعرفة أسمائهم وقصصهم”، كما تقول بلستيا العقاد لزينية سالفيتي. لقراءة القصة كاملة، الرابط في البايو.

I believe we don’t have the power to choose what happens to us, but we do have the power to choose how we react. And we will not be both silenced and killed. Over the past year, I have poured my heart and soul into writing this book. It is my humble attempt to share my story and the stories of the Palestinian people. I never thought that my first book would be my diary entries from the genocide, but here we are. Special thanks to @_byzaid_ 📸

Kenzy’s story is one of the stories that stayed with me the most. I first met her in a hospital in Gaza in November 2023. Back then, she couldn’t speak to me, she was too traumatized to talk to anyone. I spoke with her dad instead, and he shared their story and how she got injured. Today, almost two years later, she’s in Lebanon. She has gone through two surgeries and she still has a long journey of treatment ahead of her, but she is doing better ❤️ We spent the day coloring, playing, and filming TikToks together 🫶 Beyond thankful for @gabusittahchildrensfund and all the amazing work they’re doing👏👏

“Since our walk, 28-year-old Al Jazeera journalist Anas al-Sharif was killed in a targeted airstrike alongside four of his colleagues: correspondent Mohammed Qreiqeh and cameramen Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal and Moamen Aliwa. A later strike at al-Nasser hospital killed a further five journalists. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 192 journalists have been killed in Gaza since 7 October 2023,” writes Benita Kolovos. Award-winning Palestinian journalist and poet, Plestia Alaqad, says the journalism industry in Gaza is close-knit. She never once felt underestimated – not for her age, her gender or her experience. “On the contrary, because I was a young journalist, I felt like all other journalists were older than me and supporting me, guiding me, giving me advice,” Alaqad says. Everyone had their own expertise, she explains: hers was reporting in English. She mainly worked alongside a journalist named Hatem, whose speciality was social media and video editing, and another, Mohamed, “an expert when it comes to the field”. “He’s who you want to be with if you hear a bomb go off, he’ll tell you where to go,” she says. Photography by @charliekinrossphotography

Sarah Al Kahlout is in her final year of studying medicine. She always dreamed of becoming a doctor and helping people, but today she is the one in need of doctors to help her. Israel directly attacked her house and killed her sister Shams, a second-year medical student, along with other members of her family. Sarah’s leg was amputated and her body is covered with wounds. Just a day before, she was with her colleagues taking the OSCE exam. But in Gaza, you can make plans and Israel always has other plans. Sarah urgently needs treatment abroad to be able to walk again and to continue her journey to become the doctor she has always dreamed of being. If any humanitarian organizations and medical institutions can help Sarah, plz get in touch.

It breaks my heart how isolated and different Gaza is from the rest of the world. 📸: @biddle.biddle

How can we make sense of all these deaths? Israel literally killed Mariam, Mohammed, Hosam, and Moaz on live TV in front of the whole world!!! When did journalism become a crime instead of Israel’s killing being the crime? May their souls rest in peace.

What are we all doing with all the privileges and freedom we have? 📸: @biddle.biddle

Israel is weaponizing food in every possible way, not only using it to kill Gazans, but also forcing them to desperately fight for it, corrupting our relationship with food, with ourselves, and with our culture. Every form of food allowed by Israel is now causing deaths and injuries. None of it is safe, dignified, or distributed properly, nor does it reach most of the population in Gaza. Words by @nouralsaqa

683 days of a genocide.

Slide 1/ This video was on 10/10/2023 when I went to Press House Palestine to borrow the press gear, I saw these equipments laying down the floor underneath the stairs, in that moment, I realised how risky it is to be a journalist but I didn’t give it much thought. Slide 2/ I went to our friend’s house(which we had to evacuate after 30 mins), my sister took this picture as she was proud seeing me as a journalist. Slides 3 & 4/ This was when we were all asked to evacuate from North of Gaza to the South of Gaza. I felt I will die trapped in a hospital. Slides 5 & 6/ This was after Israel killed Belal Jadallah. He was the father of journalism in Gaza, he was a great figure for me, a role model, seeing him get killed made me not want to wear the press gear again. And it was in fact.. the last time I wore it.. Now, almost 2 years into a genocide, 269 journalists if not more got killed, and the question is who reports on the reporters?