"Requiem for a Refugee Camp": Mosab Abu Toha on Destruction of Jabaliya, Abduction of Doctors & More
Israeli forces are continuing their unrelenting attacks across the Gaza Strip, killing scores of Palestinians in the first week of 2025 even as Israeli and Hamas officials resume talks in Qatar aimed at reaching a ceasefire. The official death toll in Gaza is nearing 46,000, although experts say the true figure is likely much higher. The United Nations has warned its efforts to bring humanitarian aid into the besieged Gaza Strip are at a “breaking point” after Israeli forces opened fire on a World Food Programme convoy over the weekend, and healthcare facilities across much of the territory are destroyed, shuttered or barely functioning. For more on the deteriorating situation in Gaza, we’re joined by acclaimed Palestinian poet and author Mosab Abu Toha. His latest piece for The New Yorker is headlined “Requiem for a Refugee Camp,” examining Israel’s destruction of Jabaliya. He describes the double devastation of Palestinians who have not only been displaced during the 1948 Nakba but also during Israel’s current genocide of Gaza, placing refugees “farther and farther from [the] dream of return.”