Books like The Gates of Gaza

This is a slim volume that is playful, sweet, and natural in tone, although the setting, Gaza, is never associated with the playful, the sweet, and the whole regime that governs it is as far from being natural as is feasibly possible. 

I had not read a voice like Heba’s before, warm yet wise beyond her years and full of humor, intelligence, and originality. There is an excellent playlist that ranges from Nina Simone to Mashrou’ Leila, which covers aspects of her life, from fluffy slippers to political debates to the love of family and women. ‘Late capitalism is the bane of my life,’ Hayek writes, ‘sometimes it feels as though these algorithms have encrypted my very brain.’

As a teenager in Gaza, she uses Google Maps to explore cities she cannot access, but when homesick in exile later, in Europe or the US there is an equivalent way of… show more.

I heard Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish speak at the Auckland Writer’s Festival some years back now. The auditorium was packed, yet you could hear a pin drop, so moved was the audience by this man’s profound humanity. A dedicated physician who, despite having suffered personal tragedy in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, has not allowed hatred or revenge to corrode his life. He continues to work tirelessly for peace and resolution in the troubled Gaza region and is a beacon of hope for all mankind. 

An anthology written by Gazans (many teens), the essays and short pieces ring with sorrow, hope, and the relatable thoughts of young people who want what all youth want in their world. These stories, passages, and poems, everyday moments like handing in homework and falling in love, are brought in stark relief by the reality of living in Palestine.

This may seem an unconventional pick because it’s a book of poetry. But it’s narrative poetry, and it affects me deeply every time I read it. Mosab Abu Toha is from Gaza, a place saturated in grief, an unending kind of grief where no one ever has the luxury of healing because death follows death follows death, and displacement follows displacement.

The book was published before the most devastating attacks of 2023-2024, and reflects on deaths and destruction from prior bombing campaigns. It repeatedly asks, in the most detailed and profound ways, how to grieve one’s home and homeland, how to process one death after another, and how to remember and hold onto details about people and places when almost every physical remnant is destroyed or displaced.

It also contemplates how to grieve while directly facing one’s own mortality and vulnerability. The first poem, Palestine A-Z, is a 10-page catalog… show more.

Finkelstein is the son of holocaust survivors and explains so meticulously how terribly Israel has treated the people of Gaza since occupying it in 1967. Two-thirds of its two million Palestinian inhabitants are refugees, and more than half its population is under 18. Israel has not only systematically destroyed the Gazan economy turning into “the world’s largest open-air prison camp,” But it has launched no fewer than nine military operations against Gaza – including Operation Cast Lead in 2008 and Operation Protective Edge in 2014 with its latest bout of savage bombing all but destroying the place altogether.

At a time of death and destruction in Gaza, this book is one of the only volumes that brings to the English language reader some of the voices from inside a small strip of land that has been under siege by land, sea, and air for sixteen years.

Although the quality of the writing is variable, I found that the rawness of the collection made the writers seem more intimate. With some gutsy writing by women and tender pieces by men, the anthology subverts assumptions and provides a wide heterogeneity of voices to the fore. 

In luminous prose, Raja Shehadeh describes six walks into the Palestinian countryside between 1978 and 2006.

He writes of the ancient practice of rural peoples of naming each wadi, spring, hillock, escarpment, etc., in their immediate environment.

Shehadeh sometimes risks his life simply to walk on the land near Ramallah in the proximity of ever-expanding Israeli settlements. I have twice been to the West Bank, most recently in January of 2025. No area is safe, but the love Palestinians have for the land has in no way lessened.

Shehadeh’s book is a timeless and compassionate love letter to the earth. To know Palestine, first you must know the land.

A critical component of the gender equality booklist is trans rights, which is why I recommend this autobiography. I hesitate to say too much about it—because I just think the best thing to do is dive in and read this for yourself. I will say that the words Chloe chooses and the way she talks about her own transition—it was surprising, and heartbreaking, and insightful, and beautiful—all at the same time.

Chloe has also become a friend of mine, and I can say that she is every bit as tenacious and lovable in person as she is on the page. I often give this book as a gift to people who are thinking of, in the middle of, or are supporting a loved one through a gender transition. 

Yoram Peri’s expertise on the historical entanglements of the military and political sectors in Israel is unrivaled. Based on personal interviews with all major players Peri goes behind the scenes to show the real meaning of the standard Israeli formula that the “Arab problem” should be seen “through the gunsight.” He describes how different generals, even those open to an accommodation with the Palestinians and opposed to settlers, were either stymied or transformed into saboteurs of the Oslo peace process. This pattern he attributes to the hegemonic psychology, standard operating procedures, processes of socialization, and political demands, associated with the way the Israel Defense Forces are organized and integrated into Israeli politics. Particularly vivid is his portrayal of upper-echelon Israeli military frustration at its forced withdrawal from Lebanon and how that resulted in the IDF’s extraordinarily violent and destructive treatment of the Gaza Strip.

I found this book eminently readable. It’s like a story about borders, offering vivid portrayals of real conflictual political geographies. Dodds makes clear that borders play political, social, economic, and environmental roles that must be considered for any prospect of peace in the future.

This is the sort of book that educated readers, from college students to international jet setters, would find enlightening as to borders’ breadth of relevance in the 21st Century.