We speak with Plestia Alaqad, an award-winning Palestinian journalist whose on-the-ground reporting from Gaza captured global attention during the early days of Israel’s military assault two years ago. Then just 21 years old, her video dispatches went viral and offered the world a rare glimpse of life under bombardment. Alaqad, who fled Gaza with her family in late 2023, has now published The Eyes of Gaza: A Diary of Resilience, drawn from the diary she kept in the weeks following October 7, 2023.

Reflecting on the last two years, Alaqad says that “Israel succeeded in isolating and dividing Gaza from the rest of the world” and making daily life intolerable for Palestinians. “They’ve been displaced, bombed, trapped and starved deliberately by Israel.”

Alaqad also stresses that the story of Palestine goes beyond just the last two years. “History didn’t start on October 7. It’s been two years of the genocide, but it’s been 77 years, if not more, of the ongoing Nakba that started in 1948,” she says.