Aya al-Shawa, 10, sits in sixth grade at a school in northern Gaza, holding a book she recently received and what is now one of her most treasured possessions. Before it reached Aya’s hands, it had a difficult journey. It once sat on a bookshelf before an Israeli attack demolished the building it was housed in, leaving it buried beneath the rubble.
Then one day someone recovered it, cleaned it, sorted its pages and repaired them. The book then found its way to a new reader. Amid the widespread destruction in Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, books – one of the most vulnerable of all items – have become a rare commodity.
About 98 percent of school buildings in the Gaza Strip have been destroyed or damaged, according to UNICEF. With approximately 700,000 children in Gaza deprived of regular in-person education since the war began in October 2023, books have also become a vital way for children to reconnect with learning. UNESCO has documented widespread damage to cultural sites and institutions in Gaza, including libraries.
With a “ceasefire” in Gaza since October 2025, during which there has been a relative decrease in Israeli bombing, books have begun to take a second life. Mohammed Saad, 54, from Beit Lahiya, has spent more than 35 years collecting books, and before the war, he estimated that he had between 50,000 and 100,000 titles in his library. On December 7, 2023, the library was destroyed.
After being displaced 16 times in total, Saad returned to Beit Lahiya again to see what remained of his book collection. From the rubble of his home, he began to pull out the surviving books. He managed to recover about 12,000 books from the rubble and moved what he could to Deir el-Balah, where he erected a tent and established a library called Athar, meaning “impact” but also relating to antiquities or historical relics.
From the tent, Saad and his son Mohammed began cleaning and repairing the thousands of books in their possession. But Saad’s goal is not only to save the books from damage. He also wants them to reach people, particularly children.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
