Plestia Alaqad: “Journalists should focus on humanising people”

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In a video uploaded to Instagram on February 25, Palestinian journalist and author Plestia Alaqad speaks into a camera, backdropped by concrete rubble. She’s in Jnoub, Southern Lebanon, close to the border with modern-day Israel. In recent months, the area has seen countless tonnes of bombs dropped onto it via airstrikes, as well as a ground invasion in October – Israel’s sixth invasion of Lebanon since 1978.

“It’s important to understand that wars don’t stop when bombs stop falling,” she tells her followers. “For example, all these are demolished houses – people used to live here and now they’re basically homeless.” The video cuts to her finding Uno game cards in among the rubble and a notebook. “The rubble is memories for people – here we can see an Uno game, which means children used to live here and they used to play Uno. But now it’s a demolished place.”

It’s Alaqad’s incisive, straight-to-the-heart ability to highlight the real human impacts of the ongoing atrocities in Gaza and beyond that has made her one of its most crucial documentarians over the past 18 months. Back in October 2023, Alaqad was in Gaza – where she was born and grew up – having freshly graduated from university and was looking to make it as a journalist. But as Israeli attacks and the invasion became more and more critical, she began to post regular updates about the worsening situation onto her social media platforms, while providing a voice from inside Gaza for traditional media organisations including Al-Jazeera and NBC. Soon, millions were following her reports and updates.

She now recounts her story in her new book and memoir, The Eyes of Gaza, which collates diary entries that she made in the aftermath of October 7. It makes for a personal, harrowing, day-by-day account of the growing tragedy, and continues her journey after she left Gaza for Australia. It’s filled with heartbreaking stories that provide a window into the true horrors of living through genocide, told with her characteristic humanising touch – one story sees her pick up some popcorn for her family the day after Al-Maamdani Baptist Hospital was hit by Israeli air strikes. I sat down to chat with her about the book, as well as what other journalists can learn from her work.

Can you talk about the writing processes for the book?

I started writing my diary entries when I was in Gaza. I didn’t have my original diary with me. It was a random, ugly blue notebook that I was writing in. I didn’t really like how it looked, but it was all I could find and I was grateful for it. I started writing with it in different places – in the car, on the sidewalks of the street – writing, writing, writing. Sometimes I used to write about my day before trying to sleep at night, sometimes I’d write in the morning because I didn’t want anyone around me to talk to me, and they’d see me busy writing.

The first 45 days were obviously in Gaza, then the aftermath chapter I wrote when I was in Australia, and I wrote when I was in Egypt as well. So I wrote in different places and when we started turning the diary entries into a book, it was professionally edited – going back and forth on a Microsoft Word document.

I think what I connected with the most reading the book was how you really show that people aren’t statistics – of course the official death toll hit 50,000 the other day.

The death tally is more than 50,000. [There was a Lancet] study months ago that said that it’s actually more than 185,000. 50,000 is not an up-to-date number, because when you think about it, the people who are supposed to tell you how many people are being killed, are also getting killed.

I think it shows a forward thinking, modern way to do journalism. Should journalists learn from the ways that you’ve been telling stories?

Yes, there is a lot [other journalists] could learn. First of all, to focus on humanising people and not on surface level reporting. I appreciate all journalists – I’m only 23 years old and when I was reporting [in Gaza], I was only 20, 21. I don’t have a lot of experience – they obviously have experience and I appreciate that, but sometimes I believe that it’s a good thing I don’t, because I’m not following someone else’s work or path. I’m doing things the way I believe that they should be done, because sometimes journalists follow what’s in the book and don’t actually dig deep to understand the person they’re working on [for] their story, or to understand the importance of what they’re reporting on.

If a story goes viral, not all journalists should report on it just because it’s viral. There are a lot of untold stories that could go viral, but they’re unreported on. So focus on reporting that. Choose your stories wisely, ask your questions wisely, and ask yourself: “What’s the purpose of what I’m doing?” Because if you know the purpose and value of what you’re doing, you’ll do your job better. If you’re doing what you’re doing only for your story to go viral, or for such intentions, then you wouldn’t cover the story as it should be reported.

From the past year and a half of your work, what have you learnt about the international community, and particularly the global Palestine solidarity movement?

I learnt that you don’t have to be Palestinian to be doing a lot. There are people outside of Palestine who are supporting and helping in a lot of ways – the student encampments, boycotting, protesting – everything that everyone is doing, the support and sense of community, is important. And there are good consequences and outcomes from the protests and the boycotting, and there’s more awareness about what’s happening – there’s Israeli embassies in certain countries that are closing, and it’s all because of the pressure.

What does The Eyes of Gaza mean to you personally?

It sums up my experience, and the experiences of millions of people as well. There are 2 million people in Gaza and they’re going about their day differently. I think about how there are 8 billion people in this world and they all experience today in a different way. So, it’s important to know how people in Gaza are experiencing it.

The Eyes of Gaza by Plestia Alaqad is published by Pan Macmillan.

Isaac Muk is Huck’s digital editor. Follow him on Bluesky.

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