Women’s voices from Gaza recorded amidst conflict
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Women in Gaza wrote accounts of their lives during the Israeli offensive, and Rania Jawad of Birzeit University in the occupied West Bank gathered these writings into a book titled “O Mundo que conhecíamos ficou para trás” (The World We Knew Is Gone).
Jawad and her team at the Institute of Women’s Studies began collecting the testimonies shortly after the offensive started, reaching out to women they already knew and then expanding to others writing publicly online.
They aimed to create a connection with the women and preserve their experiences, not simply to publish their words, and shared the texts on the Institute’s Facebook page. The project continued for eight months, including organizing letters of support from feminist activists to the authors. Geo Britto and Pepa Conde, colleagues of Jawad’s, then proposed turning the collection into a book, and Mórula Editorial in Rio de Janeiro agreed to publish it as an act of political solidarity.
Despite the extreme violence and deliberate disruption of communications by Israel, the team was able to maintain contact with many of the women. Jawad emphasized that the book represents a single moment within the ongoing genocide and aims to connect with people facing similar struggles against racism, imperialism, and oppression worldwide.
She hopes the book will inspire readers to reflect on how they can act on what they have read and connect it to their own fights for justice, rather than simply seeking understanding of the situation in Gaza.
