A Historian in Gaza

Nothing could prepare historian Jean-Pierre Filiu for what he encountered in Gaza.

Noted historian of Gaza, Jean-Pierre Filiu, spent a month there between December and January 2025. This is his up-close, immersive documentary of reality inside the Palestinian enclave.

Filiu is a historian who specialises in Gazan history, and has travelled there regularly since 1980. He also knows the Arabic dialect spoken there. In December 2024, he once again crossed into Gaza, albeit under unimaginably different circumstances: at the time, only two convoys per week were allowed through the border crossings. In January 2025, Filiu returned.

Writing in a lyrical but frank tone, he reveals a portrait of grim reality, delivering a book that is in part war reportage, and in part a narrative of human suffering. People living in Gaza must fight to find fresh water, eat proper meals, move from one city to another, and struggle to obtain medical care if wounded. These quotidian experiences are described in a manner that forces us to confront what is happening in Gaza every single day.



‘This superb book is written by a historian who has experienced many wars and who has been going to Gaza since 1982 … The shock and revulsion at what he witnessed there, where death now can come at any time, comes through on every page. Written with empathy and deep knowledge of the place and its people, Filiu puts the reader right at the centre of Gaza’s horrific reality. I was moved to the bone reading his account, which is like no other I’ve read on Gaza.’
—Raja Shehadeh, Palestinian lawyer, human rights activist, and author of What Does Israel Fear from Palestine?

‘A searing new eyewitness account … a forensic reconstruction of the deliberate unmaking of a people … Though Filiu’s is a unique outsider report within the territory, his book is also a much-needed history lesson.’
—Diane de Vignemont, Jacobin

‘His testimony is brought to the readers of A Historian in Gaza, a title chosen by the man who, in the field, simultaneously takes on the roles of reporter, humanitarian worker, academic and, above all, fervent expert on the Middle East, its lands, its peoples and its future … he captures the details of the unbearable … In this logbook, which is not just a chronicle of the dead, the historian recreates Gaza's past, which was once an oasis full of grain and orchards … He acknowledges at the end his privilege and “the limits” of his testimony.’
—Hala Kodmani, The Alliance for Water Justice in Palestine