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Mosab Abu Toha reading a selection of poetry in a session titled Poems Under the Rubble at March Meeting. Sharjah Art Foundation, 2024. Photo: Motaz Mawid
Overview
Since 7 October 2023, tens of thousands of people have been killed, mostly children and women, as Gaza has been relentlessly bombed. More than half of the housing units in Gaza have been destroyed, along with schools, hospitals, churches and mosques. Poets, artists, journalists and their families have been systematically targeted, among countless others. Poems and stories are no longer written in Gaza with the pen but with shards of glass, under rubble and fire. These poems carry the scent of war and the scars of shrapnel. Mosab Abu Toha, whose award-winning 2022 collection of poems Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear, attests to the complexity of life under siege in Gaza, will share his poetry alongside the works of his peers such as the late Refaat Alareer.