A Historian in Gaza

by Jean-Pierre Filiu

‘The Gaza I knew, and whose length and breadth I’ve travelled, has ceased to exist.’

Jean-Pierre Filiu, acclaimed historian of Gaza, is intimately familiar with the land’s people and places; he speaks the local dialect. But nothing prepared him for what he encountered there in December 2024. This is his unforgettable, unbearably intimate account of one month in a place shattered by Israel’s all-out war.

When the historian returned to Gaza, he arrived under circumstances unimaginably different from his many past visits since 1980: only a limited number of convoys were allowed into the Strip, and he was one of the few humanitarians able to enter, this time by night. He remained inside for 33 days, and emerged determined to bear witness to the devastation—to the Gazans fighting simply to live, every single day.

Filiu’s haunting portrait of a land betrayed is a grim work of war reportage, documented with the acuity of a historian; and a lyrical narrative of human suffering, and human dignity.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

182 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 20, 2025

About the author

Jean-Pierre Filiu (1961) is a French professor of Middle East studies at Sciences Po, Paris School of International Affairs, an Orientalist and an Arabist.

Reviews

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book may be short but it is an essential read for those who want to try to understand what people like you and me go through when trapped in a war zone. Jean-Pierre Filiu is a French professor of Middle East studies at Sciences Po, Paris School of International Affairs and he spent a month in Gaza with Médecins Sans Frontières. Nothing prepared him for what he observed and he admits himself that he was protected from the worst - he always had access to clean water, food and a warm place to sleep. Nevertheless, Jean-Pierre Filiu attempts to portray an accurate, balanced account of what he did witness. Filiu is not naïve and refuses to take sides. For example, he condemns ‘Israel’s endless war against Gaza, rather than Hamas’ while recognising that Hamas’s frustration at not being able to fight the “Zionist enemy” was vented by ‘military aggression on their own people’. In reality, most of those living in Gaza just want to get on with their lives but are enduring the ‘nightmare within a nightmare of Islamist domination under Israeli occupation’. Unless you have experienced something similar, it’s impossible to fully understand what innocent Gazans have suffered and continue to live through but this book allows readers to gain at least some insight.

[Cruz Spadaccini · Rating 1 out of 5]

I found the book underwhelming, because it was merely a general overview of the Gaza situation which I felt I could have researched through Wikipedia.

It is titled ‘a historian in Gaza’, yet the author, who is the historian in question, provides minuscule anecdotes about his time in Gaza, shielding the reader from a deeper understanding of what life was like, at least from his perspective.

I felt as if this should have been a been a blog post, not a book.

[Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book can be read in one or two sittings. I will post my review here once it is published at Responsible Statecraft.

For now, finding the words to convey the enormity of genocide seems a fruitless endeavor. The author understands this, too. He concedes the world abandoned Gaza.

[Maya Kukudzhanova · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite interesting and very brief