Witness to the Hellfire of Genocide: A Testimony from Gaza

by Wasim Said

Unimaginable brutalities unfold within these brief pages, as a young man recounts the story of his world, obliterated. Twenty-two-year-old Wasim Said watched as his life was cast into constant danger when the Israeli occupation began its relentless and genocidal attacks on Gaza after October 7, 2023. In the short gasps between bombardments, Wasim picked up his pen to tell the stories of the atrocities he encountered at every turn: his family scrambling for food and shelter under gunfire, friends and neighbors brutally murdered as they tried to retrieve flour and false aid, the untold stories of those martyred at hospitals, schools, homes.
The stories are difficult to stomach. They are graphic, they are cruel, they are unbearable—just as the Israeli occupation has been since its inception. But as Wasim constantly turns to address the reader, these stories also contain a charge within them. What will you do now that you have the responsibility of knowing? What will you do now that you are a witness just like him?

Genres: Nonfiction

140 pages, Paperback

Published September 26, 2025

Reviews

[Rana · Rating 5 out of 5]

As the description says, these stories are extremely hard to stomach. The author writes these stories not only to memorialize the martyrs but to put responsibility on the readers. Now that we are witnesses like the author, who is still undergoing a genocide, what will we do is the central question. Nothing will ever be adequate in the face of the unspeakable horrors the author writes about, but we start with being witnesses.

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this should be required reading. I think that more people should read testimonies written from Gaza by Palestinians during the genocide.

[Soumaya Hajji]

I cannot rate this book. It is a difficult and harrowing read. I felt immense guilt with every page, anger at the world but mainly myself. Many of the scenes are graphic, more so than when watching them on a screen. How can humanity move on from these atrocities? How am I supposed to go on when my every breath feels traitorous? How much more can we amplify the voices of Gaza until people start to truly care and act??

One quote that stuck with me, that will haunt me:
"I write only in the hope that this pain will stir something in the future generations."
Let us not be the generation that ignores the suffering of others, content to enjoy only this fleeting dunya, without a care for the akhira.

[ernst · Rating 5 out of 5]

Was die Grenzen des bürgerlichen „Antifaschismus“ sind, zeigen uns die deutsche Bourgeoisie und ihre politischen, medialen und kulturellen Vertreter mit aller Deutlichkeit seit nun schon mehr als zwei Jahren. Das Gelöbnis „nie wider!“ wird in sein exaktes Gegenteil verkehrt und zum militanten Marschbefehl: jetzt aber mit aller Gewalt erneut einen Genozid zu unterstützen, zu verteidigen, zu bewaffnen.

Was Völkermord für die betroffenen Menschen bedeutet, zeigt Wasim Said in diesem Buch. Er ist selbst junger Palästinenser, lebt in Gaza, erlebt den Genozid noch in diesem Moment mit – und er hat währenddessen dieses Buch geschrieben, das von den unendlichen Qualen der Menschen dort berichtet. Es ist sehr schwer zu ertragen, was hier berichtet wird. Die bestialischste Entmenschlichung, die man sich nur vorstellen kann, sie wird noch überstiegen von den Taten der Zionist:innen, die unsere Regierung tatkräftig unterstützt.

Wasim ist bemüht – mit einigem Erfolg – diese Schreckensberichte in literarische Form zu gießen. Und er zeigt, wie sich die Palästinenser:inne trotz aller Entmenschlichung ihre Menschlichkeit oft bewahren können. Wie sie nicht einfach Opfer sein wollen, sondern Anklage erheben gegen eine Welt, die diesem Geschehen keinen Einhalt gebietet. Das Buch selbst ist ein Triumph, den Wasim dem Vernichtungswahn der Zionist:innen abgerungen hat.

Das ist mit aller Wahrscheinlichkeit das erste Buch in einer neuen, traurigen und in revolutionäre Praxis zu verwandelnden Tradition von Holocaustliteratur. Trauer allein bringt nichts, man muss dieser Hölle ein Ende bereiten, und das heißt dieses Schweinesystem endgültig zu zerschlagen.

[Yazeed · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Read this not as a novel. But as you would a gravestone. As if a voice from the ground was saying: I was here. And I could have lived - if only you had said something.”
•
“Witness to the Hellfire of Genocide: A Testimony from Gaza” by Wasim Said is a memoir written in the throes of genocide, recorded by the author while he was displaced in a tent in Gaza, with the bombs, bullets, and fires raging upon him and all he knew. He writes of the constant fear and uncertainty in search for survival, the deadly trials of seeking food aid, of witnessing the deaths of hundreds of people in single swift strikes. Those of us who live outside of Gaza will never be able to comprehend the sheer scale of this genocide, regardless of the narratives we read and the vivid descriptions of the scenes, the sounds, the smells, the raw emotion of witnessing pure evil unleashed on your entirety. It is difficult for us to read, but it is more difficult for them to survive, and it remains a duty to amplify their testimonies.

[Holly M. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Written during a genocide rather than after, gives this book a unique, tense, desperate, terrifying and deeply heartbreaking perspective. Wasim is clearly an intellectual who was unsure if he would be able to finish this book. As of right now, his future is still unclear. His nightmare continues. His only copy of this book got ruined in flooding. This is a necessary yet devastating book to read.

[Jeffrey Pedro · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book that covers the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people. The brutality and violence of the Israeli occupation is on full display in these accounts. This book explicitly asks that we not give in to despair and go about our day-to-day, but do all that we can in the struggle for a free Palestine. Find an organization and do the necessary work to fight back against U.S. imperialism and the war machine that keeps dropping tax payer-funded bombs on Palestine.

[Victor Guinto · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the most important book of the 21st century. comparable to Weisel's Night. Our US tax dollars have gone toward the genocide of the Palestinian people. We are complicit in the murders of men, women, and children. Read if you are capable of critical thinking and compassion toward your fellow human beings.

[Matthew Wilcox · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really powerful eyewitness of the absolutely horrible conditions Gazans have been subjected to during the last few years and a plea to action that reminds you on the one hand not to give into powerlessness, but on the other that you're not doing nearly enough to help.

[Lasairfhíona · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read it.

Then do something.

[Ethan Mollenauer · Rating 5 out of 5]

For anyone who has still yet to grasp the urgency, realness, cruelty and resilience surrounding Israel’s genocide of Palestinians over the last two years, please read this testimony.

As Wasim says, “I didn’t write this to make you cry. Not for you to tell me: ‘Poor you.’ I write this so I can hang these words around your neck — to make you bear the responsibility of my perspective, the responsibility of knowing, the responsibility of being a witness.”

[Nadeen · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Read this not as a novel.
But as you would read a gravestone.
As if a voice from beneath the ground was saying:

'I was here. And I could have lived—
If only you had said something.'"