A historian in the hell of Gaza .. a French expert writes about the sector that has disappeared culture

French historian Jean -Pierre Felio, less than a week ago, issued a book entitled “A historian in Gaza”, in which he presents his observations and details of his stay for 32 days and 33 nights (from December 19, 2024 to January 21, 2025) in the sector that turned into hell and ruins after he was in the distant past a famous oasis with the wealth of its vegetable cover and its mild climate.

This book (the document/martyrdom) acquires special importance, first because it bears the signature of a French academic that is known for its intellectual integrity and scientific credibility, and it is considered one of the most prominent specialists in the affairs of the Middle East, and secondly, as it is a rare testimony at a time when the Israeli occupation prohibits foreign journalists from entering the sector, except for those who accepted the visit on its tanks.

Prior to the release of the book on May 28, the French newspaper “Le Monde” published excerpts that give an idea of ​​its content, which ranges between the in -kind views of the historian Felio, who visited the sector within a delegation from the “MSF” organization, and its analysis of the backgrounds of this tragedy within the framework of the Arab -Israeli conflict, in addition to its cosmic dimension, because it is eventually a human story in its essence.

Before this special visit, Felio has been staying regularly in the Gaza Strip and in Israel since 1980. More than 20 books have been published on Middle East issues, and since 2015 his weekly column has been in the newspaper “Le Monde” entitled “Such a Near East” with millions of readers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdTHPWCG_B4

The Gaza Diaries lost

The writer, a professor at the Institute of Political Science in Paris and a former diplomat between 1988 and 2006, decided to be appointed in Jordan, Tunisia and the United States, to donate all the returns from this book to “Doctors Without Borders” to support its work in the Gaza Strip.

Contrary to previous books with the academic and scientific soul, and the most recent of them, “How did Palestine have lost: Why did Israel not win?”, The book “Historian in Gaza” (224 pages) takes the form of diaries or a long journalist investigation, enhanced by analyzes, reflections, lights and condemnation of regional and international silence towards what is going on in the Strip.

The writer strengthens his direct testimony from the suffering caused by the war launched by Israel on the Strip after October 7, 2023, with historical lights on the conflict over the Gaza Strip since it fell in the hands of the Israeli occupation in the aftermath of the 1967 war, and to anticipate ways to end this long conflict.

The writer notes in the first pages of the book that Gaza, which he visited in late 2024, is something completely different from what he wrote since 1980, and even disappeared. Felio says in this regard: “The land that I knew and explored no longer exists. The remainder of it is unable to describe it.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yi82m9gyxe

Gaza without features

And about the shock he felt upon his arrival in Gaza, Felio says: “Nothing was preparing me for what I saw and lived in Gaza. Nothing, nothing.” The writer draws his medieval lexicon to describe his first night in Gaza under the bombing, and he enters it with the procession of “Doctors Without Borders”.

With the approaching midnight, the writer began to hear influential testimonies about the continuous tragedy in Beit Lahia, in the far north of the Strip, is completely isolated from the world since the beginning of October 2024. The writer says: “The expression of ethnic cleansing does not seem exaggerated to describe the systematic expulsion of the population, the systematic destruction of buildings, and the targeting of hospitals as the last place that can guarantee the ways of proper life.”

On the coastal road of Lahia’s house in the south towards Khan Younis, the writer on the side of the road will monitor Khayama, erected over several kilometers, while some of the displaced people installed their temporary random shelters on the beach, defying winds and waves.

In this place that was an empty land before the war, and now it is filled with thousands of refugees, the writer began to hear stories about the dead, the missing, the buried under the rubble, the feverish escape, the feelings of fear and terror, the rescue of children, the displacement once, twice, 10 times, pain, loss, sadness and terror. Here, he says: “I realized a long time ago that Gaza, which I knew and walked, was no longer present.”

When the words are unable to depict the tragedy, the writer evokes the United Nations Humanitarian Creation Reconstruction by the end of 2024: 87% of residential buildings (411 thousand buildings) were completely destroyed (141,000 buildings), or dangerous or partially (270,000 buildings). More than 80% of companies and two -thirds of the road network are out of service. Nearly two million women, men and children were forced to displace between once and 10 times …

Here, the writer does not find it seemed to compare the tragedy of Gaza with others, and he says: “Although I visited many theaters of the war in the past, from Ukraine to Afghanistan, passing through Syria, Iraq and Somalia, I have never seen anything like this. (…) I understand better why Israel prevents the global press from reaching such a shocking scene.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oneerk8Eck

A life between the rubble

In front of these atrocities, the writer picks up the remnants of a life that floats from the debris. Small girls carrying school bags on their backs and graduating from one of the alleys, where they continue to receive their education in a school supported by the Sultanate of Oman. One of the survivors maintains the dignity of his shelter inside his stuck tent in the rubble, and empties a waste of waste on the threshold of “his door”. A family resorting to the upper floor of a devastating building, and dries her clothes on a dilapidated balcony.

In front of these scenes, the writer warns us that “this ruin would make us forget that Gaza was thousands of years ago, a well -known oasis of its variety of vegetable cover and moderation of its climate, and that its wealth has begun to be attracted since 1967 under the weight of occupation and settlement until 2005, and the full siege since 2007.”

Returning to the present of the Strip, the writer expresses his concern that the war on Gaza quickly entered the ordinary whirlpool of the war in Ukraine, and here he blames the international press because it did not make a great effort to exercise its right to free and professional coverage of what is going on in Gaza.

Here, the writer concludes that the victims of Gaza are killing twice, the first time when the Israeli war machine affects them directly in their bodies or slowly suffocating them in their tents, and the second when the Israeli propaganda denies the severity of their suffering and the size of their losses.

Gaza and betrayal of the world

In front of this situation, the writer notes that “the people of Gaza feel that the world abandoned them. They initially believed that the images of the massacre would shake international public opinion and force him to move to put an end to them. And when it became clear to them that the matter is not, the exacerbation of the pain of pain, and the disappointment of hope added to the wounds of the affected bodies. There is the curse on the negativity of Arab regimes, but its collusion, while no one expects many European countries that have not A representative to allow him to enter Gaza. “

Once again, the writer takes the hand of the reader from the hell of the present to the beginnings of the story, specifically to the seasons of suffering since the beginning of the Israeli siege applied and suffocated on the Gaza Strip in 2007, and the subsequent attacks and wars.

The writer asks: What changes compared to the wars that Israel launched on the Strip before 2023? He answers by saying that the previous wars were relatively limited in terms of time and destruction, while the destruction this time is continuing systematically and organized, week after week, and month after a month. What has also changed is that our world can no longer pretend to ignore the size of this catastrophe this time, and that our world allowed its occurrence when it did not clap for it.

The writer continues to scream: “Gaza not only shattered by women, men and children of Gaza, but also shattered the provisions of international law that were reached to prevent the repetition of the brutality of the Second World War. (…) Gaza is now at the mercy of those who breathe behind the deals, the professionals of artificial intelligence, and those who hunt in the waters of human misery.”