All types of libraries and archives —in schools, cultural centers, municipal, university, and historical buildings—as well as publishing houses, printing presses, bookstores, and literary cafés were massively and systematically targeted in Gaza starting from the very week following the massacres of October 7
And it has never stopped since. Tens of thousands of books, texts, written documents and works have disappeared. Press collections, archival records, manuscripts and other heritage holdings, children’s books, school and university textbooks, musical scores, poems—are either gone or currently being destroyed in the ruins of buildings that have been bombed or mined.
Libraries and archive centers have never been merely collections of books and writings gathered for study or preservation. They have always been spaces of reading and writing that, especially in times of conflict, can foster a social and global dynamic toward peace. To destroy books, writings and reading in Gaza is, therefore, to deliberately prevent the conditions for a return to peace for civilian populations on both sides of the divide.
Libraries and archive centers have never been merely collections of books and writings gathered for study or preservation. They have always been spaces of reading and writing that, especially in times of conflict, can foster a social and global dynamic toward peace. To destroy books, writings and reading in Gaza is, therefore, to deliberately prevent the conditions for a return to peace for civilian populations on both sides of the divide.
Beyond the heritage value of the buildings and collections covered by the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property, libraries and archive centers are also living spaces meant to shelter the most vulnerable. Books and other writings are housed within these ‘unarmed buildings,’ which can serve as shelters for refugees. And this is why they must also be protected. Protecting the hospitality—all forms of hospitality—offered by books, writings, and reading.
The initiative Reading in Gaza therefore unconditionally stands on the side of peace and the civilian populations in Gaza whose living environment is being totally destroyed. The destruction of books and writings aims to reach people down to their very humanity, a humanity that is, however, the same in Gaza and beyond Gaza.
Originally, the Reading in Gaza project was born out of an interest in reading, books, all other kinds of writings, and all types of possible uses of them—in libraries, archive centers, universities, bookstores, schools, publishing houses, and printing presses.
Against the Destruction
Through bombings targeting schools, universities, libraries, archive centers, bookstores, and publishing houses, and through the blockade imposed on the inhabitants, access to reading has been deliberately destroyed in Gaza. This is an unbearable criminal, political, and military enterprise that must not be tolerated. An enterprise that adds to all the other crimes currently being committed against human lives. A criminal enterprise to which we must all globally resist with the utmost determination.
The destruction of computer servers also makes it impossible to access digital resources, thus annihilating another form of reading. More buildings, writings, and digital resources are being destroyed as we write this text. All of this destruction makes the implementation of effective and committed actions urgent to recover books, magazines and records, recover all written resources online before recovering them on paper—so that people in Gaza can continue studying in Arabic, English or French, read stories and look at images with children, both at home and at school, or simply find a room of their own whether they are readers, writers, or poets.
Reading in Gaza has identified three main areas through which the team commits to working toward the restoration of reading, in solidarity with all readers and their families who endure this limitless war.
Work Area 1 — Creating a Virtual Library
To recreate the conditions for reading, we aim to make electronic resources available on a lightweight digital platform accessible on smartphones, with reading materials for different types of audiences such as children, university students or learners of foreign languages.
The destruction of university servers and all types of libraries in Gaza has made the physical access to books and other written resources impossible. That is why it is urgent to lay the ground for a virtual library providing resources for all readers in Gaza. This library will help restore the conditions for education at all levels, support students learning foreign languages online, and make reading possible again for children and all those who cannot live without books.
The development of this virtual library involves a key technical component. It also entails sharing multilingual resources for young people, with the help of libraries, universities, digital package providers, and publishing houses, globally. Students and educators in Gaza did not wait for us to create and rally around their own type of virtual libraries. They have been sharing textual resources via messaging services. It is up to us as institutions, booksellers, and publishers to come forward, support them, and enhance their actions.
Work Area 2 — Assessing the Destruction
We also aim to produce as complete an inventory as possible of the destruction of places where books and other written materials are created, produced, conserved, stored, and disseminated, and of the written items destroyed or damaged since October 2023.
This inventory should include precise details of the history and destruction of each institution or collection : date of creation, date of destruction, georeferencing, history, items and activities, photographic documentation, testimonials, etc. This inventory is also intended to assess the reading needs of university students in Gaza, of which 4,000 are pursuing their education thanks to programs put in place by Academic Solidarity with Palestine. We wish to map all the places related to reading that have been destroyed, as a prelude to the reconstruction to come.
This assessment is ongoing, carried out in collaboration and solidarity with Gaza’s readers, both those on the ground and those in exile, who guide us in recovering all information about the missing buildings and collections. They also guide us in paying tribute to the librarians and archivists who have been murdered, and more generally, to all people using, creating or working with written materials who have died or continue to die as a result of shootings, diseases, and organized famine.
Work Area 3 — Building a Case for Reading
We strive to develop an advocacy strategy, and mobilize all sectors related to books and the written world willing to collaborate and support our efforts.
Making the destruction visible and intelligible also means mapping it to raise awareness, to call upon the diplomacy of books and writing as a course of action and resistance against war, and ultimately, to work for peace.
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