The Palestinian poet and author Mosab Abu Toha, who fled Gaza in December after being detained by the Israeli military, is releasing his second book of poetry, Forest of Noise, next week. We speak to him one year into Israel’s relentless slaughter in his home of the Gaza Strip as he notes,

“It is really devastating to think that after a year, the world is still thinking about October 7 only, rather than about the years and decades before October 7 and the many and long, long days and weeks that followed October 7.”

Abu Toha also pays tribute to his former student, Hatem al-Zaaneen, who was recently killed while collecting firewood for his family, and shares the status of his own surviving family members in Gaza, who have been displaced once again as they seek safety from unrelenting Israeli bombardment.