Poetry Emerges as a Voice from Gaza’s Ruins Amid Ongoing Conflict

What happened

The Guardian Gaza reports on the resilience of Palestinian poetry students and professors in Gaza amid extensive damage to their university infrastructure, ongoing military bombardment, and heavy loss of life. Poetry has become a vital form for expressing collective grief and preserving memory when physical evidence and traditional documentation are obliterated.

Outside Brief is treating this as a source-led account. Any disputed responsibility, casualty figure or battlefield claim should be read as unconfirmed/hearsay unless confirmed by another reliable source. Nazmi al-Masri, professor at the Islamic University of Gaza, says poetry in Gaza serves as a witness to history and documents pain and displacement that cameras and casualty numbers cannot capture. Despite 95% of the university’s buildings being damaged or destroyed, students and faculty continue online and mobile-based poetry readings when electricity allows, commemorating fallen colleagues and bearing witness to the ongoing conflict.

Since the start of the war mentioned in the source, 72 faculty members and 543 students have been killed even as nearly 2,860 students graduated. The poetry collections emerging from Gaza explore themes of trauma, exile, resistance, and love, often avoiding bitterness while affirming survival as active resistance against erasure.

Known from the source

• The Islamic University of Gaza’s buildings are reported 95% damaged or destroyed by bombing.
• Since the war began, 72 members of the university faculty and 543 students have been killed.
• 2,860 students have graduated during the same period.
• Refaat Alareer, a Gazan poet and teacher, was killed in an Israeli airstrike on 6 December 2023 along with relatives.
• The poetry collections focus on trauma, exile, resistance, identity, displacement, and love amid the Gaza conflict.

What remains unclear

The published collection, Folding a River, includes student work reflecting on the death of the poet Refaat Alareer, killed in an Israeli airstrike in December 2023 along with family members. The Guardian notes these poems are created under collapsing ceilings and on failing phones, emphasizing the severe conditions under which cultural life persists.

What remains unclear: Exact casualty numbers (faculty, students) and graduation figures. Details on the date of the killing of Refaat Alareer and family members. Verification that 95% of the university buildings are damaged or destroyed. Verification of how long poetry workshops and collaborations with Glasgow University have lasted.

Evidence note

Outside Brief has kept this brief source-led and attributed. Claims should be read alongside the original source linked below.

Original source: The Guardian Gaza. Open the source.