Yesterday I was devastated to read reports that Palestinian poet and writer Mosab Abu Toha was missing after being detained by Israeli forces while he was trying to leave Gaza with his family. Abu Toha is a celebrated poet and scholar who won the American Book Award for his 2022 poetry book, Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear and he is the founder of Gaza’s first English-language library. He was also writing a regular column for The New Yorker describing daily life in Gaza under siege. In a recent essay, Abu Toha wrote: ‘One idea in particular haunts me, and I cannot push it away. Will I, too, become a statistic on the news?’ This morning when I woke up and checked for any further news about him, there was an update. After an international outcry that spanned news outlets, his publishers, freedom of expression groups and press freedom advocates, Abu Toha was released. Latest reports are that he has been returned to Gaza, reunited with his family and is receiving medical treatment. He is thirty years old.

Kiri Piahana-Wong

What is home?

What is home:

it is the shade of trees on my way to school before they were uprooted.

It is my grandparents’ black-and-white wedding photo before the walls crumbled.

It is my uncle’s prayer rug, where dozens of ants slept on wintry nights, before it was looted and put in a museum.

It is the oven my mother used to bake bread and roast chicken before a bomb reduced our house to ashes.

It is the café where I watched football matches and played –

My child stops me: Can a four-letter word hold all of these?

Mosab Abu Toha