The Gates of Gaza: A Story of Betrayal, Survival, and Hope in Israel's Borderlands

WINNER OF THE NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARD "Incredibly powerful ... [The Gates of Gaza is] a rescue story, but also a reported history of the tragedy that is Israel's Gaza policy. It helped me to understand how we got to this horrible point."--Susan Glasser, staff writer, The New Yorker

A gripping first-person account of how one Israeli grandfather helped rescue two generations of his family on October 7, 2023--a saga that reveals the deep tensions and systemic failures behind Hamas's attacks that day.

On the morning of October 7, Amir Tibon and his wife were awakened by mortar rounds exploding near their home in Kibbutz Nahal Oz, a progressive Israeli community less than a mile from Gaza City. Soon, they were holding their two young daughters in the family's reinforced safe room, urging them not to cry as gunfire echoed just outside the door. With his cell phone battery running low, Amir texted his father: "The girls are behaving really well, but I'm worried they'll lose patience soon and Hamas will hear us."

Some 45 miles north, Amir's parents had just cut short an early morning swim along the shores of Tel Aviv. Now, they jumped in their Jeep and sped toward Nahal Oz, armed only with a pistol but intent on saving their family at all costs.

In The Gates of Gaza, Amir Tibon tells this harrowing story in full for the first time. He describes his family's ordeal--and the bravery that ultimately led to their rescue--alongside the histories of the place they call home and the systems of power that have kept them and their neighbors in Gaza in harm's way for decades.

Woven throughout is Tibon's own expertise as a longtime international correspondent, as well as more than thirty original interviews: with residents of his kibbutz, with the Israeli soldiers who helped to wrest it from the hands of Hamas, and with experts on Gaza, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the failed peace process. More than one family's odyssey, The Gates of Gaza is the intimate story of a tight-knit community and the broader saga of war, occupation, and hostility between two national movements--a conflict that has not yet extinguished the enduring hope for peace.

WINNER OF THE BERNSTEIN PRIZE

Author: Amir Tibon
Publisher: Little Brown and Company
Published: 09/24/2024
Pages: 352
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.40lbs
Size: 9.40h x 6.10w x 1.30d
ISBN: 9780316580960


Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 12/15/2024

About the Author
Amir Tibon is an award-winning diplomatic correspondent for Haaretz, Israel's paper of record, and has previously served as the paper's correspondent in Washington, D.C., and as a senior editor for its English edition. He is the author of The Last Palestinian: The Rise and Reign of Mahmoud Abbas (co-authored with Grant Rumley), the first-ever biography of the leader of the Palestinian Authority. He, his wife, and their two young daughters were evacuated from their home in Kibbutz Nahal Oz after the October 7 attack, and are currently living in temporary housing in north-central Israel.