David Remnick: In the days following the October 7th Hamas attack and then Israel's bombing and ground defense in Gaza, I've been in close contact with a young Palestinian poet named Mosab Abu Toha. We've published a couple of essays and a poem by Mosab, and there's more to come. Recently on the Radio Hour, he described his family's plight, first leaving his neighborhood in Gaza City for a nearby refugee camp.

Mosab Abu Toha: I remember that two days before the escalation, we bought some pita. It is sitting in my fridge in Beit Lahia. I decided to return home but not to tell my wife or mother because they would tell me not to go. The only people in the street are walking in the opposite direction, carrying clothes and blankets and food. It is frightening not to see any local children playing marbles or football.

David Remnick: Since the war began, almost 2 million Gazans have been forced from their homes, nearly 85% of the population. The Gaza Strip is about the size of Las Vegas, but much more densely packed, and most Gazans have no way of escape. Mosab's youngest child was born while Mosab was studying in the United States, and the boy has an American passport. The US State Department has been working to secure the exit of American citizens and their families in Gaza through the border with Egypt.

Speaker 3: We will continue to work at the highest levels to secure the release of every hostage held by Hamas and the safe passage of those American citizens in Gaza who want to leave. We had a number of diplomatic--

David Remnick: About a month ago, Mosab Abu Toha and his family headed to the border crossing.

Mosab Abu Toha: I went outside and I was just looking for a taxi, but I didn't find any. I found a boy, maybe 15 or 16 years old on a donkey cart. I called out to him and said, "Hey, can you take us to the checkpoint?" There are two streets. One is close to the sea in the western part of Gaza, and then there is the Salah al-Din Street on the eastern part. We were told that this is a safe passage.

We went on the donkey cart and we started moving. Then there was another guy with his mother on a wheelchair. They joined us, so we split the fare. There were just hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people walking, and a few people were just riding in a car or a donkey cart. It's very hard for you to just hold your child and just walk. Many of them were holding a white flag.

There was an Israeli soldier with a megaphone talking to us in Arabic, and there were some Israeli soldiers pointing their guns at us while we are walking. I'm 31 years old, and November 19th, it was the first time in my life I see an Israeli soldier, I see an Israeli tank, I see an Israeli rifle, which is I think very strange. You have been under bombardment, you have been living under siege and occupation, and you haven't seen any soldier in your life, but you are bombed from the sky.

You are bombed by tanks. You do not see the people, the soldiers who are killing you and your family and who bomb your houses, who kill you at the beaches. I was myself, I was wounded when I was 16 years old in 2009, and I didn't see the soldier who fired at me and the people around me. The Israeli soldier with the megaphone started to call out for people, not by their names.

He said, "Look, don't show me your ID. Just look my way." I kept holding my American passport. For me, in my case, he said, "The young man with the black backpack," he said, "and who is holding a red-haired boy, put the boy down and throw your bags and come." I didn't believe my eyes. I was looking at myself and my wife, who is just a few feet in front of me and my children.

Then I kept walking in their direction with my boy. Then he said, "No, just put the boy down and come." Then I dropped my son because there were just Israeli soldiers pointing their guns at us. I dropped the boy and he started crying. He tried to follow me, but my wife ran his way to pick him up. I joined the line of about, I think, 80 people or so. I remained on my knees and they continued calling out for people.

Then all of a sudden, maybe half an hour after that, I heard my name, my full name, Mosab Mustafa Hasan Abu Toha. I looked around. How did they know my name? I didn't show them my Palestinian ID. Then there was another Israeli jeep and three soldiers. Two were pointing their guns at us, and one in the middle with the megaphone. They started talking, "Your name, your ID number," and then they said, "Undress."

It was rainy that day. It was windy. It was very cold. I took off my clothes except for my boxer shorts. I stopped at that. Then he said, "Take off your boxer shorts." Then he shouted, "Now. Do it." Then I took off my boxer shorts, and I became naked for the first time in my life outside my house. More humiliating when they ordered us to turn around. They wanted to see every inch of our bodies. The soldier said, "Oh, how many IDs do you have?" There was my credit card, my debit card, my UNRWA employee card.

David Remnick: UN refugee agency card.

Mosab Abu Toha: Yes. When the soldier saw my UNRWA card, he said in Arabic, he said, "UNRWA." I said in Arabic, "Yes, I am a teacher." He said, "Shut the fuck up, you son of a bitch."

David Remnick: You're scared, you're terrified, or you're calm?

Mosab Abu Toha: No, I was scared. I told him, "I just came back from America 10 days before what happened. I have a master's degree from Syracuse." He said, "Oh, Syracuse." Then I told him about my time at Harvard, about my teaching at Syracuse, and also at UNRWA school. He said, telling his other colleagues, "Oh, he speaks English very well." He said, "Mosab, you are a Hamas activist."

I said, "What? I've been living in America during the past four years." He said, "No, we have some Hamas members telling us that you are a Hamas member." I said, "I think they are lying." I asked him, "Do you have any proof? Do you have any photograph, any satellite photograph showing me involved with Hamas, or maybe showing me at the border or carrying a gun or whatever? Just show me any sign. I'm not involved with any political party at all."

When I told him, "Can you show me any proof?" He then slapped me in the face. He said, "I give you a proof? You give me a proof." That's when I started to feel more terrorized. How can I give you a proof that I'm not Hamas? On the contrary, you should show me a proof that I am Hamas. I started hearing female soldiers' voices, and I felt some comfort. Oh, maybe these female soldiers would be maybe sympathetic to us, et cetera. That's what I thought.

Then all of a sudden someone kicked me in my stomach and I threw myself away. I went out of breath for about three seconds, and I was in pain. As I raised my face, I got another kick from maybe the same soldier or another one in my face. I kept saying, "Someone please talk to me. Someone please talk to me," but no one gave me any attention. I lied on a bed for about half an hour. Then a soldier came and he checked my-- I didn't tell you about me and every other detainee given a number. I think I still remember the number. It was 101067150.

There was also another number on my pant, written by a marker in blue. Then he took me inside the facility, that interrogation facility. I was brought to a room, a very small room. There was a chair. They removed the blindfold, and then they sat me on the chair. Then someone entered the room, and he said, "Marhaba. Hi." Also, he started to talk to me in Arabic. "Hi, how are you?" I said, "I'm very sad." That's what I said.

David Remnick: I'm very sad.

Mosab Abu Toha: I'm very extremely sad. Yes, extremely. Ana hazin lilghaya in Arabic. Ana hazin lilghaya. I'm extremely sad.

David Remnick: The soldiers interrogated Mosab Abu Toha for hours. Eventually, one of them admitted they'd made a mistake. The next morning, Mosab was dropped back at the checkpoint after more than 48 hours in detention. Now, it's not clear why the border forces detained him. Whether somebody made a false accusation or if some surveillance system gave the Israelis bad information, even Mosab doesn't know.

Mosab made it with his family into Egypt and he was staying with friends in Cairo when I reached him last. Do you think that Sinwar, the head of Hamas, made a terrible mistake by planning and executing what took place on October 7th?

Mosab Abu Toha: What I hear, from the beginning of this is that Hamas's goal was to execute the Gaza command who were at the border with Gaza. That was the only target for them. Then they just saw that it was an easy task, and then they continued to go more and more into Israel and kill other soldiers and civilians. That's what I think was their target.

David Remnick: In a sense, you think they succeeded in a dark way beyond their wildest expectations.

Mosab Abu Toha: Yes, that's what I hear. Look, that's what I hear from regular people and some people who are maybe fans of Hamas who hear things from other people.

David Remnick: I can't imagine, and tell me if I'm wrong, I can't imagine that this war, this cycle of violence, which is so much greater than anything we've seen in years and years, is going to lead us to a good place anytime soon. What do you think is possible for these two people to live together side by side in animosity? What is the future here that you see for all the people you love and know in Gaza and for the people in Israel right over the wall?

Mosab Abu Toha: Well, I think Gazans are facing a lot of issues. If you ask a younger Gazan, my age or younger or older, they wouldn't be talking about the greater issues. They would just talk about getting a job, getting married, building their own flat-

David Remnick: Feeding their children.

Mosab Abu Toha: -feeding their children, traveling abroad, et cetera. They wouldn't think about Palestine or the Nakba right now, the catastrophe of 1948. They are not right now thinking about returning to Jaffa or Haifa or Akka. They are just thinking about the moment. I think in Gaza, even a child who is six or three or four years old, is no longer a child. They are not living their childhood. They are not children. They are not learning how to speak English, how to draw. They are just learning how to survive.

Many of my friends, many of my friends who are now 32 or 33, who have never left Gaza. Unfortunately, Israel continues to devastate us, to deprive us of basic things. We don't have an airport or a seaport. One of my dreams, I still have dreams of seeing the refugee camp from above when I'm on the plane. Even the ID cards that we have is issued by the Israelis. My name, my place of birth is written in Arabic and Hebrew, and many people do not know that.

We are linked to Israel in many ways. Palestinians have been trying to build their own state, but Israel, as we know, has been refusing to grant the Palestinian a state of their own. They continue to build settlements in the West Bank and build their own roads for security reasons they say, but no one cares about our own security as Palestinians. Of course, there is a lot of things to blame on the Palestinian side; we are divided, we don't have a leadership to communicate on our behalf. There is a lot of corruption in Palestine, in Gaza. Some people are extremists.

Just like in Israel, there are some other people who are extremists, et cetera. I think the Israelis need to see us as equivalent, as victims, as people who need to live on their own land. They need to build their future, but this future cannot be built on a land that is covered with blood and bones. I hope that Palestinians would live in Palestine in peace. That's maybe the start.

David Remnick: Finally, Mosab, you are known as a poet. You are also known as a librarian. You put together the Edward Said Library in Gaza. What's been the fate of that library and of those books?

Mosab Abu Toha: Unfortunately, I have not the slightest knowledge of the reality on the ground about the two branches of the Edward Said Library that I founded. The first one I opened in 2017, the second in 2019. I think they do not exist right now. There is a third library that I would like to mention, which is my own home library. Our house was bombed by the Israeli warplanes. I really miss some of the books that were signed by my fellow poets and novelists in America. That is a big, big loss, but this cannot be compared to the loss of my friends and fellow poets.

There's something that I need to say, which is, I've been in Egypt for five days. I don't have any news about my parents, my brother, Hamza, who has three children and whose wife is pregnant and this month is her month. I don't know anything about my other three sisters. Two of them are with my parents and my brother in North Gaza. Each one has three children. I don't have-- if they are alive or not. Do you want me to close by reading a poem to my mother?

David Remnick: I do. Nothing would please me more, except knowing that they are safe and I hope you know soon.

Mosab Abu Toha: I wrote this poem to my mother.

To My Mother

Do you still lie on your mattress, breathing from the Holy Quran to calm you down?

Do you still use your reading glasses, or have the F-16s and the smoke of their bombs blinded your small eyes?

Do you still drink your morning coffee with Dad, or have you run out of cooking gas?

Do you still know how to make my favorite cake?

Last month was my 31st birthday, you promised to make my birthday cake on the rubble of our bombed house.

I tell you many times, it is no longer our house.

You glare at me, and I leave our room at the UNRWA school shelter in the Jabalia camp.

I need you, mother.

You are my shelter when I'm scared, when I feel I'm about to die.

Are you still alive?

[MUSIC - Marcel Khalife: My Mother]

David Remnick: Mosab Abu Toha, reading the poem To My Mother. You can read more of his work at newyorker.com. He wanted us to play this song by Marcel Khalife called My Mother. It's one of his favorites. You can read all of our coverage about the war in Gaza and the October 7th attacks in Israel at newyorker.com.

[MUSIC - Marcel Khalife: My Mother]

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