“Forest of Noise”: Palestinian Poet Mosab Abu Toha on New Book, Relatives Killed in Gaza & More

AMY GOODMAN: In this holiday broadcast, we begin the show with the acclaimed Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha from Gaza. Last year, he was detained by Israeli forces as he attempted to flee with his family from Israel’s bombardment of northern Gaza. While in detention, he was stripped naked and beaten. But after public pressure, Mosab Abu Toha was released two days later. He was eventually able to flee Gaza with his family.

Mosab Abu Toha recently published a new book of poetry, Forest of Noise. His previous award-winning book of poetry was titled Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza. Mosab Abu Toha is also a columnist, a teacher and founder of the Edward Said Library in Gaza. His work has appeared in The New Yorker magazine, The New York Times and other publications.

I interviewed Mosab in our New York studio in late October. A few days before our interview, he posted a message on social media that read, quote, “I write with a heavy heart that my cousin Sama, 7 years old, has been killed in the air strike on their house along with 18 members of her family, which is my extended family,” he said. I asked Mosab to talk about Sama and the attack on their family.

MOSAB ABU TOHA: So, Sama is one of the five children of my aunt Asma, who was also injured, the mother, I mean, in the house. Sama was staying with her parents, with her siblings, with her grandmother, who happens to be my grandmother’s sister. And I used to call her grandmother, because my grandmother passed away when I was very young. So, my grandmother’s sister, with two of her daughters and her grandchildren, and two of her daughter-in-laws and the grandchildren are still buried under the rubble until this moment.

So, Sama was killed in the airstrike. And the only reason why my aunt and her other children, or even though they were wounded — the only reason why they were not killed is that they were staying close to the door, because the bomb, when it falls, it usually hits the middle of the house. So, my aunt Asma survived the airstrike with some injuries, along with her husband and other four children. And they had — by the way, they were — my aunt had to walk to the Israeli soldiers who were standing just a few meters away from the bombed house. So, just imagine a criminal killing you and then waiting for you until you are either dead or come to them limping. And she told me that she kissed their hands, begging them to leave them alone and if she could take with her some wheat flour from the house that she was keeping next to her because there is no food in Gaza.

So, Sama was 7 years old. And I remember something very clearly, which is that every time I visited my aunt’s house, especially during the Eid, you know, after the Ramadan and after the pilgrimage season — so, we have two big Eids, or feasts. So, I used to visit my aunt, and her children are there. And this photo is from — I think you showed it. But this is from the Eid. This is her dress. And my aunt would bring a sheet of paper and ask her daughters, including Sama, ”Yalla” — because I’m an English language teacher, so she said, ”Yalla, show Mosab. Show Mosab the new words that you have learned — the colors, the animals.” But now Sama — I mean, I did not have a chance to bid her farewell. This is my cousin. And I lost 31 members of my extended family, including three first cousins, two of them with their husband and children. I didn’t get the chance even to see them before they were buried. And I don’t know whether some of them had any part of their bodies intact after the airstrikes.

So, just imagine the magnitude of loss that I’m facing as a — I’m just one person. Some other people lost all their families. And we know about the new term “wounded child, no surviving family.” About more than 2,000 children had the same case. They were the only — the sole survivors of their family. I mean, what future is awaiting them? No one is asking this question.

AMY GOODMAN: Mosab Abu Toha is an award-winning poet and author. He has a new book of poetry out. It’s called Forest of Noise. Your descriptions now make me think of your little son. You came with your three children yesterday. Can you read the poem about your son and your daughter?

MOSAB ABU TOHA: Yeah, sure. So, by the way, this poem was written after May 2021 attacks. So, my son Yazzan was about 5 years old. My daughter Yaffa was 4 years old. And this is about them.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, this is very important, because you just said this was written in May 2021.

MOSAB ABU TOHA: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: Half your poems in Forest of Noise are before last October 7th —

MOSAB ABU TOHA: Exactly, yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: — and the other half after.

MOSAB ABU TOHA: Well, I mean, this tells you — this tells you a lot of things. So, this poem could be written today. And if it was written today, there are so many things that would not be present here, because this current genocide is so different from any other wars that Israel launched against the civilian population in the Gaza Strip.

“My Son Throws a Blanket Over My Daughter,” Gaza, May 2021.

At night, at home, we sit on the floor,
close to each other
far from the windows and the red
lights of bombs. Our backs bang on the walls
whenever the house shakes.
We stare at each other’s faces,
scared, yet happy,
that so far our lives have been spared.

The walls wake up from their fitful sleep,
no arms to wipe at their blurry eyes.
Flies gather around the only lit ceiling lamp
for warmth in the bitter night,
cold except when missiles hit
and burn up houses and roads and the trees,
the neighborhood next to us,
where Yazzan learned to ride his bike, scorched.

Every time we hear a bomb
falling from an F-16 or an F-35,
our lives panic. Our lives freeze
somewhere in-between, confused
where to head next:
a graveyard, a hospital,
a nightmare.
I keep my shivering hand
on my wristwatch,
ready to remove the battery
if needed.

My four-year-old daughter, Yaffa,
wearing a pink dress given to her by a friend,
hears a bomb
explode. She gasps,
covers her mouth with her dress’s
ruffles.
Yazzan, her five-and-a-half-year old brother,
grabs a blanket warmed by his sleepy body.
He lays the blanket on his sister.
You can hide now, he assures her.

And I have a video of that. It’s on my phone. I took a video of my son throwing a blanket. That’s how I couldn’t forget this moment.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you remind our viewers and listeners, who may not have seen you on Democracy Now!? First, soon after October 7th, we talked to you in Gaza. We then talked to you, or spoke to others about you, when you were taken by the Israeli military. Then, when you were released and made it with your family to Cairo, we spoke to you.

MOSAB ABU TOHA: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: We spoke to you in South Africa, and now you have come to the United States. But take us on that journey, how you got out. And remind us what happened when you were separated from your family and taken by the Israeli military.

MOSAB ABU TOHA: So, Amy, that interview that you did with me, it was October 12th. I can’t forget the date, because that was the last day I was in my house. I just finished my interview with you on October 12th. I think it was 3 p.m., which is eight hour, 8:00 morning here. I even didn’t pay attention to the time.

AMY GOODMAN: Right about now, New York time.

MOSAB ABU TOHA: Yeah. I mean, by the time I finished my interview with you, I went down. My father and mother, my brother Hamza and his children and his pregnant wife, my brother Mohammed and his wife, my sister Aya with her children, who is now pregnant, my sister Saja and my sister Sondos. So, about 25 people were in the house with me. So, I went down, and I found my father and my mother packing their bags. And when I talk about bags, I talk about children’s school bags. We don’t have suitcases, by the way, which is something that many people don’t understand why. Because we don’t have airports, we don’t need suitcases. We travel with our backpacks, my children’s kindergarten backpack. I stuff it with some clothes and some — I put some water bottle there. So, I found my parents packing their bags, and I asked them, “Where are you going?” And they said, “You know the Israelis just dropped some leaflets ordering the residents of Beit Lahia, about 90,000 people, to evacuate.” And that was the first time I found my parents, you know, leaving. And then I went upstairs. I didn’t know what to take with me. I only took with me the copy, one copy, the only copy that I had of my first poetry book. And I took a bottle of water and some clothes for my children.

And then we went to the refugee camp. And do you know where we stayed? We stayed in the same neighborhood that was bombed yesterday, where 150 people were killed. And I just told you about the names of the people who were killed, including Um Fathi, who I now remember that we got one hour of water from the tap when we were in the camp. And Um Fathi would tell the neighbors, “The water is on. The water is on. Fill your buckets.” So, I remember here. And then, when the bombing got intense in the refugee camp, we thought of going to an UNRWA school which is just a few hundred meters away from the neighborhood in the camp. So, we stayed in a school shelter in Jabaliya, which was later raided by the Israeli army. And by the way, a few days ago, the Israelis again visited that school, took the men out. And they have abducted so many, including my wife’s sister’s husband. He’s a brother-in-law to me. So, they took him. And one reason he stayed in the school, he’s a nurse. He couldn’t leave the refugees in the school without any nursing person. So, he was abducted, and he is left with three children. The youngest was born after October 7. So, when the bombing got intense, I had to leave the school with my wife and kids, especially because we had the chance to leave Gaza for Egypt.

And on the Salah al-Din Street, which was described by the Israelis as a safe passage, I was abducted by the Israeli soldiers. I was handcuffed and blindfolded. And before that, I had to remove all my clothes. I was naked for the first time in my life. And under gunpoint, two Israeli soldiers were pointing their guns at me and the person next to me. And then we were taken to a place we didn’t know. I mean, for me, as a Palestinian who was born in Gaza, I had never been to Palestine, which is now Israel. So, that was the first time for me to sleep in my country, as a detainee, as someone who was blindfolded and handcuffed, as someone who didn’t know whether his wife and children, who he left behind, were still breathing.

Just imagine. Not only was I taken, blindfolded and handcuffed and beaten and harassed and insulted — they kept saying bad words in Arabic. These are the only words they know in Arabic, insulting words. But also, I did not know whether my wife and kids, from whom I was separated, were still breathing, whether they went to a place that is safe. Because there is no place that is safe. Why? Because when there is occupation, there is nothing that’s called a safe place. And I had also to worry about my mother and father, who I left behind in the refugee camp, and my siblings and their children. I mean, I was torn. I was torn into a hundred pieces, thinking about myself, why are they taking me, where are they taking me. And I heard some young men screaming, you know. Some of them had to be separated from their pregnant wives. So, after three days, I was released. I was dropped at the same checkpoint.

AMY GOODMAN: There was international outcry — 

MOSAB ABU TOHA: Exactly.

AMY GOODMAN: — over you having been taken.

MOSAB ABU TOHA: As Mosab Abu Toha, not as a Palestinian. So, I think many people cared about me because I am a friend and a writer, but they did not maybe consider maybe doing the same thing with other people. It’s easier to get someone out than getting a whole population from under the military fist of the Israeli army. I mean, I just imagine if I was not a writer, if I was not a poet, if I did not have a publisher, if I did not have, you know, some journalism magazine that I wrote for. Just imagine no one knew about me. I would still have been under the Israeli custody. Maybe I could have died, just like Dr. Adnan al-Bursh, who was taken from Al-Awda Hospital, by the way, in November last year. And he was announced dead last October. He was the best surgeon in the Gaza Strip, and he was — he died. He was killed.

AMY GOODMAN: The Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha. When we come back, we’ll talk about his friend, the Palestinian poet Refaat Alareer. He was killed in a targeted Israeli airstrike last year.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman. We return to our October interview with Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha, author of the new collection of poetry Forest of Noise.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you about another man, another poet, but he didn’t make it, the Palestinian poet, the Islamic University professor, someone you knew, Refaat Alareer, last on Democracy Now! October 10th, 2023. Refaat was killed by an Israeli strike in December, along with his brother, sister and four of his nieces. This is Scottish actor Brian Cox reciting Refaat Alareer’s poem “If I Must Die.” And then I want you to share your poem, a sort of segue to Refaat’s, “If I Must Die,” a video that went viral.

BRIAN COX: If I must die,
you must live
to tell my story
to sell my things
to buy a piece of cloth
and some strings,
(make it white with a long tail)
so that a child, somewhere in Gaza
while looking heaven in the eye
awaiting his dad who left in a blaze—
and bid no one farewell
not even to his flesh
not even to himself—
sees the kite, my kite you made, flying up
above
and thinks for a moment an angel is there
bringing back love
If I must die
let it bring hope
let it be a tale.

AMY GOODMAN: Scottish actor Brian Cox, you know, who played in Succession, reciting Refaat Alareer’s poem “If I Must Die” in a video that went viral. And you can go to democracynow.org to see our interview with Refaat just before he was killed. In your book, Mosab Abu Toha, Forest of Noise, talk about Refaat and then your kind of rejoinder to this poem.

MOSAB ABU TOHA: I mean, I knew Refaat as a professor at the Islamic University of Gaza. He did not teach me, but I would say that he taught me a lot, because when I was in my second year, he was in Malaysia doing — completing, finishing his Ph.D. And when he returned, I was already finishing my courses. But he was someone who led me to the We Are Not Numbers project that he co-founded, which is a project that offers some mentorship for young writers. I was in the beginning of my writing career. So, he introduced me to the group. And that is a picture that I took with the strawberries.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re showing an image of Refaat holding strawberries.

MOSAB ABU TOHA: Yeah, yeah. We picked that strawberry, that same strawberry together in Beit Lahia, in my father-in-law’s farm, from my father-in-law’s farm. So, yeah, I knew Refaat as a father. He was a wonderful father for his kids. And he was a lovely son of his parents. His parents still survive, I hope, in Gaza City. And he’s also a professor of English literature. And when we were talking about literature, he would talk about Arabic literature and also English literature. His favorite poet, I think, was John Donne. And in the Arabic language, he loved the classical Arabic poems, like Al-A’sha, like Imru’ al-Qais, like Ibn Hilliza. And he would recite some Arabic poems to me, and I was amazed, you know?

So, before Refaat was killed, he published his poem “If I Must Die,” and he posted it on his Instagram. And I read that poem when I was still in north Gaza. It was before I was abducted. And it was very heartbreaking for me, I mean, someone writing about his death and what he wishes his death to be like. And I couldn’t but try and write my own “If I Must Die,” but I did not call it “If I Must Die.” I wrote “If I Am Going to Die.” But after he was killed, I retitled the poem, which is now called “A Request.” “A Request: After Refaat Alareer.”

If I am going to die,
let it be a clean death,
no rubble over my corpse
no broken dishes or glasses
and not many cuts in my head or chest.
Leave my ironed untouched jackets
and pants in the closet,
so I may wear some of them again
at my funeral.

Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: Mosab Abu Toha, reading from his new second second book of poetry, Forest of Noise. Just months after Refaat was killed, his eldest daughter, Shaima Refaat Alareer, was also killed in an Israeli strike in Gaza, along with her husband and 2-month-old son, Refaat’s grandchild.

MOSAB ABU TOHA: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, just imagine. I mean, Refaat became a grandfather after he was killed. He became a grandfather after he was killed. And, I mean, something that breaks my heart, just as it must break everyone’s heart, is that when someone is killed, they even don’t know who was killed with them. They don’t know — I mean, Refaat did not know that his daughter Shaima and her husband, Abd al-Rahman Siyam, I think his name, and his grandchild were killed after him. I mean, I don’t know whether he knows about this, whether, I mean, he’s now feeling a lot of pain knowing about this.

So, it is a campaign of killing the father, the mother, the sister. I would call this not only a genocide. It is not only a genocide against a people, but it’s also a genocide against families, because when you look at the names of the people who are killed, you see the name of the father, the mother, the children, the grandchildren. It’s not about killing five people from the street or five people in the mosque or the school. It’s killing a whole family. When I tell you that I lost 31 members of my extended family, I talk about two first cousins with their husbands and their children. I’m not talking about my cousin, no. Her husband, their children, the youngest 2 or 4.

AMY GOODMAN: Mosab, how did you choose the title, Forest of Noise?

MOSAB ABU TOHA: In fact, the title of the book is the title of one of the poems, called “Forest of Noise,” in which I talk about the bullet holes from the bullets and from the bomb — I mean, also the bomb craters, that each bullet hole in our walls, in our hospitals, in our schools, is a forest of noise. It’s full of screams of the people who did not survive. The screams of people — I mean, I just talked my neighbor, Amar Abu Laila, who was killed by a bombshell. And his son is still bleeding in the house, because there is no hospital that can reach that area. So, even the bomb crater that was created by the bomb that killed his father is now being filled with the screams of this boy. There is no — there is no way for him to survive this if he continues to bleed. So, every bullet hole in our buildings, every bomb crater is a forest of noise. It has our history, that goes back to seventy — more than. It’s not only 76 years ago. It goes back to more than 76 years. It’s a forest of noise.

I’ve been living in Gaza all my life, and the only sound I could hear is the drones’ buzzing sound. That doesn’t mean that I could not hear the lapping of the waves. But, I mean, every single moment, there is the drones’ buzzing sound in the sky. There is the sound of the F-16 flying over us. There is one thing that many people don’t know, which is I’ve never heard the sound of an airplane, of a civilian airplane. I’ve never seen a civilian airplane in the sky over Gaza. So, it is everything —

AMY GOODMAN: Why?

MOSAB ABU TOHA: We don’t have an airport in Gaza. We don’t even receive visitors from abroad. So, there is no need for any airports in Gaza. We are living in siege. We can’t leave Gaza when we want. And we don’t receive — we don’t get visitors. And we don’t see — we don’t see airplanes in the sky, because Gaza is under siege. It’s under occupation.

AMY GOODMAN: And that goes to your book, Forest of Noise, where half the poems are written before October 7, 2023, and half are written after. Explain the before, and share one of your poems with us from before.

MOSAB ABU TOHA: I mean, life in Gaza after October 7th is not very, very different from the life before, but the difference is the intensity of the airstrikes, the coldness of the outside world seeing us being burned in the fire and buried in the rubble. I mean, for months, I mean, the difference is that before October 7th, when there is an Israeli airstrike, I mean, ambulances would race to the scene. I mean, fire trucks, people would gather to rescue whoever could be still breathing under the rubble. So, after October 7th, what happens is that ambulances get hit. Fire trucks get hit. Nurses and doctors get abducted from inside the hospitals and the clinics, to the extent that many people — and fuel has been cut. Water has been cut. Electricity has been cut, to the extent that even — and phone signal has been cut. So, just imagine you are bombed in your house, and you had your phone. I mean, you are lucky enough to have some battery in your phone. And there is no phone signal even to call your relatives and tell the ambulance that you are breathing and you have some children about to die under the rubble. You don’t have to get — you don’t have the chance, this chance of asking for help. This is what’s happening, what’s been happening after October 7. It’s not very different. The only difference is that there is no fuel like before. There are no ambulances. There is no medical equipment like before, even though we had a big lack in so many things. And the difference is that we have been documenting this for a year nonstop.

And I have one question: What has the Palestinian people in Gaza and also in the West Bank — what has the people in Palestine — what have they not done in order for the world to step in and stop all of this? We have written poetry. We have written essays. We have taken videos. We have created films. We have run from our schools to humanitarian areas, which also later get bombed. I mean, what is one thing — I would like to ask this question to the whole world: What is one thing that the Palestinians in Gaza did not do to survive? I mean, can someone blame us? When we go from — when we leave our house for a school shelter, we get bombed in a shelter. When we leave the school shelter to another one, we get bombed there. When we go from north to south, we get bombed there. When we try to leave Gaza, we can’t. I mean, I have a friend of mine who was hit by a piece of shrapnel, and he sent me a video. I still have it. There was maybe — you could fit your fist in his chest. I still have this video. And he was — he couldn’t leave Gaza. That was November last year. He couldn’t leave Gaza, because Israel controls who leaves Gaza, even through the Rafah border crossing. So, it’s not only about Egypt, you know, closing the border crossing. Israel has destroyed and occupied the Rafah border crossing since last May. So they control who gets in, who leaves, what kind of biscuit, what kind of water enters Gaza. And this is the case since before October 7.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you share with us your poem “Thanks” and describe how you came to write it?

MOSAB ABU TOHA: So, I wrote the poem “Thanks” in — again, in May 2021, after an airstrike hit a house that’s just next to us. And my mother was making a cake. Even though it was war, she was making cake. And when there was an airstrike, we thought it was a warning. So we left the house. We ran away. And the poem will tell you what happened. “Thanks (on the Eve of My Twenty-Second Birthday): After Yusef Komunyakaa.”

Thanks to my mother always, but
especially when she called for me
to join them at the table,
just seconds before shrapnel
cut through the window glass
where I stood watching distant air strikes.

My mother’s voice, the magnet of my life,
swaying my head just in time.
Plumes of smoke choked the neighborhood.
It was night and when we ran into the street,
Mother forgot the cake in the oven,
the bomb smoke mixed with the burnt chocolate
and strawberry.

And thanks to the huge clock tower’s bell
which saved my life. I was crossing the street
and my head, glued to my phone,
never heeded the honk of cars
or the wheels of vans
screeching onto the rough tarmac.
The bell tolled for me.
Sorry, Death, but it was the eve of my twenty-second birthday

and I had to be by the sea and listen to the lapping of waves,
the sound I last heard before my birth.

AMY GOODMAN: Mosab, can you look into this camera and share your message with the world, what you want the world to take away right now about what’s happening in your home, in Gaza?

MOSAB ABU TOHA: I mean, if the world cannot really help us, I hope that they will not continue to support the oppressor. If you can’t really stop this, why don’t you just go away? I mean, I wish the world was ignoring us. No, they are not ignoring us. No, they are contributing to our suffering and the genocidal campaign that Israel has been launching, not since last year, since 76 years.

I mean, maybe you just mentioned that Blinken says that in a few days, you know, the negotiations would start again. I mean, why don’t you say the same things about sending the weapons to Israel? Why don’t you say, “Oh, in a few days, we will try and send the Israelis some new weapons”? Why don’t you take your time and think about what these weapons are going to do? Why does it take time to resume negotiations and force the Israelis to stop their killing of my people? Why does it take time? Why is it difficult to stop this, but it’s easy to send more and more weapons? Just leave us alone.

AMY GOODMAN: Your choice of the last poem to share with our audience around the world. Would you like to share “The Moon” or “Right or Left” or “Under the Rubble”?

MOSAB ABU TOHA: So, this poem, “Under the Rubble,” was written after October 7th. “Under the Rubble.”

She slept on her bed,
never woke up again.
Her bed has become her grave,
a tomb beneath the ceiling of her room,
the ceiling a cenotaph.
No name, no year of birth,
no year of death, no epitaph.
Only blood and a smashed
picture frame in ruin
next to her.

In Jabalia Camp, a mother collects her daughter’s
flesh in a piggy bank,
hoping to buy her a plot
on a river in a far away land.

A group of mute people
were talking sign.
When a bomb fell,
they fell silent.

It rained again last night.
The new plant looked for
an umbrella in the garage.
The bombing got intense
and our house looked for
a shelter in the neighborhood.

I leave the door to my room open, so the words in my books,
the titles, and names of authors and publishers,
could flee when they hear the bombs.

I became homeless once but
the rubble of my city
covered the streets.

They could not find a stretcher
to carry your body. They put
you on a wooden door they found
under the rubble:

Your neighbors: a moving wall.

The scars on our children’s faces
will look for you.
Our children’s amputated legs
will run after you.

He left the house to buy some bread for his kids.
News of his death made it home,
but not the bread.
No bread.
Death sits to eat whoever remains of the kids.
No need for a table, no need for bread.

A father wakes up at night, sees
the random colors on the walls
drawn by his four-year-old daughter.

The colors are about four feet high.
Next year, they would be five.
But the painter has died
in an air strike.

There are no colors anymore.
There are no walls.

I changed the order of my books on the shelves.
Two days later, the war broke out.
Beware of changing the order of your books!

What are you thinking?
What thinking?
What you?
You?
Is there still you?

You there?

Where should people go? Should they
build a big ladder and go up?

But Heaven has been blocked by the drones
and F-16s and the smoke of death.

My son asks me whether,
when we return to Gaza,
I could get him a puppy.
I say, “I promise, if we can find any.”

I ask my son if he wishes to become
a pilot when he grows up.
He says he won’t wish
to drop bombs on people and houses.

When we die, our souls leave our bodies,
take with them everything they loved
in our bedrooms: the perfume bottles,
the makeup, the necklaces, and the pens.
In Gaza, our bodies and rooms get crushed.
Nothing remains for the soul.
Even our souls,
they get stuck under the rubble for weeks.

AMY GOODMAN: The Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha. His collection of poetry is Forest of Noise. He writes for The New Yorker magazine. He’s written for The New York Times and more.

When we come back, Nemonte Nenquimo, an Indigenous leader from the Waorani Nation in the Amazon rainforest of Ecuador.