A Palestinian writer and poet who had been contributing to The New Yorker and
other publications with reflections on
his life inside Gaza during the war has been detained by the Israeli military, according to his brother.
Mosab Abu Toha was taken into custody by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) “when he reached the checkpoint while leaving from the north to the south” of Gaza, his brother Hamza Abu Toha said in a Facebook post Monday.
A finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award this year, the writer was attempting to evacuate to southern Gaza, colleagues say
PEN America, the literary and human rights advocacy organization, wrote in a
statement that it is “concerned by reports that poet Mosab Abu Toha, the founder of Gaza’s only English language library, has been taken into custody by Israel’s Defense Forces in Gaza. We are seeking more details and call for his protection.”
Abu Toha, who is in his early 30s, has published in a number of journals, including Poetry magazine, Arrowsmith and the Nation, which on Thursday published
his latest poem, “Gazan Family Letters, 2092.” He also wrote an essay for the
New York Times last month. After a fellowship as a visiting poet at Harvard, he completed a graduate degree earlier this year at Syracuse University, where he was also a teaching assistant.
This year, he was named a
finalist for the National Book Critics Circle’s poetry award, for his 2022 collection,
“Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza.”
Buttu said that Abu Toha had been in touch with the U.S. government in recent weeks to gain approval to evacuate his family from Gaza. The youngest of his three children, 3-year-old Mostafa, was born in the United States and is a U.S. citizen.