Mosab Abu Toha

Mosab Abu Toha is a Palestinian poet, scholar, and librarian from the Gaza Strip. His debut book of poetry, Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear (2022) won the Palestine Book Award and an American Book Award. It was also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Walcott Poetry Prize.

Early life
Abu Toha was born in 1992 in the Al-Shati refugee camp, shortly before the signing of the Oslo Accords. He graduated in English from the Islamic University of Gaza. In 2017, he founded the Edward Said Library, an English-language public library in Beit Lahia, of which second branch was opened in Gaza City in 2019.

In 2023, he earned a MFA in Poetry from Syracuse University in the United States.

Career
Abu Toha taught English at United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) schools in Gaza from 2016 until 2019, and is the founder of the Edward Said Library, the only English-language library in Gaza. In 2019-20 he was a visitor at Harvard University, as a Scholar-at-Risk Fellow at the Department of Comparative Literature, a librarian at the Houghton Library, and a fellow in the Harvard Divinity School.

Abu Toha is a columnist for Arrowsmith Press, and has written from Gaza for The Nation, Literary Hub, the New York Times, and The New Yorker.

His poems have been published on the Poetry Foundation website, and in publications which include Poetry Magazine, Banipal, Solstice, The Markaz Review, The New Arab, Peripheries, The New York Review, The Progressive, The New Yorker, and The Atlantic.

In 2022, he published his first book of poetry, Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear (City Lights). It won the Palestine Book Award and an American Book Award. It was also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Walcott Poetry Prize. The New York Times said, "Abu Toha’s accomplished debut contrasts scenes of political violence with natural beauty." For the National Book Critics Circle, Jacob Appel wrote, "What makes Abu Toha’s work resonate so strongly is his gift for the particular. By avoiding panoramic generalizations, he hones in upon evocative images that capture the larger plight of his people."

In 2023, Abu Toha was appointed to a visiting faculty position at Syracuse University through the Scholars at Risk network. He is currently serving as an instructor and writer in residence at The American University in Cairo for the Spring 2024 semester.

2023 Israeli bombardment of Gaza
In October 2023 Abu Toha, his wife and his children evacuated their home in Beit Lahiya and moved to the Jabaliya refugee camp after Israel warned it would bomb Beit Lahiya. In a New Yorker article published November 6, Toha wrote that he had ridden his bicycle to Beit Lahiya in an attempt to retrieve some books from the collection in his home. However, their home and the surrounding area were destroyed. Israel later also bombed Jabaliya, seventy meters from where they were.

Mosab Abu Toha was good friends with Refaat Alareer who was killed by an Israeli airstrike on December 7, 2023. Abu Toha honored him by sharing memories of his friendship, such as picking strawberries together and playing jokes on him on campus. On January 22, 2024, Amy Goodman asked him to speak about his significance and how he died. He responded by saying first that his death was not unique and that at this time and that Alareer's body is still under the rubble. He also shared: "I'd like to remember Refaat as someone who was always ready to listen to our literary works. He liked to read some of Shakespeare's sonnets, of John Donne's poems. He was a huge fan of John Donne. I would like to remember Refaat as someone who loves--who loved to go to strawberry farms and pick strawberries with me and play pun games. Refaat is someone who didn't want to die."

Detention by Israeli forces while evacuating
On November 19, 2023, Abu Toha was detained by Israel Defense Forces while he was heading to the Rafah border crossing in an attempt to evacuate from the Gaza Strip with his family. Initial reports attributed it to his recent high-profile writings. He had been told by American officials that he and his family would be able to cross into Egypt, since his three-year-old son is a US citizen. The Israeli military detained him at a checkpoint as he attempted to leave the north of Gaza for the south. The family had been given clearance to evacuate.

According to Diana Buttu, a Palestinian-Canadian lawyer, Abu Toha had been sent for by the US embassy. Conveying an account from Abu Toha's wife, Buttu told Time: “He was forced to put his son down... They were all forced to walk with their hands raised in the air. He raised his arms in the air … [and he and] around 200 others were taken out of this line and abducted. They have not heard from him since.” The Israeli Defense Forces told the Washington Post that they were looking into the arrest.

New Yorker online editor Michael Luo confirmed on 20 November that Abu Toha had been "arrested". Free speech organization PEN America called for his protection, and PEN International called for information about Abu Toha's situation.

On 21 November, Democracy Now! reported that Abu Toha had been released after being taken to an Israeli prison in the Negev and beaten, according to a statement from Buttu. He was taken to a hospital due to his injuries. According to a post by him on his Instagram account, he is now in Cairo, Egypt with his family.