A haven for book lovers, Samir Mansour’s Gaza store weathered wars and uprisings in the troubled Palestinian enclave – until an Israeli air strike reduced it to rubble during the latest conflict with Hamas. FRANCE 24’s Gwendoline Debono and Vedika Bahl sent this report.
For decades, Mansour’s bookstore was the place to go for books in the blockaded Gaza Strip. Its collection of nearly 100,000 works included school texts, religious works and Arabic translations of European literary classics.
But last week, at the height of Israel’s latest war with the Islamist militant group Hamas, Mansour received a phone call from Israeli forces warning him that the building that housed his shop would be targeted in an air strike.
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“They called me because they thought I was living in the building, and I was not their target,” Mansour told FRANCE 24. “I don't belong to any organisation or party, and I never publish any book that incites violence against a country or against people.”
Mansour’s store wasn’t just a bookshop; it was also a publishing house, he said, catering for some 150 authors. His aim was to remain a beacon for book lovers in the war-ravaged Gaza Strip.
“They destroyed our book store, but they will never destroy our soul,” said his 21-year-old son Mohamed, a Russian literature expert. “We will rebuild it, even better than before.”
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