This week we’re looking at the history of Gaza. How did modern Gaza come into being? How has it evolved over time? And what can we learn from that history about developments today?
Gaza is — often for tragic reasons — frequently in the headlines. In this episode, recorded on October 16, 2025, we take a step back from breaking news to explore Gaza’s deeper history: how the events of the 20th and 21st centuries have shaped the territory, its people, and its politics.
Our guide through this complex and often painful story is Dr Julie Norman, Associate Professor in Politics and International Relations at UCL and co-author of the new book Gaza: The Dream and the Nightmare.
It’s a history that probably few of us know in any detail. But understanding Gaza’s story so far is essential for thinking about Gaza today and about what path Gaza may take in the future.
Mentioned in this episode:
[00:00:05] Alan Renwick: Hello, this is UCL Uncovering Politics, and this week we are looking at the history of Gaza. How did modern Gaza come into being? How has it evolved over time and what can we learn from that history about developments today?
Hello, my name is Alan Renwick, and welcome to UCL Uncovering Politics, the podcast of the School of Public Policy and Department of Political Science at University College London.
Gaza is often for tragic reasons, very much in the news. Indeed, in a fast moving situation I should start this episode by saying that we are recording ahead of our planned release date. So it's the 16th of October as I speak and much could of course happen between now and whenever you're listening to the podcast.
Our focus, however, is on Gaza's history, particularly from the early 20th century up to the beginning of 2025. That history is told in a new book called, poignantly, Gaza: the Dream and the Nightmare. It's a history that probably few of us know in detail, but understanding Gaza's story so far is essential for thinking about Gaza today and about what path Gaza may take in the future.
One of the book's authors is our wonderful colleague and long-term friend of the podcast, Dr. Julie Norman, associate professor in Politics and International relations here in the UCL Department of Political Science, and I'm delighted that Julie joins me now.
Julie, welcome back to UCL Uncovering Politics. It's great to have you on again, and let's go straight into that question about what you want the key takeaways from the book to be. As I said, the book is a history, but like most histories, I'm guessing that a part of the motivation for exploring the past is to help us understand the present and the future. So what are the key insights that you would like listeners who are interested in the current situation in Gaza and in the future to glean from your analysis?
[00:02:05] Julie Norman: Thank you so much, Alan.
I think the sub-title of the book, the Dream and the Nightmare, really emphasises what we're hoping people take away from this book. Everyone obviously has heard of Gaza and I think many associate it with either war, violence, terrorism, perhaps on the one hand, or poverty, suffering, displacement, on the other hand, and those certainly fit the nightmare definition. But I think we wanted to highlight this dream element too, that there were many positive aspects of Gaza and many positive parts of it's history that are often forgotten.
And I should say that idea, dream and the nightmare, came from a Gazan that we had interviewed. He described his life in Gaza as as a dream and a nightmare at the same time. But I think that's really captured in Gaza's history. You know, thousands of years ago Gaza, um, really emerged as a bustling trade city. It sat geographically at the crossroads of both north and south trading routes, as well as east to west. So it geographically was so key for, for centuries and even well into the 20th century, you know, Gaza was often seen as a place that was, um, again, had the most potential for, for Palestine, for Palestinians, in terms of being on the coast in terms of having this urban energy, later being a sort of a, a place for, for activism and for, for energising and these kinds of things that, um, you know, were, were very powerful in the Palestinian community, so we wanted to make sure that those aspects came out, uh, as well as the more stories of, of war and suffering that people are perhaps more aware of.
[00:03:34] Alan Renwick: Hmm. And when we talk about Gaza, what are we talking about actually? What is Gaza? What are we referring to?
[00:03:39] Julie Norman: Yeah, so this is such a good question because I think we think now of Gaza as the strip, the Gaza Strip. But that's a pretty new, uh, way of thinking about Gaza. Again, Gaza City was what Gaza was for, for thousands of years, and that lasted really up until, um, and through World War I.
[00:03:58] Alan Renwick: And I was amazed in the book, you mentioned that it's three and a half thousand years ago is the first recorded mention of Gaza.
[00:04:04] Julie Norman: That's exactly right, yes. I mean, we have, you know, from, from biblical texts, from, um, from ancient texts, these references to, to Gaza as this place, and as this very important place.
Um, and yet what we see kind of going into the 20th century, into the British Mandate period time in Palestine, um, Gaza starts becoming defined more as a, as a district. But even then, it was much bigger than the strip that we see now.
As the 20th century goes on, I think people are probably familiar with the year of 1948. This is the War of Independence for Israel, but considered the Nakba for Palestinians when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were displaced. And what happened during this time was Gaza's population more than tripled as Palestinians from other parts of what was then Palestine were, uh, pushed out of their homes and, and, and went to that Gaza City area.
And so that is where the population really increased. It's where Gaza's, um, uh, borders, um, kind of contracted due to the way the borders moved during the war. And that's, when we end up with a strip of land, uh, that we now call the Gaza Strip. But I would point out during that time too, it was, it was administered by Egypt, but it wasn't, um, it wasn't made part of the state of Israel. It wasn't made part of the state of Egypt. It was kind of left as this administered territory where you had, again, this huge influx of people who had been displaced from their homes.
[00:05:25] Alan Renwick: And why was Gaza the place that so many people went to during that period? And was, was Gaza already kind of identified as different, as separate, in some way?
[00:05:33] Julie Norman: Yeah, so at that time, Gaza had, was Gaza City was outside of what was then the partition plan of 1947 that had been proposed to set up a, a state for Palestinians and a state for what became Israel. So it was outside of that zone and it was one of, again, the major urban centers along the Mediterranean coast that people knew that they could go to and that that was a Palestinian hub there. And so it was the first major urban place that people would've hit once they were fleeing south from, from Haifa, from other parts of, of the coast and from the territory.
[00:06:07] Alan Renwick: Hmm. And of course, we know now that when we talk about Palestine today, we're talking really about the Gaza Strip and, and about the West Bank. And I mean, what was the relationship between those two areas in these early years? Does the West Bank have a similar kind of history in terms of people coming in from elsewhere as well?
[00:06:23] Julie Norman: Yeah. The West Bank also has, um, again, a similar history in terms of the dates. So again, 1948, many Palestinians flee south to Gaza. Others flee north to Lebanon. Others flee West to what ends up becoming the West Bank. The West Bank, like Gaza, are both occupied by Israel in 1967, and this is when we start hearing that term occupation, Occupied Palestinian Territories. And those are the territories that start forming the basis of what, um, you know, many people who speak about a two state solution would, would focus on those two territories. So certainly Palestinians and those two locales, definitely, um, very much an integrated sense of struggle, very integrated sense of identity, and that I would say would build quite significantly over time.
[00:07:10] Alan Renwick: So the Gaza Strip goes straight from, uh, Egyptian administration to Israeli occupation. There's not a point in this history when the Palestinians themselves are in control in Gaza.
[00:07:21] Julie Norman: That's exactly right. So Egypt administers the strip up until that 1967 point. I would say there was a juncture within that when Israel actually did occupy the strip in 1956 during the Suez Crisis. But mostly administered by Egypt until 1967 when Israel takes control and remains there until their withdrawal in 2005.
[00:07:43] Alan Renwick: And how's Gaza doing during this period? You've talked about this huge influx of people from elsewhere in the former Palestine territories. Um, I mean, how did that go in terms of kind of assimilating these different populations, people originally from Gaza, people from outside? How did that work?
[00:08:00] Julie Norman: Yeah, this was an interesting thing that came out in our interviews for the book because obviously there's, um, a narrative of projection of solidarity of one Gaza, one Palestine, et cetera. And of, so of course much of that is very true. But as in any case, when there is a large influx of displaced persons into another community, there are tensions and, and several people that I spoke to said, you know, we saw each other as 'other' initially.
People who, whose families had lived in Gaza for generations, often didn't interact with the displaced or the refugee communities initially. But I think that changed over time and later generations. There's much more mixing, there's much more sense of a Gaza identity. But some of those earlier generations did say yes, it wasn't until they, you know, finally went to school or met someone who was actually a refugee, that they kind of changed some of their, perhaps prejudices or stereotypes about them. So again, the tensions that are always there, and largely because of the lack of resources too. Again, you had a very rapidly increasing population in a very small piece of land.
And as, first Egyptian, but then really Israeli control, really settled in, as it became very clear people weren't going to be going home, it became very difficult for people to have any kind of economic flourishing, to have any kind of political or civil agency. Um, and so obviously a lot of growing frustration within that.
[00:09:22] Alan Renwick: Hmm. But it's still the case today, isn't it? Or at least it was the case two years ago that there were refugee camps still in Gaza, so there's still at least a degrees separation between these populations.
[00:09:33] Julie Norman: Absolutely. And as with, um, throughout the Palestinian Territories and then, uh, in the diaspora as well, there are many descendants of the Nakba refugees who are still living in camps. Others who still were displaced, still have the refugees status. But have moved out of the camps. And so there was a mixture of that even within many of the cities. But yes, Gaza had a very high concentration of refugee camps, including very large ones like Jabalia and others. And so, um, that was a very much part of the reality in Gaza up through October 7th.
[00:10:05] Alan Renwick: You've talked about how the, the population grew very rapidly during this period and partly from that initial influx, but then subsequently from, kind of, natural population increase as well. Um. And how was the economy developing during this period? Was Gaza able to develop effectively its economy?
[00:10:22] Julie Norman: Yeah, so this is again, one of the tragedies of reading Gaza's story is that again, there was a lot of potential for Gaza prior to all of the conflict. It was a real place of strength for, for trade, for industry, et cetera. Um, but I would say that after 1948 and then really after 1967 and the sort of the occupation, opportunities became much more limited.
It can be said that some of the economic indicators rose up a little bit in the seventies and eighties, but Palestinian's ability to participate and engage in the economy really depended on what Israel allowed them to do. And so most Gazans during that time, if they had a labour-based work, would have a permit to cross over and work in Israel and they would work for very low wages and bring those back to Gaza.
So it became very, um, a very high dependency sort of economy. And one in which it was very difficult for people to get ahead or to flourish in the way that their families had in the past.
[00:11:20] Alan Renwick: And what. How, how practically did this, the administration work and was there local administration as well as external administration from Israel? Or was everything done from outside?
[00:11:32] Julie Norman: So it changed over time and I would say the crux of the, the occupation period from 1967 up until Israel's, um, what they would consider the withdrawal in 2005. Um, Israel did control the civil administration as well as having a military occupation there as well. There were local leaders in the terms of mayors, in terms of municipalities, in terms of, you know, kind of, uh, neighborhoods and these kinds of things.
And I would say there was also, um, a very strong, civil society and especially, Islamist, uh, element there as well. From mosques, from charities, from schools. And so there were different types of actors that were certainly having an influence in how society grew and how it built. Um, but always with that, um, that, that control from outside.
[00:12:16] Alan Renwick: And what was Israel trying to achieve through its governance of this area was, what was it? Was it seeking development for Gaza? Was it simply seeking its own purposes? Was it simply seeking security for itself?
[00:12:28] Julie Norman: Yeah. You know, there's many different reasons why the occupation, has sustained as long as it has. For some, it was this sense of security, having a sort of a buffer, whether it was Gaza or the West Bank or other territories between Israel and what they initially saw as more, what they would say were more hostile, uh, neighbours. Um.
Others were the idea of wanting to annex those lands. So there was settlements, um, were built during this time. These are, um, is what are considered illegal Israeli neighborhoods or developments, um, in both the West Bank and Gaza, and many of which are sizable to small cities. Those were withdrawn from Gaza in 2005, but they did proliferate during those inter years.
But I would say it was always this question of wanting to, Israel wanting to have some sort of sense of control over the land, but not wanting to have to take responsibility for the people within it. Because again, this was a very high number of Palestinians, most descendants from the Nakba, and a very highly, highly political and highly activated population. And so there was this sense of almost deciding not to decide what to do with the territories that I think one could say lasts up until this day.
[00:13:38] Alan Renwick: And presumably that contributed to a growing sense of grievance and resentment among people in Gaza during that period?
[00:13:44] Julie Norman: Oh, absolutely. I mean, and especially again, many people who had memories of what life had been like before. You know, one gentleman who I interviewed several times for the book, he ended up going to work in an Israeli flower farm that was really close to where his family used to have a large home and run their own business. And so he was, brought in as a truck on a, as a labourer to land that used to be essentially, you know, his family's where they had a very positive life. And so, it wasn't just the, the immediate difficulties, but also the knowledge of what could have been and how things were different before.
And so this did lead to, I would say, increasing, um, uh, increasing mobilisation, increasing sense of grievance. And I think that's one reason why when the Intifada, the first Palestinian uprising emerges in the 1980s, it emerges in Gaza because there was this pent up frustration of just feeling pushed further and further down as each year and each decade came.
[00:14:41] Alan Renwick: And the Intifada in the 1980s was followed in the 1990s by a period when there were serious attempts at negotiating a peace between the Palestinian authorities and Israel, and we came close to a peace agreement. But ultimately that did not happen. I mean, how did that affect Gaza?
[00:15:02] Julie Norman: That's right. So I think listeners are probably aware of the Oslo Accords this framework in the 1990s to try and move towards some sort of resolution. And in Gaza as throughout Palestine, there just ended being so much disillusionment around Oslo. There was some initial hope and when I spoke with Gazans who were alive at that time and had that memory, you know, many said, we are willing to give it a chance. We knew it wasn't perfect, but we were willing to give it a chance. But very quickly, it became clear that Oslo was not going to lead to a Palestinian state, it was not going to lead to an end to the occupation. And as that disillusionment set in, we see the emergence of yet another uprising, the second Intifada, which, was much more bloody for than the first, indeed.
[00:15:43] Alan Renwick: You've mentioned the date of 2005 several times as being a date of key change. Just what did happen in 2005? Why did that happen and what, what were the consequences?
[00:15:53] Julie Norman: Yeah. So in 2005, Israel decides to withdraw from Gaza, and that's a term that I think needs to be unpacked a little bit. What it meant was that Israel withdrew its military that was serving in Gaza as occupation, um, military force, and they also withdrew those settlements that had been built in Gaza.
This was very controversial within Israel to do this. But it was decided, one, that it was just becoming too costly to have that internal presence there. And also for many analysts, they saw it as a sort of a test case of how it would be to try and perhaps open up Gaza in that way, but, um, have a tighter control over the West Bank. So that was kind of the expected, trade. And the idea was that probably by doing this, it would more likely freeze the peace process than, than accelerate it. But Israel did make this move, again, critique from both the right and the left for different reasons.
But what they did continue to do was control Gaza's borders. Control Gaza's airspace, control Gaza's coastline, and very importantly control movement in and out of the strip. And so for most of the international community, for Palestinians, they still term this an occupation. Even though for Israel, they considered that they were no longer occupying the strip after 2005.
[00:17:13] Alan Renwick: So presumably for understanding what has happened in Gaza in the last few years, it's crucial to understand how Gaza was governed in the period since 2005 and the role of Hamas, and I guess we should get into just what Hamas is and where it came from as well in order to think about that.
[00:17:29] Julie Norman: Yeah, absolutely. Hamas obviously a crucial actor in Gaza's history. Hamas emerges out of what was essentially the Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza that, again, had played a very important role in Gaza civil society for, for decades. But I would note that the Brotherhood had been very intentional about not getting overly involved in politics about getting involved in resistance activities throughout the sixties, seventies, eighties. These are the years when the PLO, the Palestinian Liberation Organisation was really at its height, the more secular groups.
That changed in the late eighties when the Brotherhood decides, okay, we can't sit this out anymore. We need to start having some kind of involvement in resistance. And Hamas emerges from that decision. Throughout the nineties, I would say Hamas, um, plays an important role. They start initiating the tactic of, suicide bombings inside Israel, mainly as a way to disrupt that Oslo peace process that we talked about. But again, playing mostly that resistance role.
Going into the 2000s, there's a recalculation where Hamas decides to throw its hat in the ring of politics. So they go from being very much a resistance, what's classified in many countries as terrorist group, to then playing a role in Palestinian politics. I would say, to their surprise, as well as pretty much everyone else's, they are victorious in the first national election that they participate in. And, because of that, um, there ends up being a rift between Hamas and Fatah, which had been the governing party in the Palestinian Authority before. There is a, almost just shy of a civil war, one could say, where Hamas ends up taking control of Gaza and Fatah and the Palestinian Authority, as it's otherwise known, stays in control of the West Bank. So that splintering of Palestinian politics, I think cannot be overstated in how, um, in how crucial that was for changing the trajectory of the Palestinian national movement, and for Gaza in particular.
So, getting back to Hamas though, I mean, they again, were a resistance movement. Suddenly have to take on the day-to-day role of governing, like, who's gonna pick up the trash, who's going to, you know, run ministries and bureaucracy. And so they have to adjust to that pretty quickly. And they're better in some ways than others. You know, many Gazans said they, were, did a better job of kind of cleaning up some of the chaos, some of the crime, that kind of stuff that had been happening in that since that Israeli withdrawal, but were more limited in other areas and certainly were not very open to people challenging them. And so there was not much room for political contention, you know, for criticism of Hamas, for, you know, human rights groups to operate without a very strong eye on them.
But I would say Hamas started as essentially, I think they were elected because people saw them as a alternative to Fatah, to the ruling party of the past. People saw Fatah as corrupt, they saw it as weak, and they essentially wanted a change. I think people from many different countries understand that sentiment when you, kind of, vote another party that you just think will represent change. And again, I think Hamas maybe represented that at first, but for most Gazans I talked to, they felt that it pretty much fell into the same patterns as Fatah had before. As Hamas was in power for longer, they too became more susceptible to corruption, to, uh, you know, being seen as, not nearly as, um, as making change as many had hoped they would.
[00:20:52] Alan Renwick: So how would you characterise Gaza in early 2023? In, in, in the immediate weeks and months preceding the attack on the 7th of October and then the subsequent war.
[00:21:03] Julie Norman: Yeah. So Gaza going into October 7th, I would say this was now almost, about over 15 years into Hamas's control of the strip. Hamas was certainly losing popularity pretty quickly. They were, they were not seen as that popular in Gaza by this point. The economy in Gaza, again, always struggling, had been severely, severely, depleted by what at that point, were about 15 years of, Israeli, again, control over what came in and out, and that was very limited. So the goods that could come in and out were very limited. And as again, the flow of people in and out was, was controlled as well from externally.
So Gaza by this point, I would say was already at a very difficult sort tipping point. But at the same time, life was still going on. There were universities, there were businesses, there were artists, there were community centers. And again, I think this, these aspects of life that were very inherent in Gaza are something that we need to remember because that's very much of what was lost. You know, this wasn't just, a population that was sitting there waiting and then you know, these kinds of things. This was a very entrepreneurial, very active population, and there was a lot of life in Gaza pre-October 7th.
[00:22:17] Alan Renwick: Yeah, we've really whizzed through the history there very, very rapidly. People will be able to read the book in order to get a lot more detail, but it would be really interesting now to say a bit about the nature of the story that you are able to tell in the book. And one thing that's quite striking reading the book, and you've mentioned it several times so far as well, is that you include a lot of voices of ordinary people from Gaza in the book, and you're clearly very keen to ensure that those voices are heard. And why, why was it important to you to make sure that those voices were part of the book?
[00:22:47] Julie Norman: Oh, I think that was just essential for telling the story of Gaza. One, it was essential for me for understanding the story of Gaza was talking to people who had lived in the strip across different periods of history up until the present and including the last two years. But also, you know, I come to this, as a researcher, as a scholar, perhaps as an educator, but I wanted to marry that book with, I wanted to marry that voice with the voices of people's lived experiences in the strip. Um, and especially since myself not being from the region, I think that was even more important just out of good practice to make sure that those voices were heard.
And so throughout the, the process, um, I did a lot of interviews with Gazans. Many were remote. Obviously no one could enter Gaza, during the last two years. Some were with Gazans who had left much earlier in history and some were Gazans who had managed to leave during about the first six months of the war when some people were able to leave through Egypt. So, a lot of interviews vary. Um. Uh, very deep, very intense, and very emotional interviews. Some that went on for hours, um, had a lot of just shared stories and memories, but also, you know, a lot of, a lot of sadness, a lot of grief, over what was, again, what was being lost as we were reflecting over these memories.
[00:24:04] Alan Renwick: And was it possible for you as a researcher to reach the people you wanted to be able to reach that, to have the conversations that you felt it was important to have in order to tell this story?
[00:24:14] Julie Norman: Yeah, I feel that, um, I'm so grateful to everyone who shared their stories with me and my co-author, and again, range from older people to younger people, people who worked in aid organisations, journalists, students, teachers. You know, I think obviously one, one wishes that even more voices could have been captured and I think there's always a sense of, oh, I wish we could have talked to even more people and included more voices, but I think the voices that we did include do show a very wide range of lived experience in Gaza.
[00:24:49] Alan Renwick: Clearly, questions around the rights and wrongs of what has happened in Gaza over the past two years are very, very fraught, uh, very, very tense. You seek to position the book in a space where you remain impartial in these debates. You, you give the evidence, you give facts, you try to allow the facts to speak for themselves. Why did you want to take that approach and, I mean, is it possible to take that approach I guess is the question is, is it possible to be really neutral in these kinds of areas where, where what the facts actually are is so contested and how we interpret events that have taken place is so contested?
[00:25:27] Julie Norman: Yeah, it's an excellent question. I mean, again, I was approaching this book as, as a researcher, as a scholar, and hopefully as an educator, someone who is trying to help share the story of Gaza with as wide of an audience as possible.
So there was an agreement between me and my co-author as much as possible to essentially let the facts speak for themselves. We were going to include as many voices as we could and we include many Israeli voices as well as Palestinian, I would emphasise. Um, but we felt that again, people can make their own decisions and draw their own conclusions.
I would say that we didn't shy away from some of these tough issues. That includes the questions of aid. I think people have heard many different claims from, um, from organisations on the one hand, on the ground, to claims from the Israeli government on the other hand around that. There were initial claims over certain strikes that were debated as to, to what was happening in them. So we really tried to delve into some of those controversies and, and see what the different sides were saying, and again, let the reader evaluate on their own.
I will say too, a big part of including Gaza's voices was to ensure that their point of view on everything was, was very, uh, vocalised and very clear. So, I can be kind of the narrator voice in the background, but you're hearing very emotive, um, very, clear sense of opinionated comments from those that, that we interviewed. And so I think, I think the book, it enables that us to, to hold the emotion, but also to make the book accessible to a wide variety of readers who may come from different backgrounds, who may have different political views on this conflict. And we wanted the book to have space for everyone to engage with it.
[00:27:08] Alan Renwick: And who do you hope will read the book? And, and I guess how do you think that they will receive it? I mean, so you'll have potentially very, very diverse audiences reading this book.
[00:27:16] Julie Norman: Yeah. You know, you write a book and then you put it out there and it goes into so many different hands, hopefully. Um, I mean, I wrote it, you know, hoping that a wide international audience would obviously read this. I had some of my students in mind with writing the kind of book that they would maybe pick up to try and understand Gaza's background, general public who's really just trying to understand this place.
But, you know, Alan, I think it's a good question because again, because we did try and tell as fair of a story as Gaza as possible. We were trying to not oversimplify or sensationalise or kind of give into the headlines of the day. Many will like that approach, but many will not like that approach.
I mean, just writing this book and some people who have seen the book have taken issue with it because it's a book about Gaza at this moment and some have seen that itself as a political statement. Others have seen the book and because, uh, because it's a bit more of a rounded story and it's not taking a hard line on some of these tough questions, many people I think will be critical of it for that.
So I'm, I know there's gonna be criticism. I don't think you can work or write on this topic and not have it. But again, I, we were putting it out there. We're telling the best story that we could tell with the voices of Gazans throughout that we hope will have an impact on people who read it.
And, um, and I hope just people read it and just come away with a different understanding of what Gaza is, whose Gaza's people are, and to see it as a place that, again, has, through few years and centuries have been a place of great, great hope and resilience. And I think the question now is, you know where Gaza goes from here.
[00:28:50] Alan Renwick: Absolutely. And that's exactly where I was going to take us for the final question before we wrap up. You have great expertise on Gaza and I wonder if where that, uh, leads you to think Gaza is going at the present time. So we now have another ceasefire. There seems to be widespread optimism that this is a cease far that is more meaningful than the ceasefires as we've seen in the past. Of course, a lot of that optimism is coming from Donald Trump and he's talking about eternal peace, which I think most experts in the region would think wildly overblown. But what's your take on what the situation is now and where Gaza might go?
[00:29:29] Julie Norman: Yeah, I, you know, as you said at the beginning, things are so fast moving that I'm cautious to, to forecast too much here. Um, but what I can say is, obviously, you know, people have seen the headlines, the pictures, the videos, they know the devastation that has just been wreaked on Gaza and they know the challenges that are ahead, even in the best case scenarios here. So I think it's going to be a very long road ahead for reconstruction, for finding any kind of new kind of hope for Gaza.
And again, we're, we're not, um, I think it's gonna be a very long road ahead to figure out what happens next. What I can say is that nearly all Gazans that I spoke to believe in the ability to rebuild. They want the opportunity to rebuild and they want a very different future for Gaza. They want a Gaza that has a representative government that has an ability for, for Palestinians to have self-determination and to govern themselves. And they want that opportunity and they're still hopeful despite everything that has happened. And, um, obviously I can't speak for everyone, but I can say that, that spirit and that sense of commitment to Gaza and commitment to Palestine has not gone away after these last two years.
[00:30:38] Alan Renwick: Well, thank you so much, Julie. It's been great to talk about this book. Such an important topic and a really valuable contribution. And as you say, I was really struck reading the book. The final pages are very much about the power of hope and I guess people in Gaza have not had a lot of agency, but they do retain the power to hope and those hopes have often been dashed in the past, but maybe we're in a time now where that hope can be fulfilled in some way.
[00:31:06] Julie Norman: Indeed.
[00:31:07] Alan Renwick: So thank you Julie, so much. We have been discussing the new book Gaza: the Dream and the Nightmare, written by Julie Norman and Maia Carter Hallward published by Polity.
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I am Alan Renwick. This episode was produced by Eleanor Kingwell-Banham and Kaiser Kang. Our theme music is written and performed by John Mann.
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