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Palestinian poet detained by IDF freed after international outcry
Mosab Abu Toha, whose anthology won the American Book Award, was taken in for questioning while fleeing northern Gaza
Israel says it has released an award-winning Palestinian poet after reports of his detention prompted an international outcry.
Mosab Abu Toha, who won the American Book Award for his debut anthology, Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza, disappeared on Sunday while fleeing southwards in Gaza with thousands of other people, his brother said.
“The army took Mosab when he arrived at the checkpoint, leaving from the north to the south,” the author’s brother, Hamza Abu Toha, said on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Tuesday.
An IDF spokesman told The Telegraph that Abu Toha had been taken in for questioning as Israeli troops investigated reports of “a number of interactions between several civilians and terror organisations inside the Gaza Strip” but was then released.
He is believed to have been taken to Israel during the investigation, but has now been reunited with his wife and three children in southern Gaza.
News of Abu Toha’s release came amid a chorus of calls from international groups demanding his release.
In a statement on Tuesday, PEN International said it was “deeply concerned” by reports about the arrest of Abu Toha who is also the founder of Gaza’s first English-language library.
“We join calls demanding to know his whereabouts and the reasons for his detention,” it said.
‘More destruction. What can stop this?’
The New Yorker magazine, for which Abu Toha wrote a first-person account of life under Israel’s bombardment of Gaza City last month, also called for his safe return.
Abu Toha, who had recently returned to Gaza after studying in the US, has risen to become one of the territory’s most-celebrated authors.
Earlier this year, Abu Toha was also named a finalist in the prestigious US National Book Critics Circle poetry award, for his debut collection.
In a piece published by The Atlantic this month, Abu Toha described a childhood marred by war and reflected on the fact that his young children are now going through the same experience.
“My youngest child, born in America in May 2021, is living through the third wave of Israeli bombing,” he wrote.
“Not only are he and his brother and sister smelling death around them; but they have also lost their house in Beit Lahia 10 days ago.”
Abu Toha called for a ceasefire shortly before he was detained.
“More death, more destruction. What can stop this? Please stop it now,” he wrote on social media.