Deluge: London Book Launch

OR Books invites you to the London launch event for DELUGE: Gaza and Israel from Crisis to Cataclysm, edited by Jamie Stern-Weiner. Join Jamie in conversation with Ahmed Alnaouq, Palestinian journalist and co-founder of We Are Not Numbers, campaigner and trade union rep Jess Barnard, and TV producer and author Richard Sanders.

In September 2023, the US National Security Advisor boasted that the Middle East “is quieter today than it has been in two decades.” A week later, Hamas’s Operation Al-Aqsa Deluge punctured delusions of stability as hundreds of militants burst forth from the Gaza prison camp. 1,200 Israelis were killed and over 240 were taken hostage.

Israel's retaliation turned the besieged enclave into a howling wasteland, with over 35,000 killed, including more than 13,000 children. As Israel targets the wounded and infirm, newborns and near-dead, Gaza’s healthcare system—hospitals, clinics, ambulances, medical personnel—has come under a systematic attack unprecedented in the annals of modern warfare.

In this groundbreaking book—the first published about the ongoing assault on Gaza— leading Palestinian, Israeli, and international authorities put the momentous developments since October 7 in context and provide an initial taking-stock. With contributions from Musa Abuhashhash, Ahmed Alnaouq, Nathan J. Brown, Yaniv Cogan, Clare Daly MEP, Talal Hangari, Khaled Hroub, R.J., Colter Louwerse, Mitchell Plitnick, Mouin Rabbani, Sara Roy, and Avi Shlaim, this book is indispensible in understanding the global reverberations of the current catastrophe.

This event is free to attend, but please register to reserve your spot as there is limited capacity. Books will be available to purchase on the night.

Ahmed Alnaouq is a Palestinian journalist from Gaza and the co-founder of We Are Not Numbers, a-non profit organisation that specialises in sharing Palestinian stories. He contributed a story titled “Just Like That: Life and Death in Gaza” to DELUGE.

Jess Barnard is a socialist, campaigner, and trade union rep. She is currently elected to Labour's National Executive Committee representing the members section of the Labour party. She works in the charity sector and has previously worked as a youth worker developing youth activism programmes.

Richard Sanders is an award winning TV producer specialising in history and news and current affairs, and the author of two history books. He directed "October 7", a major Al Jazeera investigation into the Hamas attack on Israel.

Jamie Stern-Weiner is an Associate Editor at OR Books and a doctoral candidate at the University of Oxford. Israeli-born and London-raised, he has written extensively about the history and politics of the Israel-Palestine conflict as well as the contemporary politics of antisemitism. He is the editor of DELUGE.