A Palestinian gynaecologist, Izzeldin Abuelaish, opens his memoirs with a deceptively sunny description of a family day trip to the beach. "We probably looked like any other family," writes Abuelaish, "the kids frolicking in the water... calling to each other over the onshore winds." But this gathering turns out to be not quite as it seems.
A month on, three of his daughters and a niece will be dead, killed by shells fired into their bedroom. The events which took place on 16 January 2009 at the height of the Israeli assault on Gaza lie at the heart of Abuelaish's no-frills account of a life lived under siege.
A man with many Israeli friends, Abuelaish puts real human beings back at the heart of one of history's more intractable conflicts.
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