Plestia Alaqad
Journalist whose video diaries from Gaza reached millions · c. 2001– · Gaza
Plestia Alaqad, 22, became known as 'the eyes of Gaza' for the Instagram video diaries she filmed through the war's first weeks; after her accounts were hacked and her neighborhood destroyed, she left Gaza with her family in November 2023, later publishing the bestselling memoir 'The Eyes of Gaza.'
Plestia Alaqad, a 22-year-old recent journalism graduate in Gaza, was working in human resources and posting vignettes of daily life on Instagram when the war began in October 2023. Her first-person videos — airstrikes outside her window, her neighborhood reduced to rubble, hospital corridors crowded with the wounded — were among the earliest clear footage of the war seen in the West, shared by millions and carried by international broadcasters including ITV News.
In November 2023, after her social media accounts were hacked and amid growing fears for her family’s safety, Alaqad left Gaza with her family through the Rafah crossing, traveling on to Egypt and then Australia. “I hope this nightmare ends and I’ll be back in Gaza soon,” she told her followers. Her diaries of the war’s first 45 days became “The Eyes of Gaza,” published by Pan Macmillan in 2025 and an instant New York Times bestseller. She was named to the BBC 100 Women list in 2024 and awarded the Shireen Abu Akleh Memorial Scholarship for a master’s in media studies at the American University of Beirut.
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Alaqad was named to the BBC 100 Women list for 2024 and began a master's in media studies at the American University of Beirut on the Shireen Abu Akleh Memorial Scholarship.