Plestia Alaqad

Plestia Alaqad (; born 10 December 2001) is a Palestinian author, journalist, and poet. She gained international attention for her daily coverage of the Gaza war by way of her social media accounts.

In November 2023, as the Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip intensified, Alaqad and her family fled to Egypt and then to Australia, where she continued her advocacy on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.

Early life and education Alaqad was born on 10 December 2001 and grew up in the Gaza Strip. He gave her the name "Plestia" after the Philistines, a tribe among the first to settle Palestine in antiquity. She attended the American International School in the city of Beit Lahia, and later enrolled at Eastern Mediterranean University in what is Northern Cyprus to study New Media and Journalism, graduating in 2022.

In August 2024, Alaqad won the Shireen Abu Akleh Memorial Scholarship to pursue a Master of Arts (MA) in Media Studies at the American University of Beirut in Lebanon.

Career Alaqad previously worked as a human resources professional at a marketing agency while gathering a small online following on Instagram in her free time. She regularly conducted media training as well, in addition to engaging in freelance journalism. Prior to the Gaza war, Alaqad's online content mainly consisted of travel content, covering locations like Cyprus and Turkey. By November 3, she had accumulated 2.1 million followers on Instagram, Alaqad's videos have been shared by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the British Broadcasting Corporation, Business Today, The Independent, The New York Times, PBS NewsHour, and The Washington Post. She was also interviewed by the GB News Breakfast Show for an inquiry on how Gazans' lives had been affected by the war.

Since leaving the Gaza Strip On 22 November 2023, roughly one month into the Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip, Alaqad and her family fled to Egypt via the Rafah Border Crossing having secured visas via her uncle. In a later video, Alaqad, residing in Melbourne, explained that she chose to leave the Gaza Strip because she feared that her journalism was putting her family in immediate danger.

In February 2024, Alaqad took part in the Bankstown Poetry Slam in the city of Sydney, where she presented poetry that she had written about the war in her diary while she was in the Gaza Strip.

Writing Alaqad has written several articles for The Guardian. and ITV.

The Eyes of Gaza (2025)

In a six-way auction, Pan Macmillan won the rights to publish Alaqad's debut book The Eyes of Gaza, a series of diary extracts, in 2025.

Awards and honours In December 2024, Plestia Alaqad was included on the BBC's 100 Women list, and shared Amnesty International Australia's inaugural Human Rights Defender Award with Palestinian journalists Bisan Owda, Anas Al-Sharif, and Ahmed Shihab-Eldin.