De Balie Podcast

Palestinian journalist Sami al-Ajrami shares his story. Later on Al-Ajrami will discuss the future of Gaza with analyst and former NYT-correspondent Taghreed El-Khodary. NRC journalist Leonie van Nierop will introduce the evening. Spread throughout the conversation, actor Amro Kasr will read excerpts from Sami al-Ajrami's translated book in Dutch: De sleutels van het huis - Een dagboek uit Gaza.As a journalist, Sami al-Ajrami covered at least five Gaza wars. But the one that started in the aftermath of October 7th 2023, was the first in which he lost his house, his family – 14 family members died in the first week – and perhaps his sanity. In times of a tentative ceasefire, how does he make sense of what happened, both as human being and as an analyst? And how does one imagine a future, when only just now there is space to feel the pain?Sami al-Ajrami has reworked the diary he kept for an Italian newspaper into a harrowing book, which tells the story of his flight from the North of Gaza. It chronicl