Footnotes In Gaza

Footnotes In GazaFrom the great American cartoonist reporter, a sweeping, original investigation of a forgotten crime in the most vexed of places. Originally published in 2009, this landmark, political graphic novel is all the more relevant now. Rafah, a town at the southernmost tip of the Gaza Strip, is a squalid place. Raw concrete buildings front rubbish strewn alleys. The narrow streets are crowded with young children and unemployed men. Situated on the border

From the great American cartoonist-reporter, a sweeping, original investigation of a forgotten crime in the most vexed of places. Originally published in 2009, this landmark, political  graphic novel is all the more relevant now.

Rafah, a town at the southernmost tip of the Gaza Strip, is a squalid place. Raw concrete buildings front rubbish-strewn alleys. The narrow streets are crowded with young children and unemployed men. Situated on the border with Egypt, swaths of Rafah have been reduced to rubble. Rafah is today and has always been a notorious flashpoint in this most bitter of conflicts.

Buried deep in the archives is one bloody incident, in 1956, that left 111 Palestinian refugees dead, shot by Israeli soldiers. Seemingly a footnote to a long history of killing, that day in Rafah - coldblooded massacre or dreadful mistake - reveals the competing truths that have come to define an intractable war. In a quest to get to the heart of what happened, Joe Sacco arrives in Gaza and, immersing himself in daily life, uncovers Rafah, past and present. Spanning fifty years, moving fluidly between one war and the next, alive with the voices of fugitives and schoolchildren, widows and sheikhs, Footnotes in Gaza captures the essence of a tragedy.