The Gates of Gaza: A Story of Betrayal, Survival, and Hope in Israels Borderlan [Hardcover]

Winner of the National Jewish Book Award | Winner of the 2026 Wingate Prize | Winner of the Bernstein Prize | Winner of the 2026 Sami Rohr Prize

TheGates of Gazais a gripping first-person account of how one Israeli grandfather helped rescue two generations of his family on October 7, 2023a saga that reveals the deep tensions and systemic failures behind Hamas's attacks that day.

On the morning of October 7, Amir Tibon and his wife were awakened by mortar rounds exploding near their home in Kibbutz Nahal Oz, a progressive Israeli community less than a mile from Gaza City.

Soon, they were holding their two young daughters in the familys reinforced safe room, urging them not to cry as gunfire echoed just outside the door. With his cell phone battery running low, Amir texted his father: The girls are behaving really well, but Im worried theyll lose patience soon and Hamas will hear us.

Some 45 miles north, Amirs parents had just cut short an early morning swim along the shores of Tel Aviv. Now, they jumped in their Jeep and sped toward Nahal Oz, armed only with a pistol but intent on saving their family at all costs.

InThe Gates of Gaza, Amir Tibon tells this harrowing story in full for the first time. He describes his family's ordealand the bravery that ultimately led to their rescuealongside the histories of the place they call home and the systems of power that have kept them and their neighbors in Gaza in harms way for decades.

More than one family's odyssey, this is the intimate story of a tight-knit community and the broader saga of war, occupation, and hostility between two national movementsa conflict that has not yet extinguished the enduring hope for peace.