What You Can’t Understand About Gaza, Explained By a 16-Year-Old

They call her Gaza’s Anne Frank. And if you read her tweets chronologically, you will probably be reminded of the 13-year-old girl’s diary from the darkness of her house in occupied Amsterdam.

Farah Baker is a Palestinian teenager who tweets her day-to-day life in besieged Gaza, posting live footage and audio clips as rockets fall near her house. Her tweets, outspoken and intensely emotive, humanize a conflict often dominated by soulless statistics and unsettling pictures of bloodshed.

Last 4 August, as she was interviewed by Sky News, the hashtag ‪#‎AskFarah began trending as a tool for people to post their questions and get a first-hand account of how Palestinians live in Gaza. “How do you stay calm? Are you hopeful for peace in the future? Why are you still in Gaza if you know that it is dangerous to be there right now?,” people asked her, as over 150,000 followers attempted to see Gaza through Farah’s eyes.

Her tweets don’t speak numbers. They don’t theorize war: they tell the world how it feels to live under bombardment, power cuts, and an asphyxiating siege. “I’m gonna meet my best friend for the first time since 7th of July (the beginning of the war). I’m alone at my room dancing,” she tweeted that day.

For more information: Follow Farah on Twitter @Farah_Gazan and ask her a question using the hashtag #‎AskFarah.