Excerpts from Batool Abu Akleen’s memoir, adapted from the book Voices of Resistance: Diaries of Genocide, were published in The Walrus on December 14, “I Was Displaced to a Tent in Gaza. I Don’t Want to Remember Any of It.”

Unsurprisingly, given The Walrus’ history of biased, anti-Israel articles, it published excerpts of a memoir as moral testimony without supplying readers with the essential context necessary to understand the war being described. Throughout, Israel is the de facto villain.

Abu Akleen describes her day-to-day experience of living in a tent in Gaza in emotive and detailed terms. She detailed the overwhelming anxiety she experienced, the challenges for her and her family of living in that environment, and the ways that they tried to manage it.

Akleen was a student at the Islamic University. She wrote, “at the start of the genocide, the Islamic University was destroyed by Israeli forces. A few weeks later, on December 6, 2023, my beloved professor Refaat Alareer was murdered in a targeted Israeli bombing, which also killed his brother, his sister, and four of his nephews. Six or seven months after the genocide started, our studies resumed online.”

Completely absent from her memoir is any awareness of how the war started: Hamas’ October 7 2023, invasion and inhumane murders and atrocities on 1,200 Israeli innocents, including gang rapes and mutilation of dead bodies, and the taking of 251 hostages, many of whom were abused and starved, with one hostage’s body still held by the terror group.

Israel’s response followed the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, carried out by a neighbour whose leadership has openly declared its intent to destroy the Jewish state. Yet Abu Akleen bemoans Israel’s actions at length, inaccurately calling them acts of “Israeli aggression.”

Indeed, her description of events around the Islamic University declined to mention that IU is intertwined with Hamas. It was established by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, founder of Hamas, and, according to American scholar Cary Nelson, in his book, “Israel Denial,” it has from the outset “served as a Hamas recruitment centre.” Nelson also referenced journalist Thanassis Cambanis’ statement that the IU is the “brain trust and engine room of Hamas.” It should therefore be unsurprising that the Jerusalem Post reported in October 2023 that the University was targeted because it “maintained close ties with senior Hamas leadership and was being used to train military intelligence operatives and to develop and produce weapons.”

One wonders why the Walrus has not provided this valuable background information for readers.

Indeed, Abu Akleen’s revered professor, Refaat Alareer, was reported to haverelatives in Hamas and was himself a rabid antisemite, with his social media allegedly full of putrid slurs against Zionists and Jews. He said, “No form, act, or means of Palestinian resistance whatsoever is terror. All Israelis are soldiers. All Palestine is occupied.” Alareer also allegedly commented to the BBC in October 2023 that “Hamas massacres of children were ‘legitimate and moral.” Abu Akleen has a right to free expression, but the Walrus should have provided this context to inform its readers.

As for Abu Akleen’s repeated claims of genocide, they remain legally unsubstantiated and are hotly contested, relying heavily on casualty figures supplied by the Gaza Health Ministry, a Hamas-run body whose data collection methods are unreliable. Additionally, their figures include tens of thousands of fighters and natural deaths. Scores of experts dispute the “genocide” charge.

None of this negates the author’s suffering or the reality of civilian hardship in Gaza. It just questions her portrayal of it all being Israel’s fault.

For some reason, in its description of Abu Akleen, the Walrus doesn’t mention that as of October 2025, she is in France, studying Cinema at the Sorbonne, no longer living in a tent in Gaza.

Just three days later, on December 17, The Walrus published another hit piece on Gaza, “Gaza Ceasefire Is at Risk, Former Canadian Ambassador Warns,” in a Q&A between onetime Canadian envoy to Israel Jon Allen, and Samia Madwar, a senior editor at the magazine.

The first question by Madwar set the tone for the absurdity of the entire exchange, when she asked “Over the past two months, Israel has violated the ceasefire almost daily, killing and injuring hundreds of Gazans. What is the risk that the ceasefire might collapse?”

Even Allen, a consistent critic of Israel, stated that “the ceasefire has indeed been violated on both sides,” rather than blaming Israel exclusively as Madwar attempted.

In her questioning, Madwar took allegations at face value, stating “hundreds had died from malnutrition,” without acknowledging that Israel states that it has sent huge deliveries of aid into Gaza.

There are any number of observers and experts which The Walrus could have spoken to, but in selecting Jon Allen, they sought out a reliable critic of Israel without any ostensible attempt at balance.

Once again, The Walrus – a recipient of generous government subsidies – continues to peddle anti-Israel talking points.