Where is She?

Batool Abu Akleen, a teenage poet from Gaza, last posted on October 23. Her social media handles went silent after that

- Snigdhendu Bhattacharya

THERE has been no news of Batool Abu Akleen since October 23, the last time she posted anything on any social media platform. A two-month absence brings the worst question to the fore: is she alive? “Two days ago, I was preparing myself to go to university, and now I am preparing myself for an expected death,” she wrote in a social media post on October 9. The ‘war’ was only in its third day.

Akleen, who started making a mark as a poet, turned an adult this year. She has been a member of the literature circle at the Qattan Foundation in Gaza and led a literature group called “Yaraat” at the Tamer Institute for Community Education. Her Facebook profile describes her as ‘The daughter of the sea and the city, coffeeholic, a poet, an artist, and a dreamer.’