Biographical note

Mahmoud Muna is a writer, publisher and bookseller from Jerusalem. He runs Jerusalem’s well known Educational Bookshop and the Bookshop at the American Colony Hotel, centres of the literary scene in the city. He most recently was commissioned by Granta to publish the first ever edition of the magazine in Arabic.  Matthew Teller is a UK-based writer and broadcaster. He has written on the Middle East for the BBC, Guardian, Independent, Times, Financial Times and other global media. He has produced documentaries for BBC Radio 4 and World Service and reported for From Our Own Correspondent. Teller is the author of Nine Quarters of Jerusalem: A New Biography of the Old City, which was a 2022 Telegraph Book of the Year, Rough Guide to Jordan and Quite Alone: Journalism from the Middle East 2008–2019. Juliette Touma is Director of Communications at UNRWA following decades of experience as part of humanitarian missions in the Middle East. Touma lives in Amman and travels frequently to the Palestinian territories, including Gaza.   Jayyab Abusafia is a London-based journalist from Jabalia refugee camp in the north of Gaza. He was formerly Sky News Arabia’s senior reporter in London and a senior news presenter at Alghad TV. In Gaza, Abusafia worked as a radio presenter and a fixer/producer for global media including BBC, Channel 4 UK, Radio Canada and the Chicago Tribune. He was a nominee for Index on Censorship's Freedom of Expression Awards.