Yousef, Youmna, Banias, and Majd: Four Lives in Gaza

Buried beneath the statistics and headlines giving shape to the atrocities suffered in Gaza, the texture of the individual human experience tends to go overlooked. Surfacing that humanity is the animating impulse driving Chana Joffe-Walt’s collection of stories for This American Life, which sought to capture the direct experience of several individuals working through their circumstances in the conflict within and beyond the region. Yousef Hammash is an aid worker who labors to persuade his sisters to leave town. Youmna El Sayed is a reporter who’s given the opportunity to escape, but at the cost of leaving her husband behind. Banias is an eight-year-old whose youthful vibrance breaks through despite the horrors around her. Majd is a high school student on an exchange program in the United States who yearns for normalcy, but is haunted by the weight of her war-torn diaspora. The power of these pieces lies in the bracing intimacy of their recordings. Joffe-Walt conducted extensive phone conversations with these individuals across months as they navigated their respective situations, giving space to their raw vulnerability as each actively processed living through a horrific period in history. For its commitment to the act of witnessing, This American Life’s “Yousef, Youmna, Banias and Majd: Four Lives in Gaza” is recognized with a Peabody Award.