More than 175 people from across the industry form Book Workers for a Free Palestine

A group of 175 people from more than 15 different publishers and agencies have formed Book Workers for a Free Palestine.

The group says it stands “against the genocide taking place today in Gaza and call[s] for an immediate ceasefire”. The group did not reveal which publishers or agencies members came from, but told The Bookseller: "Part of the motivation for forming the group was the vast majority of publishers’ silence in response to the siege in Gaza and we are working to pressure our respective publishers to speak out."

Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas have been at war since early October. It began when Hamas gunmen launched an unprecedented attack on Israel from Gaza on 7th October 2023, the deadliest in Israel’s history. An Israeli military campaign followed, which has killed thousands in the Palestinian territory. The Hamas-run health ministry in the Gaza Strip says 29,974 people have been killed and 70,325 injured in the retaliatory campaign — most of them civilians. The huge toll has led to international pressure on Israel and calls for a ceasefire.

In January the UN’s top court, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), ordered Israel to take all measures to prevent genocidal acts in Gaza. Israel has vehemently rejected the accusations as "baseless" and "wholly unfounded".

Book Workers for a Free Palestine says: “As well as breaking the literary industry’s silence around the ongoing genocide, we are inviting other book workers, booksellers, librarians, authors, translators and illustrators to join us to express solidarity with the Palestinian people, to organise for the academic and cultural boycott within the book industry of companies complicit in Israeli apartheid and to stand in solidarity with individuals targeted within our industry. We are committed to a free Palestine so that everyone in Palestine and Israel can live safely and freely.

“As knowledge and culture workers, we stand against the destruction of cultural heritage in Gaza and the erasure of Palestinian history. At least 14 libraries and two publishing houses have been badly damaged or destroyed in the recent assault on Gaza. Hundreds of years of irreplaceable historical and cultural materials have been lost forever.”