Books2Door donates 1,000 books for rebuild of Gaza bookshop

Books2Door, a national online bookseller specialising in children's literature, has donated 1,000 books to Gaza’s largest bookshop, which was recently destroyed in an airstrike.

The two-story Samir Mansour bookstore, which also served as a local community centre, was demolished by an Israeli missile during the recent Gaza Strip conflict, leaving tens of thousands of books ruined.

Books2Door founder Abdul Thadha noticed the GoFundMe campaign to support the rebuilding of the bookstore circulating online and contacted the fundraising organisers to donate titles. The book store was renowned for stocking everything from philosophy and art history, to fiction, children’s and self-help books.

Thadha said: “When I saw this, my heart sank. The story is devastating and without any hesitation I knew we could help. It doesn’t matter that we are based in the UK. We have shown our support and genuine compassion by shipping 1,000 children’s books. This is just to begin with. We were kindly informed by the fundraisers that Samir had a diverse, eclectic collection so we hope we have done him proud.”

So far, the crowdfunding campaign has reached $204,061 of its $250,000 goal, partly through donations from UK indies. The fundraising campaign is being championed by human rights lawyers Mahvish Rukhsana and Clive Stafford Smith.

In response to the donation, they said: “We were overwhelmed with the generosity from both Books2Door and the team in helping the bookstore rise as a phoenix from the ashes. With this kind of support now all we need is some humanitarian co-operation from the Israeli and Gaza authorities.”