Palestinian refugees in Gaza have lived in camps for five generations, experiencing hardship and uncertainty. In the absence of official histories, oral narratives handed down from generation to generation bear witness to life in Palestine before and after the 1948 Nakba—the catastrophe of dispossession. These narratives maintain traditions, keep alive names of destroyed villages, and record stories of the fight for dignity and freedom. The Women’s Voices from Gaza Series honours women’s unique and underrepresented perspectives on the social, material, and political realities of Palestinian life. In A White Lie, the first volume in this series, Madeeha Hafez Albatta chronicles her life in Gaza and beyond. Among her remarkable achievements was establishing some of the first schools for refugee children in Gaza. Foreword by Salman Abu Sitta.

Madeeha Hafez Albatta (1924-2011), born in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, became a teacher while in her teens and a principal in her mid-twenties, the youngest in Gazan history. She was among the pioneers to rally the Palestinian community to guarantee the right to education for thousands of refugee children arriving in Gaza after the destruction of their homeland in 1948. The events of her life took her and her family across mandatory Palestine to Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Canada.

Madeeha Hafez Albatta's profile page

Barbara Bill has experience with several international humanitarian organizations including six years in Gaza. She currently resides in New South Wales, Australia.

Barbara Bill's profile page

Ghada Ageel is Visiting Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Alberta and a columnist for the Middle East Eye, London. She holds a PhD and MA in Middle East Politics from the University of Exeter (Britain) and a BA in Education from the Islamic University/Gaza. Dr. Ageel is the recipient of several awards and scholarships including The Phillips Grant (UK, 2013), The Jerusalem Studies’ Scholarship of the University of Exeter (2002 and 1999), the Higher Education Award of the Ministry of Education (Palestine, 1996) and the Hebrew Language and Literature Scholarship (Gaza, 1993). Her research interests focus on rights-based approaches to forced migration, Palestinian refugees in comparative perspective, oral history, women's studies, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the permanent status issues involved in the Middle East peace process. Dr. Ageel's work has been widely published in several newspapers, magazines, and journals worldwide, including The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The International Herald Tribune, The Hill, CNN, BBC, The Guardian, Journal for Palestine Studies, Palestine Chronicle, MATAN Magazine (Hebrew) and many Arabic newspapers throughout the Middle East. Dr. Ageel has a diverse background, and distinctly inter-disciplinary knowledge, including almost 20 years of first-hand experience in the fields of education, research, consultancy, management, NGOs operation, journalism, disaster management, and communications. She has also worked with several institutions in the UK (University of Exeter, the Guardian Newspaper, Hoping Foundation), US (Institute for Middle East Understanding, the Academy for Educational Development and Interfaith Peace Builders), Canada (The Canadian Red Cross and University of Alberta) and in Palestine (International Cooperation South-South, The Palestinian Abraham Centre for languages and NHK).

Ghada Ageel's profile page

"[A White Lie] should urge academics to consider whose voices they include and how they include them when writing about and theorising Palestine. It demonstrates the power of centring female voices and detailed histories to understand intersections between temporality, place, and gender and the material, social, and political realities of Palestinian life." Olivia Mason, Gender, Place & Culture [Full review at https://doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2021.1971899]

“A White Lie is the first in a series of oral histories from a woman’s perspective living through events – modern history – occurring in Gaza and regionally. As history is usually written by old white men at the end of a certain epoch or episode in history, people’s voices, women’s voices in particular, are seldom if ever heard.” Jim Miles, Palestine Chronicles, August 4, 2023 [Full article at https://www.palestinechronicle.com/womens-voices-from-gaza-a-white-lie-book-review/]

"In A White Lie, Madeeha Hafez Albatta recounts her life as a teacher, mother and activist in Gaza... By preserving Albatta’s extraordinary life, this book makes a significant contribution to Palestinian history and politics." [Full review at https://albertaviews.ca/white-lie-womens-voices/]

Nancy Janovicek, Alberta Reviews, 05/01/2021