Saad doesn't just see books as a commercial commodity, but also as part of his daily life and the companion of his many years.
Afrasianet - Inside a small tent in the central Gaza Strip city of Deir al-Balah, Palestinian Mohammed Ramadan Saad continues to sell books he rescued from the rubble of his destroyed home, after the Israeli war of annihilation cost him much of his library that he had collected for more than 36 years.
The war did not prevent Saad from continuing his long relationship with writers, as he turned a modest tent into a makeshift library, displaying hundreds of books that survived the bombing, and resumed work he began decades ago in the streets and cities of the Gaza Strip.
Saad tells the story of his passion, which the war did not succeed in ending, and says that he has been selling and buying books for more than 36 years, moving between several locations in Gaza before establishing a large library inside his home in the northern Gaza city of Beit Lahiya.
He adds, "For 36 years, I have been working in the book business, until I opened a large library in Beit Lahia and it was filled with books that I had collected over many years."
But the Israeli war of extermination, which began on October 8, 2023, turned his life upside down, forcing him to flee and leave his library behind.
After months of displacement, Saad returned to his home in Beit Lahia to find his library buried under the rubble of the building destroyed by Israeli shelling.
"When I came back, I found my large library buried under the rubble of four floors," he says. I started picking up the rubble little by little and extracting the books every day, and then transporting them to Deir al-Balah."
For months, he continued to retrieve as many books as he could from under the rubble, in an attempt to salvage the remainder of the many years he had spent collecting them. However, the lack of a suitable place to store the books initially forced him to display them on a sidewalk, before the sun damaged part of them.
Saad says this prompted him to rent a small plot of land and erect a modest tent in which he placed his books, spending most of his time next door.
In the tent, hundreds of books that survived the shelling were stacked on top of each other, in an attempt to keep them from being damaged, after they occupied a large library inside his house.
Saad does not only see books as a commercial commodity, but also as part of his daily life and companion for many years.
"I am proud of every reader who comes to me, and if someone who does not have the price of a book comes and wants to read, I give him the book for free and with all my self-indulgence, because I love every person who holds a book," he says.
Despite technological development and the spread of the internet, Saad believes that the paper book still retains its place.
He adds, "There are those who say that the Internet has become a substitute for books, but the book is the foundation, the book is the life of man and the basis of knowledge."
"I sleep among the books and spend my whole day with them, because for me, books are not something that can be discarded," he says, explaining that "the book is my life, and as long as I can save one book from under the rubble, I will."
