A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy

a conversation with Nathan Thrall

The 2024 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction, A Day in the Life of Abed Salama, tells the story of a 2012 car crash involving a school bus full of children and a trailer truck, resulting in 8 deaths and many injuries. The location of the crash—one of the many grey areas in East Jerusalem crossed by the separation wall—and its implications—the delayed emergency response due to the military occupation as key factors in the tragedy—make this event a compelling metaphor and lens through which journalist Nathan Thrall dissects the broader, decades-long clash between Israeli and Palestinian sovereignty and the resulting architecture of oppression.

The book, which kept the same title as an essay the author wrote for The New York Review of Books in 2021, goes beyond simply recounting a day of Abed Salama’s life, a Palestinian father desperately trying to find his five-year-old son, Milad, after the car crash—Abed lacks the proper permission to cross the checkpoint, and the absence of jurisdictional clarity makes any form of coordination impossible.

More precisely, this book is a choral depiction that includes dozens of characters connected to the event, whose life stories distil not only the dynamics of the incident but also the region’s deeply entrenched issues. Thrall’s narrative, devoid of invectives or external historical explanations, reveals the occupation and history of the area through personal stories and complex, nuanced characters. Even the timeline of the conflict, as it relates to the characters—mainly the two intifadas, the Oslo Accords and the failure of the peace process— is recounted multiple times from different experiences and perspectives, weaving together a detailed and insightful mosaic that stands on its own, without needing counterparts or broader contexts, as it delves into the personal struggles of this collective suffering and its day-to-day unfolding.

A Day in the Life of Abed Salama is an outstanding work, meticulously faithful to the records and the extensive interviews Thrall conducted on this subject. Each person and their story are real, presented as they are—without rhetoric, judgment, or biased compassion. Thrall’s entire literary effort is dedicated to giving them a voice, rescuing them from oblivion, and narrating their lives with clarity and minimal interference. While this results in a sharp condemnation of the occupation and systematic apartheid, it is Thrall’s profound empathy for ordinary people and their shared humanity—regardless of which side of the wall they are on—that offers the only glimmer of hope in one of the most enduring and seemingly irreconcilable conflicts of our time.

Luigi Vitali : How long have you been living in Jerusalem?

Nathan Thrall. : Since 2011.

L.V. : As a correspondent, you’ve reported on countless tragedies. What about this particular event made it stand out to you as emblematic of the suffering experienced by millions?

N.T. : On the most basic level, I was deeply moved by the story, in particular by the story of some of the parents. Beyond that, there were several structural reasons for focusing on this particular event. One of the most fundamental is that the Greater Jerusalem area is at the heart of the settlement project, with more than half of Israeli settlers living here. Jerusalem is the ideal place to tell the larger story of Israel-Palestine because it is where everything converges. You have Israeli citizens within the pre-67 borders. You have Israeli settlers, you have Palestinian citizens. You have Palestinian residents of annexed East Jerusalem. You have Palestinians living in area A and B and C in the West Bank. Another factor is that the lives of the people here are so segregated that I needed to find an incident that brought them together, creating a single narrative that could encompass the complexities of the occupation and include the perspectives of both Jews and Palestinians. It was important to me not to just choose any incident, or even the most dramatic one, like a bombing, the invasion of a Palestinian village, or a war in Gaza. To effectively critique an entire system, I believe it’s more impactful to illustrate the everyday, to avoid selecting something that could be dismissed as an exception. I didn’t want readers to attribute the event to one “bad apple” in the Israeli army, a single misguided decision, or a unique historical circumstance. For all these reasons, I felt that this accident would allow me to tell the entire story of Israel-Palestine, provide a systemic critique, and also tell a story that is moving and makes readers care about the people living within this system.

L.V. : Your book was released just four days before October 7. Would anything have changed if you had to write it now?

N.T. : For me, it wouldn’t. This book describes a system of domination that existed before October 7th, that exists today during this war on Gaza, and that will continue to exist after this war is over. In fact, what we’re witnessing now is Israel reasserting this system of direct control within Gaza, rather than just controlling it from the outside, as it had done since 2005. Now there is the potential for a long-term Israeli presence within Gaza and possibly even the reestablishment of Israeli settlements there. So, while the events of October 7th and the subsequent bloodshed over the last 10 months are extreme, they don’t alter the fundamental nature of Israel’s system of domination. 

It’s worth noting that there are a great many parallels between Gaza and the community that is at the center of my book, Anata and Shuafat Camp, where the children and parents and teachers from the bus accident reside. Both are densely populated Palestinian areas surrounded by Israeli walls, much as Gaza is enclosed by fences and walls. Both areas are home to large numbers of stateless Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war. Both suffer from extreme poverty and neglect. Both are controlled to a great degree by Israel from the outside, rather than from within. Both have been sites of mass protest at their fences and walls, and both have been subjected to assaults by Israeli security forces. In both cases, Israel’s treatment of them derives from an overall strategy of “maximum territory, minimum Arabs.” The idea for Israel is to settle lands that are more sparsely populated, and wall off the densely populated areas like Gaza and Anata and Shuafat Camp. 

L.V. : Did the circumstances in which the book was published impact the response it received in any way?

N.T. : It did, because the atmosphere in the entire Western world shifted immediately after October 7th. About a quarter of the events I had scheduled in North America and the UK were canceled. Radio ads for the book were pulled from national radio in the United States. In the UK, the police shut down the largest event of the book tour, which I was doing alongside the book’s title character—Abed Salama. What’s notable is that the organizations canceling these events were not right-wing; they were organizations that considered themselves progressive and liberal. Yet even they felt they couldn’t proceed with these events after October 7th. This dramatically changed the environment around discussions of Israel-Palestine, making it much more difficult to tell the story of Palestinian life under occupation.

L.V. : But then the disproportionate military response caused the international discourse to swing in the opposite direction.

N.T. : I’d say that both dynamics exist simultaneously: there’s a clear shift to the right among the gatekeepers and older generation running leading institutions, while younger people, college students, and those who consider themselves liberal and progressive have notably moved to the left on Israel-Palestine. The picture is not straightforward; it’s quite complex. And how things stand now will likely differ from the situation a year after the Gaza war concludes. Historically, we’ve seen significant mobilization for Palestinian rights during a conflict, only for global attention to wane once the war ends, with the world returning to a state of tacit acceptance of the status quo that this book seeks to challenge and provoke outrage about.

L.V. : It actually seems that the government is leveraging the understanding that, once the immediate crisis subsides, international pressure will likely diminish, and the focus will shift away from the issue.

N.T. : I think that is a factor. The main reason that the Israeli government is able to continue on this path is that the international pressure we’ve seen so far has been quite weak. We’ve only witnessed the very beginnings of international pressure; in terms of concrete actions taken against Israel, there has been very little. Israel continues to receive vetoes on any critical resolutions in the UN Security Council and is still getting American arms, even more than usual, to support the conflict. While a few voices in Europe have shifted their stance rhetorically, there hasn’t been any serious challenge to the Israel-EU Association Agreement or other measures that truly matter to Israel.

L.V. : Returning to the book, you chose to retain the title of your 2021 article for The New York Review of Books, “A Day in the Life of Abed Salama,” even though the book has grown into a more expansive work. It delves deeper than a single day in Salama’s life, weaving together the stories of around 60 characters.

N.T. : There are a couple of reasons for this choice. First, I genuinely love the title, though it was a risk because I didn’t want people to assume the book is just an expanded version of the article. In reality, there’s only about one page of overlap between the article and the book. Second, the book delves much deeper into Abed Salama’s life than the article did, bringing the story to life through him and his immediate relatives. The article is actually 70% history and analysis. One of my many flaws as a writer is that whenever I’m writing on a given subject, I try to include every single piece of information I know about it, and I always need an editor to cut it down and keep me focused. The fact that I had already written this article, filled with history and analysis, including the history of Zionism and the settlement project, allowed me to focus tightly on the narrative in the book and make it much more like what I always wanted it to be: a non-fiction novel.

L.V. : In this regard, what I appreciate about your narrative style is how you almost entirely remove yourself from the page, allowing the characters’ lives to fill the space. Yet, despite the absence of your voice, your condemnation of the occupation and apartheid system comes across as strikingly clear. And moreover it is simply through your approach—empathically connecting with people, giving them a voice, and engaging with their painful stories—that the essence of your work is revealed. While the characters’ suffering may remain unhealed and their differences unbridged, it is their shared humanity that offers the possibility of building something together and navigating this otherwise intractable situation.

N.T. : For me, the book’s success or failure hinged on how real the characters felt—how three-dimensional they seemed. I wanted readers to be able to inhabit the mindset of all the characters, including the settlers and those involved in the construction of the wall. While I’m not sure if hope can be found in the mere humanity of the characters, I think there is inspiration to be found in Palestinian resilience. It’s incredible that communities have held together despite being subjected to decades of relentless oppression—policies of deliberate fragmentation, land theft, confinement, recruitment of collaborators, imprisonment on a massive scale, torture, and killing. My own sense of hope is very long-term. It lies in the gradual progress toward the goal of ending international complicity and holding Israel accountable for its actions. I believe we are still very far from achieving the pressure needed to change Israel’s system, but the shifts in public opinion, especially among young people, are a sign that we are moving in the right direction. I think that human stories like this one are crucial for fostering empathy and helping people understand the profound injustices faced by others.

L.V. : In 2017, you published an insightful analysis of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict titled The Only Language They Understand, in which you argue that the only language both sides understand is force. How do you explain this argument?

N.T. : That book examined every Israeli territorial withdrawal that had ever occurred and documented how each time Israel withdrew from territory, it did so under pressure—whether through violence, economic threats, or political pressure. In every case, it required significant coercion for Israel to make a withdrawal. Similarly, on the Palestinian side, while they had no territory to give up, they made ideological concessions from their initial goals, moving from the initial PLO demand for a unitary state in Palestine with equal rights for all to ultimately agreeing to a Palestinian state on just 22% of their homeland. This too came about through substantial pressure. This contrasts with what both sides claim: Israel asserts that they never capitulate, while Palestinians assert that they never compromise on their fundamental principles. In reality, both sides have significantly adjusted their positions through the application of force and pressure. This challenges the conventional wisdom that force is ineffective; in fact, force has played a crucial role in bringing about the changes we’ve seen. And to break out of this impasse more force, including external force, will be necessary.

L.V. : By that, do you mean real international pressure?

N.T. : Today, I believe the most effective approach would be to impose sanctions on Israel. This non-violent form of pressure could compel Israel to reassess its cost-benefit calculations. If Israel were to face international isolation, lose its backing from the United States, and experience a decline in economic cooperation with Europe—its primary trading partner—the lives of ordinary Israelis would deteriorate significantly. This could compel Israel to either grant Palestinians citizenship and equality or offer them a sovereign state on 22% of their homeland, as the Palestinian national movement has long demanded. But as long as Israel is not facing sanctions or threats to its trade with Europe, maintaining the status quo—the ongoing control of occupied territories and the refusal to grant Palestinians citizenship or sovereignty—is the least costly option for Israel. At present, it is only rational for Israel to continue the status quo. It is up to the rest of the world to help make it rational for Israel to choose another path. 

L.V. : The deep-seated concern among many Israelis is that Palestinian independence might turn the Palestinian state into an existential threat, potentially becoming a proxy for the Islamic Republic of Iran and that Palestinian leaders may not genuinely accept the existence of a Jewish state alongside theirs. Now, in such a polarising moment, could external pressure shift how one side perceives the other?

N.T. : For many years Israelis have said that the establishment of a truly sovereign Palestinian state is too great a security risk for them to take, and for this reason they cannot withdraw from the occupied Palestinian territory. The number of Israelis holding this view has increased significantly since October 7. It’s important to note that those fears are in many cases genuine but are also cynically exploited in order to take over more Palestinian land. The very fact that Israel is using the occupation to expand Jewish settlements and de facto annexation shows that Israel is also holding onto the territory for reasons that have nothing to do with security. I have lost count of how many Israeli generals have said that the settlements are not a boon to security but rather a burden on it. 

In Lebanon, Israel occupied the territory for more than a decade and a half. In Lebanon, too, Israel said that they could not withdraw because the people there hate them and will continue to fight them after they leave. In Lebanon, you had not just the prospect of an Iranian proxy taking control in the future but the actual existence of an Iranian proxy as the strongest power on the ground. And yet Israel left Lebanon in 2000 despite those very real security concerns. Why? Because the costs of staying outweighed the benefits. Because the resistance showed no signs of being defeated and was exerting too high a price in Israeli lives. Israel left Lebanon without a peace treaty, without a recognition of Israel’s legitimacy, without a pledge that the territory would not be ruled by an Iranian proxy. It left knowing that there would be future wars with Lebanon, but that this was still less costly than an endless occupation. And today, despite the fact that Hezbollah in Lebanon is stronger than ever, despite the fact that Israel has waged war in Lebanon since the withdrawal, despite the fact that Hezbollah poses a security threat to Israel, the majority of Israelis are glad that the country is no longer occupying Lebanon. 

Similarly, if the costs of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories were to increase significantly, Israel could make a rational decision to end the occupation because doing so was now less costly than the alternative. Even without guarantees of peace and harmony.  The point is that international pressure can change the cost-benefit calculus and make it rational for Israel to leave the occupied territories. This doesn’t mean international pressure will change how Israelis perceive Palestinians. But it doesn’t have to. 

It should be said, too, that, as many Israelis have themselves acknowledged, nothing would weaken Hamas and Islamic Jihad more than the establishment of a Palestinian state, as the PLO has demanded now for decades. In terms of popular legitimacy, the PLO is at the weakest point in its history and Hamas is at the strongest because the PLO strategy–of recognizing Israel, renouncing violence, pursuing endless negotiations as Israeli settlements expand, and making ever more concessions–has come up totally empty. Meanwhile Palestinian resistance pushed Israel out of Gaza in 2005, delivered one of the greatest blows to the country since its establishment, and has prompted the whole world to pay attention to the Palestinian issue and talk for the first time about taking serious steps to hold Israel accountable for its actions and pressure it to give Palestinians their freedom. 

L.V. : It seems that after October 7, the situation in the West Bank—particularly regarding settlements and settlement violence—has significantly deteriorated. How have the lives of the people you interviewed for the book been affected?

N.T. : They’ve been deeply affected, like everyone in the West Bank. Their lives have worsened significantly. Initially, the town where the characters in this book live, Anata—which is completely encircled by the walls, with only two exits: one through a checkpoint and the other via a single road—was closed off. Both exits were shut down by Israel, trapping 130,000 people inside. It took only four soldiers to do it: two at the checkpoint to the rest of Jerusalem and two to put a yellow gate to block the road that serves as the sole exit to the rest of the West Bank. That’s how little it takes to trap such a large population. The closure of his community led Abed to cut our book tour short and return home to be with his family. Although that particular closure has since been lifted, restrictions on movement throughout the West Bank remain as severe as ever. Travel times have increased dramatically, with journeys that once took half an hour now taking hours. More than 100,000 people have lost higher-paying jobs in Israel and the settlements. Every Palestinian extended family depends on these jobs, and their disappearance has had a devastating impact. In addition to the economic hardship, violence from settlers and the army has escalated dramatically. Since October 7, approximately 600 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank. In just the month and a half following October 7, over 1,200 Palestinians were forcibly displaced, with some entire communities being ethnically cleansed.Israel has also employed forms of violence in the West Bank that had previously been reserved for Gaza, such as the use of drones and missiles. As a result, life in the West Bank has become increasingly precarious.

L.V. : Your book, which has been sidelined in Israel until now, will soon be published in Hebrew following positive reviews in Haaretz, the Israeli left-wing newspaper. Given the international pressure and the consequences of the war over the past ten months, do you think the Israeli public is now more receptive to the issues your book addresses?

N.T. : No, absolutely not. I think that the Israeli public has moved quite far to the right, and they are largely closed off to criticisms coming from the world. In general they are doubling down on their sense of self-righteousness, believing that all criticism is unfair, invalid, and based on anti-Semitism. It will take more than just international criticism for the situation to change. If you look back at international newspaper articles and op-eds from 1982 criticizing Israel’s actions in Lebanon, you’ll see similar concerns about Israel becoming a pariah state, becoming isolated. However, it ultimately amounted to little more than words. As I mentioned before, the shift in calculation needs to be driven by self-interest—if the average Israeli voter starts to feel the consequences directly, such as needing a visa to travel to Europe, losing access to see the Israeli football team in the European League, being excluded from the Olympics, major international firms refusing to do business in Israel, or losing U.S. military support. These are the kinds of impacts that might make a difference. Currently, many Israelis are able to live their lives by ignoring Gaza and the situation in the West Bank completely, and the longevity of this more-than-half-century-long occupation depends on this ability to compartmentalize. When I go out into Israeli Jewish society in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, you wouldn’t know that there is a war happening just 45 minutes away. There’s no visible sense of it. So, no, I don’t think there’s a greater receptiveness to criticism today among Israelis. In fact, there seems to be even less willingness to hear it.

L.V. : How has your position as a critical journalist living in Jerusalem changed since the book was published?

N.T. : It hasn’t changed much, for a few reasons. One is that the book hasn’t been published in Hebrew yet, so its visibility within the Israeli public is still quite limited. For instance, before the recent review of the book, when the left-leaning newspaper Haaretz covered Pulitzer Prize winners and finalists related to anything in the Middle East, they didn’t mention the book at all, a book that was about Israel/Palestine. That may have been a mere oversight. But it fit into a broader tendency to compartmentalize, deny, and tune out criticism—a pattern that has persisted for decades. 

L.V. : And how Abed’s life has changed after the book came out?

N.T. : The most gratifying aspect of this entire experience has been seeing how deeply moved Abed has been by it. When the book won the Pulitzer, he was overjoyed, even more so than I was. He told me that he feels that the book honours his son—in his words, immortalises his son—and he is gratified that people around the world are speaking Milad’s name. This recognition brings him profound satisfaction, and to me, that is the most important thing.