Gaza bookshop owner's dreams buried under the rubble

A Palestinian woman walks alongside children past the ruins of the Samir Mansour bookstore, a publishing house and bookshop which had the largest collection of English literature in Gaza, after it was destroyed by Israeli air strikes last month. Photo: AFP

For decades, it was the place to go for books in the blockaded Gaza Strip, from school texts to the Koran to Arabic translations of European literary classics.

But last month, owner Samir al-Mansour watched in disbelief as the bookshop and publishing house he had poured his life into went up in smoke.