Abu Toha built the Edward Said Public Library in the aftermath of the fifty-one-day bombardment of Gaza in 2014. During the bombardment, the poet Khaled Juma wrote perhaps one of the most powerful elegies for Palestinian survival:

Oh, rascal children of Gaza.
You who constantly disturbed me with your screams under my window,
You who filled every morning with rush and chaos,
You who broke my vase and stole the lonely flower on my balcony,
Come back –
And scream as you want,
And break all the vases,
Steal all the flowers.
Come back.
Just come back.