“One Woman’s War is a searing and passionate clarion call
to our collective humanity.” ~ Rachel Holms
A few days after October 7th Dana Mills – an Israeli writer, peace and human rights advocate and activist who had worked on advocacy for Gazans living under siege, and with many communities in the West Bank – started to write her thoughts. She felt her life and the lives of all Israelis and all Palestinians changed forever when Hamas attacked Israel and killed over 1200 people, turtured others, abducted 253 into Gaza, vandelized everything that came on their way, and then when Israel started a harsh attack on Gaza.
Mills knew some of those killed, injured or taken hostage, many of whom were supporters of peace movements. Out of the internal and external chaos, while moving from one grieving family to another grieving family, she gathered strength and began to describe moments of heartbreak, grief, anxiety, shame, guilt, and also an internal and external struggle in order to find out and understand how one can endure in terrible times without losing hope.
Mills‘ words are different from anything written and spoken during the war days. She does not seek to explain, defend, settle the conflict or apologize but to communicate, speak, listen and have a conversation which is almost impossible under the conditions she is in. She directs her gaze at the harsh and cruel reality, and manages to bring some order to it despite the abyss that opens again and again. She focuses on other elements and consequences than those the world was exposed to in the media during the first three months since the October 7th attack began. It is one woman’s war to cope with a deep crisis in life.
March 2024 | 218 pp. | English | Rights Sold: English (UK)

“One Woman’s War is not only essential reading: it is a remedy for the soul. Turn off the media propaganda compounding confusion, hate and stereotypes and nourish your mind in the company of Dana Mills’ clear, authentic voice. Mills thinks as a political theorist and practical activist; and writes from the heart […] Courageous honesty, humour and defiance of the dehumanising intent of all wars breathe through every line of these urgent dispatches […] “One Woman’s War is a searing and passionate clarion call to our collective humanity.” ~ Rachel Holms, author, editor, the recipient of an Arts Council cultural leadership award as one of Britain’s Fifty Women to Watch.
“Passionate yet deeply reflective, this diary of a human rights worker in the wake of October 7th manages to both grip and illuminate. A necessary book.” ~ Lisa Appignanesi, writer, novelist, and campaigner for free expression. Until 2021, she was the Chair of the Royal Society of Literature, and is a former President of English PEN and Chair of the Freud Museum London.
“Presenting One Woman’s War in the language of peace, you will find in these pages lucidity, rigour, commitment, criticality, and you will also find love, compassion, hope and humanity.” ~ Devorah Baum, writer (her last book On Marriage, 2023), Critic, Filmaker.

Dana Mills is a writer, dancer, and peace and human rights advocate. She Holds her PhD from the University of Oxford. As an academic, she has held posts, among other institutions, in the University of Oxford, NYU, Northwestern University, American Dance Festival, Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance, University of Amsterdam and the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College. Since 2021 she has been working in Israeli–Palestinian civil society on a variety of issues, among them a director of the largest organization for peace in Israel Peace Now. Mills has published many articles and three books: Dance and Politics: Moving beyond Boundaries (MUP, 2016); the biography Rosa Luxemburg (Reaktion, 2020) and Dance and Activism: A Century of Radical Dance Across the World (Bloomsbury, 2021).