Tag: Art

‘I am here, I resist’: ISM catches up with Nisreen Azzeh, who uses her artwork to resist against the brutal Israeli occupation of her homeland

4th June 2018 | International Solidarity Movement, Al-Khalil Team | Hebron, occupied Palestine

Nisreen in her garden, Tel Rumeida, Hebron

Nisreen Azzeh’s house sits high up on a hill in the Tel Rumeida area of the occupied city of Hebron (al-Khalil is the Arabic name of the city) in the south of the West Bank. The way to her house is difficult to find as the Israeli army blocked the main walkway after the death of her husband, a dear friend of ISM, in 2015. We climb the hill from Shuhada Street, emptied of normal Palestinian life a long time ago by the occupation, then find the way up an alley, then a short scramble up some rocks, through an olive grove, and find the door to Nisreen’s beautiful house. She is an artist, using oil pastels to express her feelings about the occupation of Palestine and the violence that she sees around her. Some of her images are sad and some are celebratory, showing images of women clinging to their olive trees in front of Israeli tanks, protesting the occupation. Directly behind her house up the hill is the Tel Rumeida Israeli settlement, casting a long shadow over Nisreen and her family. Since the army closed the normal route to her house from the road, this uneasy path is the only way for Nisreen and her children to move to and from the house. We settle in at Nisreen’s and admire her artworks decorating the walls and table as she tells us her story.

‘Old City of Hebron’, oil pastel on paper

Nisreen was born to Palestinian refugees from the 1948 nakba, or catastrophe, when Zionist militias forced 700,000 from their homes in historical Palestine in the brutal creation of the state of Israel. She met her husband Hashem in Jordan while she was studying art, and together they moved back to his home in Tel Rumeida, Hebron. Like other Palestinians living in occupied Hebron, she lives under several complex layers of the brutal occupation. Hebron is the only place in Palestine where Israeli settlers live within a Palestinian city, and since 1997 has been divided into two parts: H1, under Palestinian control, and H2, under Israeli control. The 35,000 Palestinians living in the H2 area are subject to intense scrutiny and controls by the occupying Israeli forces, ostensibly there to protect the 500 or so Israeli settlers living in H2. Nisreen and her family, along with the other Palestinians in the H2 area of Hebron, experience the sharp end of the Israeli occupation, having to witness soldiers, checkpoints, border police and settler violence directed against them in a daily litany of militaristic abuse, alongside the more mundane humiliations of occupation: being stopped and searched, having a numbered ID card or not being allowed to open shops. Have a look at this short video to give you some idea of life for Palestinians living under Israeli rule in H2.

The view overlooking the city from Nisreen’s leafy garden

Nisreen has always produced art, but started to focus on her artwork more seriously during the second intifada after 2000. At that time, her neighbourhood became a closed military zone, and it was difficult for people to go to their jobs. She tells us it was a challenging time. With movement around the city so restricted, they had to spend a lot of time at home, always witnessing the violence of soldiers and settlers, with few distractions. During this time art became an escape for Nisreen, to channel her emotions into something productive, and a way of resisting. After encouragement by visitors to her home who saw her artworks, she began producing images for international buyers, and now sells her work all across the world for those looking to support a voice of resistance in Hebron.

Nisreen’s beautiful oil paintings fill her house

Perhaps the deepest cut of the occupation for Nisreen is the death of her husband Hashem in 2015. Hashem gave tours for international visitors to show them the difficulties caused by the occupation in Hebron, and was known and disliked by Israeli settlers and forces. Read more about his life and work here. He was suffering with an ongoing heart problem, and one day was badly affected by tear gas thrown by Israeli soldiers against protesters whilst he was taking a group of international visitors around the city. He returned home having trouble breathing and fell unconscious on the sofa. Israeli soldiers do not let ambulances get through to Tel Rumeida from the Palestinian controlled H1 area, and so his friends carried Hashem to the checkpoint on Shuhada Street to take him to the hospital. The Israeli soldiers at the checkpoint would not let them through for 10 minutes while Hashem was still unconscious. By the time he reached the hospital in the H1 area of the city he could not be resuscitated. Nisreen could not host his wake at her and Hashem’s house because relatives living in H1 would not be allowed across Israeli checkpoints to attend. When Nisreen returned to her house after the wake, Baruch Marzel, an extremist settler and member of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party who lives in the Tel Rumeida settlement, stood outside clapping, calling out ‘where’s Hashem?’ Two soldiers stood nearby pointing their guns towards her.

‘Woman at work using a traditional Palestinian bean crushing machine’, oil pastel and glitter on paper

Nisreen remains in her house with her four children. Selling her artwork is one of the only ways she has to support her family after the death of Hashem. She knows that the settlers nearby want to take the house and her land for themselves, which is why they direct a tirade of abuse and violence against her and her family. She is worried for her children seeing soldiers every day and witnessing the behaviour of the settlers. During heightened tensions in 2015, the area of Tel Rumeida became a closed military zone for nine months, stopping all outsiders, including journalists and human rights activists, from coming to the area. She overheard a settler telling a soldier in the street near the house “I need to see Palestinians’ blood in the street.” Frequently the settlers scrawl “kill the Arabs” on the walls of Palestinian houses in Tel Rumeida. Nisreen also lives with the memory of violent settler attacks against herself during the second intifada. On two occasions, women from the settlement came to her land, threw stones and shouted ‘go and die in your home’. After both attacks, Nisreen miscarried, once at three months and once at four months. The incidents didn’t lead to any prosecutions, which is not overly suprising as impunity for settlers’ violence is the norm in occupied Palestine: see here and here.

Nisreen with one of her popular designs, ‘I Need Freedom for Palestine’

Despite the settlers’ attempts to intimidate Palestinians like Nisreen, she refuses to give up her land to them. The soldiers come and invade the house a few times each year, checking the house, taking measurements and messing everything up in a deliberate provocation. She knows they are sizing the house up to support a settler invasion. They haven’t come yet in 2018 but she is prepared to be steadfast when they do. She tells us, “I will not leave my house, I am not leaving here. I resist here. I called to Baruch Marzel [when he taunted her after Hashem’s wake] ‘I live here. Hashem died but I live here.’ I am here, I resist.” Her artworks encapsulate Nisreen’s quiet and determined resistance to the racist bullying of the nearby settlers, supported by the full force of the occupying Israeli army. Some are sad, some are hopeful, all are beautiful, and importantly, they are her voice to the world from her struggle here in Hebron, Palestine. It is a voice that refuses to be silenced.

‘Drinks in the Old City’, oil pastel on canvas

To purchase Nisreen’s unique artworks and support her voice of resistance in occupied Palestine, please visit her website (mobile site under construction – please view on desktop).

‘Parrots in Palestine’, oil pastel on paper

Yes Theatre: Resisting occupation through theatre and socially engaged art practice

3rd April 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Hebron, occupied West Bank

The Yes Theatre in Al-Khalil works with dedication, for a brighter future for the Palestinians in the occupied West Bank through a diverse set of cultural activities. Roughly eight new productions every year reach an audience of over thirty thousand Palestinians, and on occasion also tour theatres of Germany, France and Tunisia. Additionally, the Yes Theatre continually searches for new ways to share and develop its decade-long artistic practice, by engaging in dialogue with its local community, sharing their stories, hosting workshops, providing youth education, and internships with a job-guarantee. Their projects include Yes 4 Future, Yes 4 Kids, workshops that support women speaking in front of an audience, along with several plays that include female actors – something which is not a standard feature in Palestinian theatre.

ISM had a chat with general manager Mohammad Issa, and some of the artists, after having watched the powerful performance “3 in 1”, written collectively by Ihab Zahdeh, Raed Shiokhi and Muhamed Titi. The different stories of the play were inspired by meetings with the local citizens of Hebron, and depicts the everyday challenges of what Raed Shiokhi (actor) describes as the circles of life for Palestinians.

This play seems to evolve a lot around the occupation, but you also tap into the occupation of your own limitations?

“We like to say all the time that we live inside circles. We have the circle of the family, and then the circle of society. Then the circle of our government and the circle of occupation at the end. So occupation includes everything. So you go smaller and smaller and start with the family. They teach you what to do, and what not to do. Then the society, what is right, what is shameful and what is not. Then the government and the people in power who essentially are in full control, the governor, the mayor, and the religious leaders, who on several occasions in the mosques have mentioned and criticised our work. They corrupt our children and prohibit our cultural development. If we were to listen to their advice, we would have stopped a long time ago. Again and again we come to a point where it appears impossible to continue, but we remind each other of the message we have. As artists we feel stuck in between two fires. The fire of continuing your work of curiosity as an artist, and the fire of society trying to push you back.”

Artists of Yes Theatre in performance
Artists of Yes Theatre in performance

The autobiographical struggle of the 3 artists in the play clearly resonates directly with the personal struggles of the audience, and the different scenarios and situations repeatedly spread overwhelming waves of laughter and uncontrollable giggles. Seeing a Palestinian smile or laugh is a surprisingly common sight, given the extremity of their situation, but this collective release of emotions seemed to connect the spectators in a deep and intimate manner. The Yes Theatre is profoundly interested in this shared space, in which cultural resistance occurs. General manager Mohammad Issa says that for them the resistance will not succeed through the use of physical force or politics, but through intellect, culture and the empowerment of women and the young generation. Sustainability and competence development are key words that go hand in hand as the Yes Theatre engages in social activities, and training programs that employs thirty graduates per year.

The Yes Theatre finds alternative ways of resisting the occupation, but you also protest against internal restraints of Palestine such as gender inequality, socio-hierarchical imbalances and even restraints of religion. Do you envision what future Palestine could look like, or is dialogue the main objective?

“I totally agree that we are resisting, in our own way. We can’t throw the Israelis out of Palestine. This is the reality. They have to live with us, we have to live with them. What the political formula will be, whether we are talking about two states or one state, this is something that could maybe be solved later on, or maybe this dilemma is something that lies in the hands of the young generation. This is part of our national struggle, but at Yes Theatre we don’t have a vision for that, we don’t wish to impose anything. What we get from the local community is the material, and this material is brought back to the community in a creative manner. And the discussions we have around the material, in its context, must also be circulated in the community. We look for input and feedback from different focus groups, even in more traditional productions like “Ali Baba” (currently in production at Yes Theatre). I have my own views on gender equality, but the locals might have its own ways, and we need to take that seriously. That doesn’t mean that we should not advocate, or raise awareness, but we need to reflect the status quo, in order to talk about it, and find the precise questions, which are not ours – they are the questions of the local community.”

IMG_2267
Still from the award winning performance “3 in 1”

The artistic efforts that Muhammad Issa describes offer a space for its Palestinian audience, in which everyday terrors can be processed without fear. What might be referred to as “cultural resistance” has an essential significance for the Hebronites, as the daily struggle of facing the occupation, passing checkpoints, being searched, questioned, tear gassed or even shot, continues and worsens. Only in the last 10 days 3 youngsters have been shot dead in Hebron, withheld from medical attention, one of which was brutally executed by a soldier of the Israeli Forces, as has been seen in a viral video recorded Thursday the 24th of March. It might seem near impossible to imagine how Palestinians could truly resist or even end the occupation. The situation that they face daily is not only humiliating and dehumanising, it’s paralysing. Searching for education and togetherness through cultural meetings, if nothing else, might offer an opportunity for unity and common understanding. The Yes Theatre raises a question: How do the people imagine Palestine would look when, or if, occupation somehow, someday ends?

An interview with Khaled Jarrar: Stamping Palestine into passports

by Alistair George

21 November 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

Khaled Jarrar is a Palestinian artist and photographer from Jenin, currently based in Ramallah.  In addition to photographing and documenting the Israeli occupation, he has designed a ‘State of Palestine’  postage and passport stamp.  This week in an interview with Alistair George of International Solidarity Movement, Jarrar  explains the idea behind his stamp, past and future plans, and the extent to which art influences political resistance.

ISM: What’s the idea behind the ‘State of Palestine’ passport stamp?

Jarrar: I had my idea three years ago.  I was with my international friends and they told me about the hard time they get at Ben Gurion airport [in Tel Aviv] when they want to visit Palestine, and especially if they tell the border police that they are going to the Palestinian territories.  So I was thinking – how come the Israelis decide who is welcome in our country?  We would like to welcome everybody!  So I said that I would make a ‘Green Card’ for my friends; a kind of ironic permit which says they can live and work inPalestine.  It sends the message that we have the right to say ‘you are welcome toPalestine’.  People came to a gallery in Ramallah where they filled in the ‘applications’ and got a ‘permanent resident card!  They took it as a souvenir.

Ten months ago I was trying to re-think and develop the project.  I worked on the design for [‘State of Palestine’] postage and passports stamps.  I was trying to make something beautiful, something that would fit with my ideas about humanity and not just an olive tree or a mosque – something more human than ideology or politics.  I found this bird – it’s called the Palestine Sunbird.  I heard a story that the Israelis tried to change the name of the bird to make it their national bird.  It’s a beautiful bird and I used a jasmine flower, because it is beautiful.  The Israelis actually used the bird on the design of an Israeli postage stamp in 1963, even though they wrote ‘Palestine Sunbird’ on it, which was quite ironic and paradoxical to me.

I made the design, and I was worried that it would be another project that would happen and then disappear.  I needed to give a life for this stamp, and I thought it should be in the official place for stamps – a passport.  Then I started to ask my friends if I could stamp their passports, but they said, “Are you crazy?’  I said, “But they only have stamps for Israel, why not for Palestine– you were in Palestine!”

The stereotype here is conflict, conflict, conflict and I want to show something beyond this, I want to show life.  I started to ask people, and I could not find anybody who dared do it – then I found a French girl. She was sitting in a bar, and she gave me her passport. It was the first stamp.  I started going and doing the performance [stamping passports] at Ramallah bus station and Qalandia checkpoint, and I found that people would like to do it but that I need to search for the right people.  I’ve now also got t-shirts, bags, mugs [with the design].

ISM: How many passports have you stamped and what has the reaction been?

Jarrar: I’ve stamped around 180 passports. I’ve taken the emails for nearly all the people whose passports I’ve stamped, and I keep in touch with them.  I did the performance in Ramallah several times, and for two days at Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin, and also twice in Paris– once at the Pompidou.  Many people like it and find it very beautiful.  But there are many people who are afraid.  But this is an art project.

OK it has a strong political statement about our resistance as a human beings, not only as Palestinians.  The Israelis don’t want to treat Palestinians as humans or as a nation.  We are not defined as a nation by the whole world, we are undefinable – it’s like we don’t exist or we are called ‘stateless.’

Slavoj Zizek [a Slovenian philosopher] got his passport stamped in Ramallah.  One guy came to him and said ‘Slavoj, don’t do it – it’s dangerous – the Israelis will arrest you!’ But he said ‘F— it, do it, do it!’ and so I stamped his passport.

 ISM: How have the Israeli authorities reacted to the stamp?

 Jarrar: Some people have been interrogated, but for many people the authorities didn’t even mention it.  There was one guy from South Africa [who got his passport stamped], his name is Eddie – he was the first one to leave with the stamp.  The Israeli border police saw the stamp and were shocked, they said, ‘This is the first time I’ve seen something like this.’  They stamped his exit visa, gave him back the passport and he left!  They didn’t interrogate him at all. 

 The second one, from Denmark, who left with the stamp – when the border police saw it, they called someone, who called another person, and five people looked at the stamp.  They didn’t say a word, just made a photocopy and then gave him the passport back and he left.

 I think at the beginning the Israelis weren’t sure if this was real or art, but of course there are some bad stories that happened for some people who were interrogated and stopped.  There was one girl from Holland who was stopped by the Israelis. They said ‘we are not used to seeing something like this, it is illegal.’  She said ‘no it’s not, it’s an art project, and from now on you will see many of these stamps!’  The officer interrogated her, asking ‘Why did you do this?’ and ‘Who did this for you?’  They kept her for one hour, they took her hard disk, they did a strip search and opened her luggage.

 I didn’t hear officially from somebody who has been denied entry because of the stamp.  But there are many stories.  There is one American girl who had the stamp – she wanted to apply for work permission in Jerusalem.  She had the invitation and all the paperwork.  The Israeli Ministry of the Interior looked at her passport and they said – ‘you can’t apply for permission for a visa in Israel because you have this stamp in this passport. Maybe you can just remove the paper.’ So she ripped it out of her American passport, she reapplied and she got permission for one year visa to work here!

 There was one girl who got the stamp, she was born in the United States and had an American passport.  In 2008 she applied for the Jewish ‘right to return.’   She got an Israeli passport within 2 years.  I stamped her American and Israeli passports [with the State of Palestine stamp].  She left but when she came back to Israel they asked her ‘What is this?’   She said ‘A Palestinian State stamp.’   When they said that ‘this does not exist,’ she said ‘the state of Palestine existed before the state of Israel.’ They interrogated her for an hour and they cancelled her Israeli passport.  She applied for a new passport and she said that she is waiting to see if she can get a new one.”

 ISM: Is the State of Palestine stamp referring to one state or is it an endorsement of the two state solution?

 Jarrar: It is for a one state solution.  It is a demonstration against occupation and against the partition of Palestine.  I am really against the two state solution.  We need to remove hate, partition and division because this is what our politicians and Israeli politicians want, so they can control us.  If we have one state, the people will rule the state.

ISM: So you don’t support the Palestinian Authority’s bid at the UN for Palestinian statehood?

Jarrar: I’m not with this.  The United Nations are the ones that partitioned Palestinein 1947 – why go to the one who is hitting you to ask for his mercy?

ISM: You’ve also designed postage stamps?

Jarrar: I have a gallery in Paris and my gallery asked the post office there to print these postage stamps and they refused.  We found a printers that likes to do political stuff and they printed them.  I exhibited them at an art fair in France.

 We used to sell this postage stamp with an actual price – 750 fils, which is the old Palestinian currency, around 75 cents.  So at this art fair there was a lot of expensive artworks there – like some that cost over 2 million Euros and my stamps cost 75 cents, so they compared them and made a lot of promotions for us so a lot of people came to buy the stamp – it was fantastic.

 I asked people to use them on actual letters, you can use them next to the official stamp and see what will happen.  I don’t know yet exactly what will happen, if they will reject it, if it will arrive or not – I’m waiting for people to tell me if they have arrived.

 Everything is controlled by the Israelis.  If you send a letter from England to me in Ramallah, maybe it will take 6 weeks.  My gallery [in France] sent me the postcards for the fair two months ago and I haven’t received them.  Maybe the Israelis didn’t let them pass and they threw them away.  I’ve been to Paris, been to the art fair, but the invitations didn’t arrive yet!

ISM: Can you talk about some of your other work as an artist?

 Jarrar: I am also a photographer – I staged an exhibition called ‘At the Checkpoint’.  I took photographs at the checkpoints in 2006 and in 2007, and I exhibited them at the Israeli checkpoint, where the Israeli soldiers themselves could see them.  Some were very angry, they didn’t know what to do.  It was provocative but at the same time it was very peaceful.  One soldier spotted himself in the picture and he was very happy to be in an exhibition!

 An officer came with four soldiers – he ordered them to remove the photos [from the fence at the checkpoint] and arrest the organizer.  But I had invited foreigners, Israelis, the press and this was protection for the exhibition.  One woman from Machsom Watch went to the officer and said, ‘Look, this is not a demonstration, this is just an exhibition.’   We told him we would leave in two hours so they left us alone and it was OK.  I did it twice, once at Huwara checkpoint and once at Qalandia.

 I am hoping to do a book about my projects with Simon [Faulker, an academic at Manchester Metropolitan University].

I also did an exhibition and project about people who are using sewage tunnels to sneak to the other side in Jerusalem [from the West Bank] to visit their families and for social, economic, and religious reasons.

I made a video about it called Journey 110, and I’m making a long documentary because I was observing the whole process of sneaking to Jerusalem for four years.  Now the tunnel is closed but when it was open I used to see 500-600 people use it in three hours.  But there’re not only tunnels, there are other ways [to reach Jerusalem].

 Journalists are there to document it and smugglers also try to play their games and make money.  Sometimes they pay money but they find on their journey that the tunnels are closed, or the walls are too high, or there are Israeli soldiers.  It’s really challenging – they are trying to live and survive and this wall will not stop anything.  So with this issue I’m really destroying the idea that this wall is for security reasons.  So many people manage to enter Jerusalem and none of them are suicide bombers, they are people looking for life.  It’s not just about Palestine and Israel, it’s also about really basic issues – the need for life.  It should be finished in April 2012, I have struggled to find the money.

 ISM: Have you any future plans for the ‘State of Palestine’ project?

 Jarrar: I have been invited to the Berlin Biennale and hopefully I will print some more postage stamps – I have a new version with Hebrew, as well as Arabic and English.  I was having a conversation with a girl fromNew York, she said ‘you know that there were Jews living in Palestine before the occupation and they were Palestinian?’ I said of course and this was a mistake [not to include Hebrew] so I’ve fixed this mistake.

 My work is being exhibited in London for a group show, starting on 23 November [‘Passport to Palestine at La Scatola gallery].  But I’m not going – they invited me really late and it is difficult to apply for a visa to theUK, you need a lot of time and I tried to apply twice before and I was refused because of the bureaucracy.  I will send a stamp and someone will be an ambassador for the ‘State of Palestine’ who will be stamping the passports.  There are other events [to stamp passports] in Copenhagen on 29 November.  In Brussels there is a magazine [A Prior magazine] event so I will be stamping passports and magazines there on the 25 November.

ISM: What impact has the project to stamp passports had?

Jarrar: I’m not sure exactly.  I’m trying to create a new reality and a new way of resisting occupation.  Maybe this will raise awareness for other artists in the world, showing them how they can use new ways of resistance for freedom and equality and humanity all over the world, not only in Palestine.

ISM: This reminds me of Juliano Mer-Khamis’s [former director of Jenin’s Freedom Theatre] idea of  a ‘Cultural Intifada’.  Do you see your work in this way and to what extent do you think art can influence political reality?

Jarrar: Yes I do.  I believe that art can create reality.  I don’t believe in this kind of art that tries to separate itself from politics and reality – they can’t be separated.  So politicians try to control our lives so we should be responsible [as artists] and fight and to express our feelings; not only to talk and make exhibitions in the gallery where just a few people can come and say ‘oh this is beautiful’ and after that you can throw it in the garbage.  So I think art should make a difference and we should use art to send our message loudly to shake and provoke the system and to say to the politicians ‘stop – where are you taking us?’.      

 Alistair George is a volunter with ISM (name has been changed).

Painting on the walls in Gaza

Asmaa

It is nothing new in Gaza seeing lots of words in great lines on any wall you pass it in Gaza. Some of them talk about the political situation, another is talking about the social events. Many of them are talking about whom left their families and died during the last war or previous Israeli military operations in Gaza, with their names and their painting faces.

It is the fast, cheap, easy way to express your opinion and to reach what you want the other Gazans to know freely. Even if it stays for a short time, because anyone else who will do the same on the same wall for another reason and subject, in the next week.

After 2006 many things changed in Gaza. The political situation affected many aspects of Gaza’s life. There is a government in West Bank and another one in Gaza. Most of the people in Gaza became don’t believe in these or those. Nothing is important except how they can get work and have enough money to cover their families needs.

Life became more difficult. You see the sadness and poorness all over Gaza. It is not just because the horrible war, but because of many reasons. The long and the unfair blockade from all sides (sea, air, and all the crossing points).

It is too hard sometimes to realize this strange ability for the Gazans to get over all that has happened to them and their families and continue the life with this fast. What happened in Gaza is hard to forget. And we still feel it In spite of our daily concerns.

But it seems that it inspires a lot of artists to get their feelings out in many ways in Gaza. If you walk in Gaza’s streets you will see every week a new painting wall by group of artists.

Many of them talked about the war. I was impressive of a long one made by 13 artists, girls and boys, all of them students in the Fine Art College in El Aqsa University. They made it on a particular type of white cloth because they couldn’t paint on the damaged wall opposite to the ruins of the Palestinian Legislative Council.

I asked one of the girls called Miysa, an art student at level 2 in the University, “What does this work mean to you?”

She said, “It means that even if they destroy our life in Gaza we will servive and stand up again to get all our rights back.“

I asked another artist who painted a big key and a complete map of all Palestine why she painted these and others that talk about the war.

She said, “I meant it to tell the world that dying in Gaza doesn’t mean we forgot our land and our rights to live freely in our home on our own land.”

Another of the artists is named Mohammed El Haj and he is an art teacher and a specialist in painting walls. I asked him why most of artists in Gaza go to use the walls to paint. He simply said, “It is the cheapest way during this long siege in Gaza. There are no good colors, no material that we use to draw like the cloth and brushes. And if we find them, they are very expensive because they enter Gaza by the tunnels.”

So I found the walls the cheapest and fastest way to expresses my thoughts and feelings and share them with all people around. I will not let the siege or war effect on what I live to do, so I continue to draw my life.

Many of the artists I met come from from different backgrounds and studied English, public policy, economics, engineering, and other fields.

When I asked Ismaiel El Hefni, an architect, why he painted on the wall and not on a smaller canvas to put on exhibition, he said: “Painting on the wall is different, I found it more interesting for me to put it on the wall instead of an exhibition, even if the painting will only stay on the wall for one day. I like to paint on a big space with all this movement around me. You can share it with all the people around. You can share with them what you believe. And if the painting was good and interesting for others it will stay on the wall for a long time. I’m happy to share with another artist from a different field. We exchange ideas and create new techniques to produce good art collectively.”

After the war a lot of local and international organizations supported artists to provide a fun and enjoyable way to deal with the trauma Gazans lived, especially the children. We saw some paintings made by hands and feet of children in beautiful colors.

We can see the beauty in Gaza, even if a large part of it has been destroyed. We will see life next to the rubble.