Young Palestinian artists from Gaza organized an impromptu exhibition on Tuesday, seeking another way to show the world what happened during the war and the fragile ceasefire. The series of paintings, depicting much of life in the Gaza Strip, was displayed outdoors, at the mercy of the weather and curious onlookers. The artworks included a dove, a gunshot impact, the silhouette of a person, in a territory where the war between Israel and Hamas has claimed over 70,000 lives.
The sunny day in Bureij, central Gaza, saw children playing and admirers taking photos and reflecting on the meaning of the paintings. “They painted their feelings, ambitions, hopes, and visions as part of a continuous four-month exercise in my workshop,” said Ghanem Al-Din, who organized the exhibition of dozens of paintings.
One of the artists, Obay Al-Qarshali, 21, shared how he fled his home in Gaza City at the start of the war, leaving behind over 30 of his paintings. His exhibited canvas depicted shattered glass, cars stacked with mattresses and personal belongings, and the rubble of buildings, all too familiar to him and the hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians.
Al-Qarshali explained that he had to change locations at least seven times during the war, expressing the deep unease caused by the constant displacement and suffering they endured. The uncertainty remains regarding the next steps in the Gaza ceasefire. Disarming Hamas poses a major challenge before the transition to a new governance, stabilization, and territory reconstruction can truly start.
Reconstruction is estimated to cost over $70 billion and take a decade, as stated in a recent report by the United Nations and the European Union. The report highlighted that Gaza’s economy contracted by 84%, with over 371,000 homes destroyed, and more than half of Gaza’s hospitals are “out of service.” Almost all schools in the territory of over 2 million people are either destroyed or damaged.
Despite the decrease in large-scale fighting since the ceasefire, Israeli forces have continued nearly daily strikes around army-controlled zones, resulting in over 800 Palestinian deaths, as reported by the Gaza Health Ministry. An Israeli airstrike on Tuesday killed four men in a car in Gaza, away from the “perimeter line” separating Israeli-controlled areas from the rest of Gaza.
The Israeli army stated it targeted a “terrorist” at the location but did not provide further details. The bodies were wrapped in white fabric and placed outside on the ground for the crowd to pay their respects.
