Mahmoud Shuqair: The artistic and literary productions written by the martyrs, both male and female, will remain the best testimony against aggression, baseness and ugliness.
Dr. Talal Abu Afifa: The escalating Israeli crimes deliberately target those who carry the Palestinian narrative to the world and everything that represents life
Ibrahim Jawhar: The assassination of Ghassan Kanafani more than fifty years ago was the beginning of a series of cultural assassinations against the Palestinians
Dr. Manal Qadri: The occupation deliberately decided to kill the artist and obliterate his voice and art because it is the effective means to kill him morally and dwarf him in front of the world
Osama Nazzal: The crimes of genocide claimed the lives of 21 artists and creators and more than 50 beacons of the arts, including theaters, institutes, ceremonies, and galleries.
The war of extermination waged by the occupying state in the Gaza Strip for the thirteenth consecutive month has spared neither young nor old, neither woman nor man, neither institution nor street. However, what was striking was the unprecedented targeting of journalists, writers, authors, artists and university professors, the vast majority of whom were targeted along with their families.
It is clear that this targeting was deliberate and intentional, due to the danger that these people represent to the Israeli colonial project on the front of the narrative and the transmission of facts to the world, and documenting them in writing, literature, or art, and thus dealing with them as a front parallel to the fighting front in the field, and perhaps more important, so the number of creative writers, artists, and journalists who were martyred was horrific and unprecedented in the history of conflicts.
But what calls for questioning and astonishment are the international reactions, and those of specialized institutions and organizations, to this type of crime against people who have nothing to do with fighting and armed action, the pretext by which the occupying state justifies its brutal war in the Strip, from which academic institutions, including universities, institutes and schools, in addition to cultural institutions, were not spared.
"We are Burning" is the latest work of the visual artist Mahasen Al-Khatib
The Jerusalemite short story writer and novelist Mahmoud Shuqair said: “As I follow with sadness and sorrow the murders and bloody massacres that are being committed every day against our people in the Gaza Strip, I remembered the poet Mahmoud Darwish’s description of the Sabra and Shatila massacre when he said in his poem: ‘Sabra is the identity of our era until eternity.’”
He wondered: If Mahmoud Darwish were still alive, what poetry would he have written about the horrific massacres that occur every day there?
Shaqir pointed out that the last of these massacres occurred on 10/18/2024 in Jabalia camp, and among its victims was the Palestinian artist Mahasen Al-Khatib, who published her last work before her martyrdom, a drawing entitled “We are Burning,” and it was seen by nearly five million people in the world.
Shaqir confirmed that the young Mahasen Al-Khatib, 31 years old, had announced that she was ready to organize a free drawing course, to remain a charity on behalf of her soul if she died.
He explained that “the martyrdom of Mahasen is not the first and not the last. Before her, a long caravan of female and male martyrs passed; I remember the poet Salim Al-Nafar who was martyred a few months ago in the current war of extermination, and before him the poet and novelist Hiba Abu Nada, author of the novel “Oxygen is Not for the Dead”, was martyred. If we delve deeper into the past, we remember the martyr leader Majed Abu Sharar, author of the short story book “Bitter Bread”, who was assassinated by Mossad in 1980. Before him, the martyr poet Kamal Nasser was assassinated in 1973, and before him, the martyr short story writer and visual artist Ghassan Kanafani was assassinated, and before him, the poet Abdul Rahim Mahmoud was martyred while defending the homeland, in addition to a long list of Palestinian and Lebanese journalists.”
How do the occupiers justify killing creative people?
Shaqir continued his speech: “In order to understand how the Israeli occupiers justify to themselves the killing of creative men and women from among the Palestinian people, it is enough to remember the statement of their Minister of Defense, Galant, who described the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip as “human animals,” to justify the killing and genocide. How, in this case, and how, with their logic like this, can they spare the blood of male and female artists, writers, journalists, and journalists who defend their people with the brush and the pen, the camera, and the press and television reports, and expose the crimes of the occupying army against a people who have been suffering from the Zionist invasion for more than a hundred years?!”
He added, "They, that is, this elite group of martyrs, both male and female, who took it upon themselves to expose the claims of the Zionist occupiers who practice lying to cover up their crimes by saying that they are defending themselves, and they are the ones who occupied the land and practiced genocide against dozens of Palestinian villages in Deir Yassin, Al-Dawayima, Al-Tantura, Abu Shusha and others during the 1948 catastrophe."
Shaqir concluded by saying: “In light of the official Arab failure and the collusion of some countries, led by the United States of America, with the aggressors, the artistic, literary and journalistic productions written by the martyrs, both male and female, will remain, along with all the Palestinian cultural productions committed to loyalty to the homeland and to exposing the crimes of the Zionist movement against our people, the best testimony against the aggression and against the baseness, ugliness and hideousness that will remove the Israeli occupiers from the circle of normal human beings and will accompany them as a result of their evils forever.”
Destroying everything that represents life
In turn, Dr. Talal Abu Afifa, a member of the General Secretariat of the General Union of Palestinian Writers and Authors, said: The Israeli army, under the direction of the political leadership headed by Netanyahu and his government ministers Ben Gvir and Smotrich, aims through its war on the Gaza Strip to eliminate the Palestinian person, whether he is a fighter or a civilian, and to destroy everything that represents life, from people to stones and trees.
Abu Afifa pointed out that the Israeli attacks deliberately target Palestinian intellectuals, including writers, authors, artists and university professors, who are the ones who carry the Palestinian narrative to the world, as many countries have begun to sympathize with the Palestinian people and denounce the escalating Israeli crimes.
He explained that "the last victim of this targeting was the Palestinian artist Mahasen Al-Khatib, who was assassinated by the Israeli army. She was contributing with her drawings to spreading the Palestinian narrative through her drawings and raising awareness in the world about the reality of the suffering of her people, which gained her wide popularity on the international scene."
He pointed out that Israel seeks to empty the Palestinian land of its original owners in order to expand settlement projects, in order to achieve its goals of establishing the "Kingdom of Israel" that extends from the Nile to the Euphrates. These are plans that have been entrenched since 1948 with the support of Britain and America and the complicity of some Arab parties.
Abu Afifa expressed his regret over the Arab and Islamic position, which is still "in a deep sleep," referring to the famous saying: "I was eaten the day the white bull was eaten," in reference to the necessity of taking a unified position before it is too late.
Assassination of the word and the pen
For his part, the Jerusalemite writer Ibrahim Jawhar described the targeting of Palestinian artists and creators as “the assassination of the word and the pen,” considering that this killing represents the assassination of life itself and a practical application of the saying of the Nazi Propaganda Minister Goebbels: “As soon as I hear the word culture, I reach for my gun.”
Jawhar said, "The word fights, as does the pen, so the enemies of life and freedom assassinate it." He added, "The enemies fear the awareness that plants resistance to darkness, so you see them encouraging contentment with the philosophy of the brute animal that lives to eat, not eats to live."
Jawhar pointed out that the Palestinians have experienced throughout their history the assassination of men of science, culture and creativity, whose artistic production the enemies see as equivalent to a battalion of fighters.
He stated that "the assassination of Ghassan Kanafani, accompanied by his niece, more than fifty years ago, was the beginning of a series of cultural assassinations against the Palestinians, followed by the assassination of the creatives Majed Abu Sharar, Izz al-Din al-Qalaq, Kamal Nasser, Kamal Adwan, Naji al-Ali, and other Palestinian and Arab intellectuals who resisted with words and pens."
Jawhar highlighted the martyred Palestinian poet Abdul Rahim Mahmoud from Anabta, whose words were embodied in reality by his martyrdom in the Battle of Al-Shajara, saying: “Abdul Rahim Mahmoud lived through his poetry and words in which he said: I will carry my soul in my palm and throw it into the abyss of destruction, either a life that pleases a friend or a death that angers an enemy.”
The Jerusalemite writer Jawhar stressed that the painting, the anthem, and the word are symbols of resistance that disturb the peace of the greedy, and always remind them of the existence of a resistant people. He believes that targeting creative people is nothing but a miserable attempt to pave the way for the occupation’s death machine.
Eliminate artistic and cultural tools
For her part, Dr. Manal Qadri, Professor of Sociology at the University of Tunis, confirmed that Israel’s targeting of Palestinian artists, poets and cartoonists reflects the occupation’s desire to eliminate artistic and cultural tools that carry messages of resistance and documentation of the collective Palestinian memory.
Qadri said: “Times of war usually coincide with major developments in art, as the artist becomes more free to record his personal vision away from what the authorities impose, whether religious, security or political. It is known that paintings do not, have not and will not stop the missiles from falling, and music will not alleviate the suffering of the people of the land and will not stop their displacement and killing in the most horrific ways, ways that are displayed to everyone. Despite that, culture remains a great force that preserves the collective memory despite its darkness since the Al-Aqsa flood.”
Qadri explained that “artworks are the result of an artist’s artistic expression. They are works of art in and of themselves, and do not carry their own agenda. Then the artwork becomes valuable in a world that goes beyond direct communication and endorsement. Instead of directly depicting battles and their tragedies, it seems as if the colors themselves are fighting in the war and imposing themselves by engaging in the battle, even implicitly, in which there is a profound portrayal of the image of the enemy and the image of the victim.”
Qadri believes that “the artist, the poet, and the cartoonist all contributed to the resistance according to forms and mechanisms of resistance that they saw as a means to repel the occupation. Some works of art hurt the Israeli occupation to the point that their social media pages were closed, and others were persecuted, and some artists were even killed in a way that they saw as the demise of their work, but it is impossible. The occupation does not know that everything that the artist publishes there on that pure land with the blood of its martyrs is simultaneous with its spread throughout the world. The power of social media is to preserve greatly and deeply that collective memory that the Gazan aspires to protect and preserve generation after generation.”
The occupation killed and destroyed everyone and does not care about human rights
She pointed out that the Israeli occupation killed everyone, destroyed everyone, and does not care about human rights or international treaties. It is the one that decided to kill the artist and obliterate his voice, art, and content, because it is the effective means that kills him morally and dwarfs him in front of the world.
Qadri explained that “the occupation was and still is using all its tools to kill, and therefore the artist - as part of the people - has no choice but to use his energy to support the war and avenge the martyrs, by drawing trampling, stabbing, stones, and everything that rejects the occupation and ends it.”
Qadri stressed that “the Israeli machine kills children, women and the elderly, and destroys and ends the lives of the owners of the land, its creators, thinkers, artists, musicians and dreamers of a better tomorrow on a land where they saw their honor and the honor of an entire nation. They resisted with their words, paintings, melodies and their fingerprint on a land under siege for more than a year. They colored the gray world with paintings that reflect the picture to us in all its aspects.”
Qadri concluded by saying: “But the occupation is weak in the face of seeing itself breathe its last breaths in the ugliest caricatures before a generation and generations that will continue to denounce it and its crimes for the rest of their lives, as a result of artistic works that are preserved in memory as well as history. They have the machine to kill, and the artist has a continuous artistic history with his existence or after his demise.”
Palestinian art under the occupation's fire
In turn, cartoonist Osama Nazzal said, “When the occupation began its genocide against our Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip after October 7, it targeted all segments of civil society without discrimination. Here, Palestinian society began to confront this attack, including Palestinian artists, creators and intellectuals. Cartoonists, artists and intellectuals began to cover and document the crimes of the invaders, and visual artists began to draw the tragic state that people had reached, each from his position and cultural and artistic status.” He added, “This contributed to supporting the Palestinian narrative so that it could reach the world, despite the occupation’s attempt to repel the Palestinian narrative with a false Israeli narrative.”
Nazzal stressed that the Palestinian artist contributed to leaving his mark on the global cultural scene, which used Palestinian artworks, sayings and national symbols as a protest material and a visual image that expresses the human genocide against the Palestinian people in all protest movements around the world.
He explained that the artist was indeed able to assume a high degree of responsibility in preserving his national identity and his humanitarian message to confront any attempt to distort the stereotypical image of the Palestinian, and this is what disturbed and bothered the occupation because culture and arts are considered soft resistance that is respected by the human mind.
Israeli barbaric message
Nazzal explained that “the Israeli response came with a barbaric message to complete the series of persecution of Palestinian artists, creators and intellectuals, either by arrest or direct assassination by physical liquidation. This is the language of the occupier, as it did to Naji al-Ali and Ghassan Kanafani, until the turn came to Palestinian artists in the heart of the Gaza Strip, such as the martyred artist Hiba Zaqout, who was killed with her children, and the artist Mahasen al-Khatib, who was assassinated a few days ago after the number of her followers reached more than 4 million viewers, and the artist Maher Obeid, who was assassinated by the Israeli forces in northern Gaza, knowing that he was the calligrapher and painter of the walls of the city and the camp. All of this comes as a role for the occupier to muzzle artists and intellectuals and terrorize others from continuing on this path.”
The artist Nazzal pointed out that this genocide claimed the lives of 21 artists and creators and more than 50 beacons of art, including theaters, institutes, studios, galleries, and the destruction of murals, monuments, and sculptures, in addition to the loss of artists in the Gaza Strip of their works and paintings that were left in their personal studios to return after the war, but everything went to waste.
