During the 2021 war, we were covering the events in Gaza,
documenting the destruction, the pain, and the resilience of a
people facing an unrelenting war machine. One day, I heard
about a massive missile that had struck a family’s home but
hadn’t exploded. The scene itself was a tragic narrative: a
deadly weapon lying in the heart of a neighborhood,
surrounded by children and families struggling to survive.
I decided to visit the site, despite the constant danger
surrounding us. Standing before that missile, created to destroy,
I felt an urgent need to transform it into something with a
different message. Armed with simple tools, I began inscribing a
line from a poem by Samih Al-Qasim on its surface:
“The child and the elder die among us,
but we do not surrender.
The mother falls over her bereaved children,
but she does not yield.”
These words encapsulated the story of an entire people.
Through this work, I wanted to show that we are not merely
victims; we are a people who love life, who turn the tools of
death into symbols of resilience and defiance.
This piece was a response to the relentless attempts to kill and
destroy. The missile, designed to spread death and devastation,
became a testament to the Palestinian ability to transform pain
into art, and tragedy into a message for the world. Through this
work, I aimed to say: we do not seek war, but we possess a spirit
that resists because we believe life is worth living, even in the
harshest of circumstances.
