Translated Content:
Have you heard of a displacement tent in America? Frayed fabric swept away by the sea at times and by storm winds at other times... tattered mattresses that offer no protection from the sun or the freezing cold... scattered household items, as they say, "A song from every country"!? In this displacement tent, too, there is no privacy, and the wailing of children and the moans of bereaved women are intense! Yet, the sound is constant... the whizzing of bullets and the roaring of the sea mingle with the sounds of exhausting daily life!
The displacement tent in the heart of America was exactly like the displacement tents in Gaza. It was set up remotely by journalist Ismail Abu Hatab, organized by the "By Palestine" Foundation, and embodies the pain of the displaced, injured, missing, and homeless. He wanted people to feel the hell of the tent in Gaza. Anyone who sets foot in this tent imagines the experience of humiliation, displacement, and oppression. He did not want the pain of Gaza to be buried in a forgotten memory.
Inside this tent, photographer and filmmaker Abu Hatab held an exhibition of his photographs, taken since the beginning of the war, of displaced people who were forcibly displaced from their homes. The colors and elements of the exhibition reflect the fragility of daily life, reduced to queues of misery!
"Between the Sky and the Sea" was the name of the exhibition held by Abu Hatab despite the closed crossings. His photographs featured children playing in the rubble of homes, as well as mothers who endured indescribable hardship trying to provide food for their children amid the famine. He also documented the weary faces of people as they moved from one place to another to find a safe haven! With this title, he intended to convey a message: "In Gaza, the beach has transformed from a space of hope into a vast prison open to the sky!"
Ismail was injured in an Israeli bombardment in the second month of the war of extermination, but he never closed his camera lens. It bled with his wound, fleeing with him wherever he went. He once said, "I was not just a silent witness behind the camera. I was a displaced person searching for shelter, injured, dragging my feet, missing my home and loved ones, and surrounded by the danger that looms over every passerby in front of my lens. As I photographed the oppressed, I was searching for my lost voice in their faces and for my own survival through their stories. Every picture I took was not just about them, but about all of us... about Gaza, which is not limited to death, but is told as a continuous life despite everything."
Ismail believed that his photographs, which depict the toil of people in displacement, conveyed a message to all those wandering through his exhibition: displacement in Palestine is not a movement from one place to another, but rather a stripping of all basic rights, such as safety, privacy, and comfort!
While Gazan artist Amna Al-Salmi saw the "Between Sky and Sea" exhibition as a testimony of Ismail's steadfastness before the silent world, from the heart of Gaza to Los Angeles, she also considered it a Palestinian attempt to document pain and dignity together.
"The pictures crossed seas, defeated borders, and told the truth!" Al-Salmi addressed herself with these words after deciding to also deliver her paintings beyond the borders of besieged Gaza.
In the Al-Baqaa cafeteria, where Ismail sat, connecting to an internet connection to share his photos with the world, Al-Salmi went to meet him, carrying in her heart a new dream that was nearing completion. They wanted to put the final touches on their joint project: launching an online store to market her Gaza-inspired paintings to the world. Amna was holding her latest painting, a girl with her eyes closed, her face covered in blood, saddened by the humiliation of war!
At the opposite table sat young Safaa Abdel Hadi, asking her sisters to be quiet and contemplate the sea and the cups of coffee they had just received after a long absence. They didn't respond to her request, as their hearts were filled with thoughts of the war and their separation, each in a different displacement camp. Safaa, however, insisted that they ignore the pain and focus their minds on the coffee they had been deprived of for months.
She addressed them, "We came to forget the days of misery. The bouquet is always for the hallway." Her sisters began recounting memories from before the Holocaust that ignited in Gaza and has not been extinguished for nearly two years. The "bouquet rest stop" on Gaza's beach was a respite from the fatigue of the days, where hearts could rest on a shore of comfort... before it became a place where people could charge their phones and escape the harshness of war for a moment of calm!
In the corner opposite them, overlooking the beach, Ola and her fiancé, Naseem Sobha, sat planning their long-awaited wedding day, sipping their last two cups of coffee before the wedding. They decided to make the wedding date a new calendar for a joyful start, despite the loss that had struck Ola's heart. Her mother and sisters were martyred, while she survived. The brutal occupier turned the happy dates of their lives into harsh memories due to the war on Gaza.
The rest house was filled with young men and women who hadn't surrendered to the circumstances of war and Gaza's isolation from the world. They had turned it into a place to work remotely. While everyone was immersed in a moment of tranquility, trying to ignore the sounds of boats and warplanes, and the whizzing of missiles that had not ceased yesterday in Gaza, the sound of missiles shook the "Baqa Rest House" in a barbaric attack. The occupier killed more than forty people and injured dozens of others who had just tried to breathe on the beach to stay alive!
The scene had changed and its circumstances had been reversed! Chairs were overturned, their occupants drowned in their blood. Dust and ash filled every joyful detail reflected by the sea on the beach. The scene became heartbreaking for a bride planning her joyful wedding when she saw her groom covered in his blood, the groom now a martyr. As for her, she suffered a serious injury to her foot.
As for Ismail, who was conveying the image to the world, he became a part of her when he was martyred in that massacre, his dreams of being the voice of Gaza shattered! "Safaa," who stole the sea's quiet moments despite its furious roar, was also martyred, while her five sisters were seriously injured!
While everyone was treating and transporting the wounded to the hospital, shocked by the large hole in the ground of the Al-Baqa rest house, the last painting of the artist "Amana Al-Salmi" was next to her, as if it were a prophecy in a time of pain for the end of a girl from Gaza.. just as she had ascended.. a martyr with closed eyes, a sad face covered in blood, and in her hand a cup of coffee that was like a final farewell!