Exhibition

Gaza: Siege and Sumud

The record of the strip

One of the oldest cities on earth, under the most documented siege of the modern era — and the people who keep teaching, writing, and reporting through it.

9 stops · curated by FALASTEEN.AI

Gaza is usually shown to the world only in fire. This exhibition shows it in documents: the blockade’s legal architecture, the wars’ toll as recorded by UN and human-rights monitors, and the voices of the people who live there — journalists, poets, medics — whose work is the counter-siege.

Nothing here asks for your sentiment. It asks for your attention.

  1. 01Gaza CityGaza StripBegin with the city itself — four thousand years before the headlines.Gaza City is among the oldest cities on earth — Philistine stronghold, Mamluk and Ottoman provincial center, home of the Great Omari Mosque. Besieged since 2007, it has since October 2023 been subjected to destruction on a scale that has shattered its ancient fabric.
  2. 02The Gaza Blockade20072007: the closure begins. What 'blockade' means in law and in life.Israel and Egypt impose a sweeping land, air, and sea blockade on Gaza after Hamas takes control, restricting the movement of two million people and essential goods.
  3. 03Operation Cast Lead2008–20092008–2009: the first of the major operations, and the documented figures.Israel's twenty-two-day offensive on a blockaded Gaza kills some 1,400 Palestinians and thirteen Israelis, and triggers a UN investigation that finds evidence of war crimes on both sides.
  4. 04Operation Protective Edge: The 51-Day War on Gaza20142014: fifty-one days.The deadliest escalation yet in Gaza: more than 2,200 Palestinians and 73 people in Israel are killed over fifty-one days, and a UN commission of inquiry finds evidence of war crimes by both sides.
  5. 05The Great March of Return20182018: the unarmed march to the fence — and the UN Commission of Inquiry.Tens of thousands of Gazans join weekly protests at the boundary fence demanding the right of return; Israeli snipers kill more than 180 demonstrators.
  6. 06Wael al-Dahdouh1970–The bureau chief who kept reporting after losing his family on air.Al Jazeera's Gaza bureau chief, who kept reporting through the killing of his wife, son, daughter, and grandson in 2023 and became a global symbol of press freedom.
  7. 07Mosab Abu Toha1992–The librarian of the Edward Said Library, writing from the tent.A Gaza-born poet and librarian, Abu Toha writes from the everyday experience of siege, family, and the search for normalcy under bombardment.
  8. 08SumudSteadfastness — the word Gaza keeps demonstrating.Steadfastness — the Palestinian ethic of remaining on the land and enduring, turned from a posture of survival into a way of life.
  9. 09The ICJ Genocide Case20242023–2024: the war, and the case at The Hague.The International Court of Justice orders provisional measures in South Africa's genocide case against Israel over Gaza, finding the rights claimed plausible.

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