Meet the artists and artworks that express Palestinian suffering and resistance to Israel’s colonial occupation. Both artists and artworks were exhibited at ‘the Palestine Solidarity Forum: One Year of Gaza Massacre, Resistance and Solidarity Continue’ on October 5th, 2024. Curated by Joumana, a Palestinian (third generation diaspora) in Korea. (한국어로 보기)
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Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008)

Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008) was a Palestinian poet and author from Al-Birwa in the Western Galilee. As a child survivor of the Nakba whose family was in exile, he wrote about Palestine and his deep sense of belonging to the land that was being taken away. During his lifetime, Darwish became politically active, becoming a PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) member and even being elected to the PLO Executive Committee. He wrote the Declaration of Independence of Palestine in 1988.
Poem: On This Land
There’s on this land
what is worth living,
The recurring of April,
the smell of bread at dawn,
A woman’s amulet for men ,
Aeschylus’s writings,
the beginning of love,
Grass on a stone,
mothers standing on the thread of a flute,
and the invaders fear of memories.
There’s on this land what is worth living,
The end of September,
A lady leaving the forties
with all its apricot,
The hour of sunlight in prison,
Clouds imitating a flock of creatures,
A people’s cheers for those going up
to their doom, smiling
and the tyrants fear of songs.
There’s on this land what is worth living,
There’s on this land,
the lady of lands,
the mother of the beginnings
and of the ends.
It was called Palestine
Its name later became Palestine
My lady: I deserve,
since you’re my lady,
I deserve life
Naji Al-Ali (1938-1987)

Naji Al-Ali (1938-1987) was a Palestinian political cartoonist from Al-Shajara, a village between Tiberias and Nazareth. His family was exiled to Lebanon during the Nakba, where they lived in refugee camps, including Ain-al Hilweh and Shatila.

Handala is one of Al-Ali’s most famous works. It depicts a young boy between the ages of eight and ten, with his back turned to us (the viewer). Al-Ali explains that this boy represents him as a young boy who was forced to leave his natal home and land. Handala will not grow up and will “reveal his face to the readers again only when Palestinian refugees return to their homeland.”
He was assassinated in London in 1987 outside the office of a Kuwaiti newspaper, Al Qabas, by a double agent working for the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency.
Edward Said (1935-2003)


Edward Said (1935-2003) was a Palestinian-American philosopher, academic, literary critic, and political activist from Jerusalem. Exiled to Egypt after the Nakba, he pursued higher studies in the United States, where he graduated with a Bachelor’s in English from Princeton University and a Master of Arts and Doctorate in Philosophy from Harvard University in 1960 and 1964. He taught at many prestigious institutions, including Stanford, Yale, and Columbia University.
He is widely known for his book Orientalism (1978), which critiques the cultural representations that shape how the Western world perceives the Orient.
He also wrote about Culture and Imperialism (1993) and The Question of Palestine (1979).
Ghassan Kanafani (1936-1972)


Ghassan Kanafani (1936-1972) was a Palestinian author and politician from Acre. During the Nakba, his family was forced out of their village, which led them to settle in Damascus, Syria. Knafani was politically active throughout his years studying at the University of Damascus, where he was eventually expelled for affiliations with the Movement for Arab Nationalists. Later, he joined the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and became its spokesperson.
He wrote many books related to Palestine and the Nakba. His most famous books include Men in the Sun (1962), Return to Haifa (1970), and All That’s Left to You (1966).
He and his 17-year-old niece, Lamees Najim, were assassinated in Beirut by a bomb planted by the Mossad in his car.
📺 Ghassan Kanafani and the era of revolutionary Palestinian media | The Listening Post (Feature)
Fatima Bernawi (1939-2022)

Fatima Bernawi (1939-2022) is an Afro-Palestinian freedom fighter from Jerusalem.
During the Nakba, her family faced forced displacement and had to separate, sending her and her mother to a refugee camp.
She is one of four Palestinian women who joined the resistance movement as a freedom fighter before becoming a political resistor.
Before that, Fatima worked as a nurse in Qalqilya, where she saw first-hand the violence committed towards Palestinians by the Israeli Occupation Forces.
Throughout her career as a freedom fighter, she planned armed operations in Palestine, being the first woman to do so. One of her plans was the attempted suitcase bombing of the Zion cinema in West Jerusalem, which was screening a film celebrating the occupation during the Six-Day War. She was seized by occupation forces and, on 19 October 1967, became the first Palestinian woman political prisoner of the contemporary Palestinian revolution.
Leila Khaled (1944—present)

Leila Khaled (1944—present) is a Palestinian militant and member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine from Haifa. During the Nakba, her family moved to Lebanon, where she studied Medicine at the American University of Beirut (AUB). Throughout her studies, she joined the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and became an active member.
On August 29th, 1969, Khaled was part of a team that hijacked a flight from Rome to Tel Aviv, diverting the plane to Damascus instead. The PFLP leadership thought that Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli ambassador to the United States, would be on board the plane, but this was not the case. Nevertheless, none of the passengers were injured, and Khaled became the first woman to hijack a plane.
📺 https://youtu.be/O6ACFpHWhp0
Samia Halaby (1936—present)

Samia Halaby (1936—present) is a Palestinian-American artist, sculptor, activist, educator, and scholar from Jerusalem. Her family fled to Beirut and Cincinnati, Ohio, after being displaced in 1948 by the Nakba.
Although her art is primarily abstract, with bright colors and geometric shapes, Halaby has used it politically to bring attention to Palestine and the violence and oppression against Palestinians, such as in her Kafr Qasm series.
Today, her works are exhibited in museums, including the Guggenheim in New York and the Arab Institute of Art in Paris.




Sliman Mansour (1947—present)

Sliman Mansour (1947—present) is a Palestinian painter, sculptor, author, and cartoonist from Birzeit, in the North of Jerusalem. He is regarded as a leading figure in contemporary art in Palestine. His works contributed to the Liberation Art movement of the First Intifada and continue to do so today. His paintings depict important elements from Palestinian culture and heritage as well as life under Israeli occupation.




Mona and Mohammed El-Kurd (1998- present)


Mona and Mohammed El-Kurd (1998- present) are Palestinian twin brothers and sisters from the village of Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem. They have been politically active since a young age, as their home was seized multiple times by Israeli settlers. In May of 2021, several families from their village, including themselves, were threatened with eviction from their homes. In response to this, they organized the Save Sheikh Jarrah campaign on social media to show settler violence against the Palestinians in their village and the injustices they are facing. They are still very active on social media and continue raising awareness about the Palestinian cause.
📺 East Jerusalem: Sharing our house with Israeli settlers in Sheikh Jarrah
Ahed Tamimi (2001-present)


Ahed Tamimi (2001-present) is a Palestinian activist from the village of Nabi Saleh in Ramallah. Throughout her life, she has always been affected by Israeli apartheid, going through checkpoints and struggling with identity cards. She and her family have been subject to humiliation, detention, and violence from the IOF at several events. Her first time going viral on the Internet was due to her courage and resilience in the face of the oppressor: In 2012, at 11 years old, she confronted an Israeli soldier arresting her mother. In 2017, she slapped an Israeli soldier who had shot her cousin, Mohammed Al-Tamimi, in the head with a rubber-coated bullet. She remains today a symbol of hope and resistance for Palestinians worldwide.

Sohail Salem (1974—present)

Sohail Salem (1974—present) is a Palestinian artist from Gaza. He received his Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts from Al-Aqsa University in Gaza in 1999. He has also done residencies in Geneva, Switzerland, and Paris, France, in 2005 and 2010, respectively.
Sohail still lives in Gaza today and has been drawing sketches and publishing them on Instagram since the beginning of the genocide.



Heba Zagout (1984-2023)

Heba Zagout (1984-2023) was a Palestinian artist and educator from Gaza. She received a diploma in graphic design from Gaza Training College and graduated with a Bachelor’s in Fine Arts from Al-Aqsa University in 2007. She was also an educator at the UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees).
Her art focused on Palestinian heritage and culture, depicting women wearing traditional dresses and symbolic places such as the Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem.
She and two of her children were killed in an Israeli airstrike in October of 2023.


Hiba Abu Nada (1991-2023)

Hiba Abu Nada (1991-2023) was a Palestinian poet, novelist, and nutritionist from Gaza. She graduated with a Bachelor’s in biochemistry from the Islamic University and a Master’s in clinical nutrition from Al-Azhar University, both in Gaza. Aside from her career in nutrition, Abu Nada wrote several poems and novels about life under occupation and siege. Oxygen is not for the dead is a collection of her poems that won her 2nd Place in the Sharjah Award for Arab Creativity in 2017. Up until her death, Abu Nada wrote poems daily about her enduring the genocide. She was killed by an Israeli airstrike on her home in October 2023.
Not Just Passing
Yesterday, a star said
to the little light in my heart,
We are not just transients
passing.
Do not die. Beneath this glow
some wanderers go on
walking.
You were first created out of love,
so carry nothing but love
to those who are trembling.
One day, all gardens sprouted
from our names, from what remained
of hearts yearning.
And since it came of age, this ancient language
has taught us how to heal others
with our longing,
how to be a heavenly scent
to relax their tightening lungs: a welcome sigh,
a gasp of oxygen.
Softly, we pass over wounds,
like purposeful gauze, a hint of relief,
an aspirin.
O little light in me, don’t die,
even if all the galaxies of the world
close in.
O little light in me, say:
Enter my heart in peace.
All of you, come in!