There was a stall on the market on Thursday selling booklets of photographs in aid of a family in Gaza. There were two volumes - the first shows what Gaza looked like in 2023, and the second shows the devastation since October 2023.
There's a short introduction to the first volume, explaining why Simo (Salama Al-Lada) made the booklet. He says it is to tell the truth about the blockade of Gaza by Israel, that was tightened up when he was seven years old. He grew up with Israeli checkpoints opening and closing at arbitrary times, meaning (for instance) that patients were unable to get to hospitals for treatment, and with Israel controlling all goods that went into Gaza.
One of the pictures shows the fence that surrounds Gaza, with the Israeli army on one side and Palestinian protesters on the other. "Do you notice the difference?" he asks in the caption. "The difference is the Palestinian's fighting with his voice and the Israeli is fighting with weapons, artillery and tanks."
This is the background to the terrible events of October 7th, 2023, as shown through the photos of an ordinary young man living in Gaza. He, and others like him, were trying to get information out to the rest of the world about what living in Gaza was like and why they wanted it to change.
I didn't get the second volume (but I will if the stall comes back), but that shows how life changed for everyone in Gaza after October 7th.
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