Walking through the narrow, maze-like streets of Nablus in the West Bank is like stepping into an open-air prison, where graffiti-ridden walls are marked with bullet holes and covered with portraits of young martyrs, where gunshots bellow in the near distance as the desperate wail of an Arab woman fills the air. It’s a hostile environment, encircled by armed Israeli soldiers, where turning the corner from one narrow alley to another feels like a game of Russian roulette.
This is the environment that greets you at the Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) exhibition — “In Between Wars” — at the Jam Jar in Alserkal Avenue, Dubai — an interactive installation that walks you through the brutal everyday reality of life in the occupied territories of Palestine.
The exhibition, which has travelled from Paris to Amman and Jordan and has now come to Dubai, aims to give people an idea of the conditions those living in the occupied territories face daily through testimonies, facts and figures and virtual reconstructions of the volatile environment.
MSF began working in Palestine in 1989 and has clinics in both the West Bank and Gaza, where it treats the war-wounded, diseased, malnourished and mentally scarred population. Seeing the hardships and horrors the people face, MSF developed this exhibition to create more awareness about a population largely forgotten by the world.
“The idea came after the 2014 Gaza war,” says Mohammed Bali, executive director of MSF UAE. The title of the exhibition was evident, because people in Palestine “are living in between wars”.
“Every few years there is an Israeli attack on Palestinians. In other conflicts, when the war is over people can start rebuilding their lives with peace and hope, but here even when the war and bombing ends, the people are still under occupation,” Bali says. “They still are unable to have a new beginning. That’s what we are trying to portray though this exhibition.”
The exhibition begins with “The Wall”, a visual timeline that illustrates the development of the occupied territories from 1947 to the present. From here, you enter the installation armed with headphones and an iPad that guide you through, offering factual information about the occupied territories as well as allowing you to come “face to face” with Palestinians who have lived through intermittent wars and prison sentences.
Walking through the virtual streets of the West Bank, visitors can read stories of some its residents while listening to their testimonies, such as that of 26-year-old Ahmad from Nablus who, like most of his family, has been in and out of Israeli prisons all his life.
“I stayed in a cell for 26 days and went on a hunger strike for 11 days. They tied up my legs and hands for four days. You don’t know the day, the date, whether it’s day or night, or anything else,” he recounts. “For me, and many others too I think ... I would rather die than be in prison.”
After hearing Ahmad’s story, visitors learn that according to human rights organisation B’Tselem — the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories — approximately 6,300 Palestinians are held in Israeli prisons, including 414 minors as of April 30. And that prisoners have provided countless testimonies, such as Ahmad’s, about the degrading and dehumanising treatment of inmates, including the use of torture.
Moving from the streets of the West Bank, visitors pass through a Palestinian home where they come across more stories of life under occupation and hear of the martyrs whose portraits hang on the living-room wall.
Outside there is a gang of children by the rubble of a bombed house, a bloodied trainer and T-shirt splayed on the debris. The Palestinian kids are laughing and posing with guns, while close-by is Ghassan Abu Jaber’s father sitting despondent amid the remains of his demolished home. A troubling juxtaposition that highlights the desperation, absurdity and tragedy of the environment.
Palestinian Ghassan Abu Jaber killed four worshippers in a synagogue in 2014. Although he was killed immediately after the attack, the Israeli High Court decided that the family house be demolished, a collective punishment strictly forbidden by international law (Fourth Geneva Convention).
The exhibition is packed with such anecdotes, bringing to life the tension, tragedy and tribulations in the occupied territories.
“It’s stories and testimonies that we’ve taken from the field, and is audio-visual so it guides you through a number of sections; you go through the Erez Crossing, to Gaza, you go through a typical Palestinian home, and then into an MSF clinic, and we try to show our audience the challenges Palestinians are facing,” says Bali.
The exhibition has generally been well-received, despite the sensitive nature of its content. However, in Paris, it was met with some indignation from Jewish groups who accused MSF of glorifying “Palestinian terrorism” through the exhibition.
Roger Cukierman, president of the CRIF umbrella group of French Jewish communities, asked the municipality of Paris to deny its facilities for the exhibition before it opened last year. The exposition “can only augment anti-Semitic violence and the terrorist threat”, CRIF wrote in a statement.
However, Bali says this is not about taking sides, or fuelling fire; rather, it reflects everyday realities of Palestinians living under occupation. “It is not a political statement, it’s more about the impact of the occupation and how it is reflected on the ground,” he says. “We decided to bring it to Dubai to show what impact the occupation is having on Palestinians. The exhibit is about showing the hardships and difficulties that people face, and that is reflected through the eyes of our staff and our patients.”
Event coordinator Nicolas Beaudouin, who was one of the producers of the exhibition and has travelled with it from Paris to Amman and now Dubai, agrees. “The reason MSF initiated the project was because it was important to us, that after over 20 years of collecting medical information, we would be able to address some of the issues going on in this area of the world,” he says.
“That’s what we tried to do by inviting the public to visit the exhibition. It’s an audio-guided tour through different scenes, and throughout those scenes we try to address different issues — the difficulties people living there face and our job as doctors, which is also sometimes very difficult.”
It’s in the section of the exhibition that focuses on Gaza where the concept of “In Between Wars” truly manifests itself. Here visitors can learn the shocking realities of the conflicts that have scourged the land over the past decade — the 2008–2009 war known as Operation Cast Lead, the 2012 conflict known as Operation Pillar of Defense, and the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict, known as Operation Protective Edge. These unforgiving wars have ravaged the land, killed thousands of innocent civilians, and left thousands injured and homeless.
“This [section of the] exhibition reflects the suffering of the Gazan people during the three wars,” says Aymen Al Djaroucha, deputy project coordinator at MSF Gaza. “Life in Gaza today is much better than during the war in 2014. However, the siege still exists and people are still suffering. But MSF is trying to do its best to help the people,” he says.
Part of the exhibition offers visitors a chance to step inside a reconstructed MSF clinic where they see a shell-shocked war-wounded child being treated in an emergency room, and hear stories of families who have lived through the Gazan wars.
Iman’s house was bombed in 2014 during Operation Protective Edge. She lost 13 members of her family and suffered severe burns all over her body. But today, Iman is determined to finish her law course after she recovers with the help of MSF. “I want to tell the world that we are suffering and we need help to make it stop,” she says.
MSF’s clinics in the occupied territories support its war-wounded civilians through a variety of services, from surgery and post-operative care to specialised dressings, occupational therapy and physiotherapy as well as mental-health counselling. “In Gaza, at the moment we mainly have post-operative support, such as treating patients after surgery and following up on the patients in our post-operation clinics,” says Al Djaroucha.
Without this aid, most Palestinians would get little to no medical support, with the blockade on Gaza making it incredibly difficult for hospitals to obtain the necessary medication and supplies.
Before leaving the installation, however, visitors hear from Dr Abu Abed, an MSF doctor and Palestinian from Gaza, who emphasises that although MSF’s work is vital, the long-term solution for the people of Palestine must come from the international community.
“Gaza needs more than MSF, it needs a decision from the international comity,” says Abed. “I think the people have suffered enough in Gaza. They deserve to have a free life, a state ... where they can think about development — not think about wounded people ... violence and rockets. I think they deserve to be normal, like other people.”
Faris Al-Jawad is a writer with GN Magazines.
“In Between Wars” at the Jam Jar, Alserkal Avenue, is open daily from 10am to 8pm until November 28. Entry is free.
