In the thick shadows of Gaza, a courageous photographer makes his way through the rubble and turmoil. His lens captures the harsh reality of war filtered through the eyes of children. As Israel’s land raids intensify in the Strip and the Palestinian death toll approaches 2,000, Mohammed Zaanoun entrusts a touching farewell post to social media.
He addresses “all those who have known me or have known me” for a final greeting: “We are close to meeting Allah, the Almighty, we need your prayers.” The message in Arabic, imbued with the suffering of conflict, is both a request and an offer of peace: «Forgive us if we have harmed you or committed any wrong towards you; I have forgiven you for the sake of Allah, the Almighty.”
Mohammed Zaanoun has masterfully captured the faces of children playing among the rubble, courageous women fighting to protect their families and men determined to rise again despite the atrocious destruction around them. Each photograph of him tells a moving story of survival, hope and humanity amidst chaos. They are tales of resistance and beauty that emerge even in the darkest days.
At the time of writing, more than 1,300 buildings in the Gaza Strip have been destroyed following the Tel Aviv raids, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Ocha adds that during a week of bombing in the Strip, 5,540 homes were destroyed and nearly 3,750 were damaged to the point of being uninhabitable.
Mohammed’s eye and heart have immortalized, like few others, life in Gaza, giving us unique, intense, true shots. Images of daily life that testify to the fatigue, drama and isolation of the population: fishermen forced not to trespass by Israeli lookouts, children playing among the rubble. But he also froze the dramatic images of the bombings, of the wounded transported to hospitals with makeshift means, the tumultuous funerals full of anger, desperation and hatred. A unique reportage in which Mohammed’s wide-angle lens witnessed the drama of Gaza always in the foreground, at the closest and most dangerous distance, to show it to us with human eyes in its total and naked reality.
#IsraelHamas #war #farewell #post #photographer #children #Gaza #close #meeting #Allah #forgive #mistakes