STATEMENT
Salwa and her son Muhannad were burnt to death in their “refuge” tent in the AlBureij Refugee camp on 8th October 2024, though her husband Ahmed and their 16 year old son Muayed “survived”. This only compounded the tragedy surrounding their two siblings, Muhammad aged 20 and Mai aged 19. They were amongst the 55 Abuzour martyrs bombed by Israel on 4.12.23, and whom we are commemorating within this exhibition.
Ahmed has undergone intensive plastic surgery and continues to need medical help.
AlBureij Refugee Camp was established in 1949 with a population of 13,000 Palestinians from the broader Gaza area. A small percentage of the refugees were housed in the British army barracks but the bulk of them were housed in tents. UNRWA built concrete homes in 1950, replacing the tents. Today most of the refugees, like those in most camps in the Gaza Strip, live in densely populated buildings.
Salwa and her family were living in the AlBureij camp because they had been displaced from North Gaza by the Israel’s military. UNRWA provided the tents as “refuge”.
A recent report published by the Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor details the systematic targeting of assaults such as that in AlBureij, killing civilians in their homes, shelters, displacement camps, and humanitarian-declared zones.
NOWHERE is safe in Gaza.
Note: The images transferred onto gauze within this installation are, in the main, images of AlBureij on the day of the attack. The image in the middle, which went viral, is of 20 year old Shaaban Ahmed Al-Dalu, burning to death in the courtyard of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central Gaza Strip on 14 October 2023. He was engulfed in flames inside his tent as a result of the Israeli air strike.
Christine Dawson
2024