Gaza

ARCHITECTURE: Israeli Eyal Weizman is the founder and director of Forensic Architecture – a research group that uses architecture as an approach to investigating state violence and human rights violations. The group collaborates with artists, architects, researchers, lawyers and journalists – and sometimes with a court. Their main areas of work are Palestine and now Gaza.

LANYARD: We speak with Yahya Sarraj. Since 2019, he has had the least desirable job in the world: He is the mayor of Gaza City. In recent months, they have been preparing the plan “The Gaza Phoenix” for reconstruction – together with specialists not only from Palestine, but also from European, American and other Arab countries. A plan that was unanimously approved by all 25 municipalities in the Gaza Strip. “The Gaza Phoenix” is neither Hamas nor Fatah.

ISRAEL: The Center for Research Architecture, CRA, has developed a unique laboratory for forensic architecture with an interdisciplinary team of researchers, architects, academics, visual artists, and journalists. This is a new field of research where state violence and systemic racism are viewed with new scenarios.

CARTOON: Like other Western journalists, Sacco was not allowed to visit Gaza, but his book is poignant enough. Here we can see the American rhetoric of moderating the IDF's actions, protecting hospitals and civilians, standing in stark contrast to the continued flow of weapons designed to destroy the Gaza Strip.

FRED: Declaration of Peace, adopted by acclamation during the Lay Down Your Arms conference on February 9, 2025 at the House of Literature in Oslo.

GAZA: Never before in history, anywhere in the world, have so many children had to have an arm or leg amputated as in Gaza. Here, Katrin Glatz Brubakk became responsible for a psychosocial team of ten psychologists, counselors and social workers.

VIOLENCE: Is man fundamentally violent? History does not show exactly that. We have several examples of large societies in prehistory showing few traces of war and authoritarian rule. For example, the Stone Age can be essential for anyone who wants to say something about human evolution and nature.

ISRAEL/PALESTINE: The Palestinian Authority in Ramallah remained silent when it all broke out in Gaza. Observers had expected that the events of 7 October would almost automatically lead to a new and even more violent intifada.

MYTHS: Ilan Pappe tackles a number of the myths which, in the current situation, have come into frequent use during the decontextualization and dehistoricization of Gaza. Here he describes Hamas as a freedom movement.

GAZA: Morten Strøksnes has chosen an unconventional and gifted approach by describing the first 366 days of the war in the form of a long series of roughly chronologically arranged bullet points, which together become a representation of the war's architecture.

PALESTINE/ISRAEL:What is it like to be the UN's special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories? After the launch of the Italian book J'accuse, we spoke to Francesca Albanese – about Israel's war against Gaza, genocide, anti-Semitism and impunity, based on her specialization in international law. She talks about political, legal, psychological and epistemic violence resulting from how Israel, with the consent of the West, has oppressed the Palestinians for decades. (And what about the Oslo agreement, see the sub-section.)

ISRAEL/PALESTINE:As Atef Abu Saif writes in his new book, the Palestinians are more afraid of disappearing than of dying. He is one of the most important contemporary Arab writers, and was for a long time Minister of Culture in the Palestinian Authority.

REPORT: You don't understand where you are – indoors, outdoors, on the first floor, on the second, if a roof has collapsed, or if you're in a courtyard, or if maybe it wasn't a roof, but a floor. Every town here, even the smallest, is a fuse ready to be lit.

HEGEMONY: Will the genocide continue until the Palestinians are exterminated or forced into Egypt – or indeed until America's global hegemony is defeated? No true friend of Palestine should therefore support this hegemony's arms deliveries to Ukraine.

GAZA: Snapshots from a Gaza that is gone forever. Once upon a time, everyone passed through Gaza. And to all it was the "Athens of Asia," because it was a center of philosophy. Gaza was conquered, and was Ottoman from 1516, British from 1917, Egyptian from 1948 – and finally Israeli from 1967. In the old Gaza you saw girls in miniskirts, girls with whiskey and cigarettes, girls dancing, and girls painting at the art academy . And the Ottoman teahouse Beit Sitti was a haunt for intellectuals, musicians and artists. There was also a rock band and a yoga centre, and pizzeria Italiano and granita... But today?

REPORT: MODERN TIMES reports from inside Gaza. Because what does Hamas think about what has happened?