The Palestinian visual artist and psycho-social specialist, Yusuf Al-Hindi, is striving to bring smiles to the faces of children in the Shati Refugee Camp in Gaza City amidst the ongoing Israeli war on the territory. He achieves this through crafting dolls from tent canvas and paper mache, and then presenting puppet shows to help the children escape the atmosphere of war, bombardment, and destruction.
Al-Hindi has created a puppet that embodies the character of the child “Yousef”, who was killed by the Israeli army during their war on Gaza last October, in an effort to convey the suffering of Gaza’s children to the world. The artist remarks, “Yousef, a representation of an innocent child who committed no wrongdoing, was ruthlessly killed by the Israeli army.”
In October last year, a video went viral on social media featuring a Palestinian mother searching for her son in one of Gaza’s hospitals. She described her son to medical staff saying, “My son has curly hair and fair skin, and he’s sweet.” After a search between two hospitals and intensive care units, the doctors informed the child’s father of Yousef’s death, to which his response upon seeing his son’s body for the first time was, “Thank God.”
Al-Hindi endeavors to convey several messages to the world, most notably that thousands of innocent children lost their lives in this war, and that their rights are brutally violated through bombardment, displacement, and siege.
Despite the challenges, Al-Hindi continues to use the available materials in the environment to craft the dolls, determined to create puppet shows in the refugee camps targeting children to help them escape the atmosphere of war, bombardment, and destruction.
The artist, who is displaced from the Shati Refugee Camp for Palestinian refugees in the western Gaza City, emphasizes his commitment to bringing joy to the children by saying, “My talent, will, and desire to bring happiness to the children have made me persist in doll making despite all the difficulties.”
Al-Hindi expresses that the situation was not easy at the beginning, as sourcing raw materials was an extremely challenging task. He mentions, “I tried to use the available materials in the environment, including polystyrene, iron, and nylon, to the best of my ability.”
On a personal level, the Palestinian artist reflects on the journey of suffering and the significant difficulties he faced when fleeing from the Shati Refugee Camp to Khan Younis City in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, and subsequently further displacement towards Rafah City.
He urges the world to intervene immediately to halt the war on Gaza, save the children, and provide aid to those who remain.
Since October 7 last year, the Israeli army has waged a destructive war on Gaza, resulting in 27,365 deaths and 66,630 injuries, the majority of whom are children and women, as reported by Palestinian authorities. The situation has caused “immense destruction and an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe,” according to the United Nations.
