Women stitch through the genocide
A massive embroidery is being created so that the world does not forget the Palestinian genocide. The embroiderers are answering a plea from a poet who died in an Israeli air strike.
Gazan Refaat Alareer had written “If I must die, you must live to tell my story” just five weeks before being killed. Women from Gaza, the West Bank and across the world took up needle and thread to respond to his wish.
Palestinian embroidery is a craft handed down through the generations. The work records the women’s lives and you can even tell their village from the designs. The UN agency UNESCO, has recognised tatreez as it is known as an “intangible cultural heritage”.
After Israel was created in 1948, Palestinians were forcibly removed from their villages and scattered. The sewing became even more important as a form of defiance and resistance, keeping the memory of the homeland alive.
And with the genocide in Gaza, tatreez has become even more important. One of the 100 panels being produced depicts Hind Rajab, a child who was killed by hundreds of bullets from an Israeli tank. Israeli forces also murdered two paramedics who tried to save her. Another depicts a woman weeping over four tiny shrouds and another of a man on fire.
“The threads are mixed with tears, pain and the hope of returning home,” said Riham Khalil, who leads one arm of the project from a refugee camp in Lebanon. “This tapestry is a visual testimony to the steadfastness of the Palestinian people in the face of the ongoing war of extermination that has lasted for more than 80 years.” Her colleague designer Ibrahim Muhtadi who himself survived the onslaught in Gaza said: “The design process is usually a process of inspiration, innovation and the desire to create joyful elements.
“This time, the entire process has been like diving into grief and loss, reliving the pain and displacement we experienced, followed by starvation and the complete devastation of all aspects of life in Gaza.”
