Bethlehem, occupied West Bank \u2013 Artists arrived with family and friends at the Bethlehem Peace Center, where a live feed connected them to a small gathering at an artist\u2019s studio in Bureij refugee camp, in the central Gaza Strip.<\/p>\n
The two exhibitions marked the opening of Anamel Falasteen, the first competition organised by Falasteen Collective, a cultural initiative launched in 2025 by Palestinian artists, filmmakers, designers and others working in arts and culture. The three-day twin exhibitions, held earlier this week, brought together young Palestinian artists whose work and opportunities to meet are separated by Israeli movement restrictions.<\/p>\n
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\u201cIn the competition, we have Palestinian artists from Jerusalem, historic Palestine, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank,\u201d said Osama Nazzal, one of the judges, speaking in Bethlehem. \u201cI don\u2019t like these divisions. I want to say all of Palestine.\u201d<\/p>\n
From his studio at Gallery Paleta in Gaza\u2019s Bureij refugee camp, amid Israel\u2019s ongoing genocidal war on the Palestinian enclave, painter and juror Ghanem Al Den sent greetings on the live feed.<\/p>\n
\u201cGreetings and peace from soul to soul, from Gaza to our sister Palestinian cities across this beloved homeland,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn this competition, many things that were lost came together. The most important thing is hope.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Painter](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/IMG_2158-1791928598.jpeg\")
Painter and juror Ghanem Al Den, speaking from his studio in Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, addresses visitors at the Bethlehem Peace Center by live feed at the opening of the Anamel Falasteen exhibition on October 13, 2026 [Leila Warah\/Al Jazeera]<\/p>\n
After the speeches, visitors had the opportunity to take a closer look at the paintings, photographs and drawings that covered the walls. Visitors moved between them, stopping to look closer, point and talk about what they saw.<\/p>\n
\u201cArtists decided to come from Hebron, from Ramallah, from Jerusalem, from Jaffa, from Nablus, despite the risk,\u201d said Mohamed Abusrour, one of the founding members of Falasteen Collective.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have a voice, they want to contribute, and they want to show the world that we still exist.\u201d<\/p>\n
Not all the works on display in Bethlehem were originals. Because of the blockade and movement restrictions, the organisers said there was no way to transport original artworks out of Gaza. Instead, they printed reproductions of the Gaza submissions and hung them alongside original pieces.<\/p>\n
For one Bethlehem visitor, the curation was what stood out. She assumed some works exploring similar themes were by the same artist. They turned out to be by different artists, some in Gaza and others in the West Bank.<\/p>\n
\u201cI sat a bit longer with some paintings, and that brought tears to my eyes,\u201d she said. \u201cThe livestream with the presence of everyone\u2019s paintings was a portal to bringing everyone\u2019s essence together.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Visitors](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/IMG_2191-1791928958.jpeg\")
Visitors look at works by young Palestinian artists from Gaza and the occupied West Bank at the opening of the Anamel Falasteen exhibition at the Bethlehem Peace Center on October 13, 2026 [Leila Warah\/Al Jazeera]Young artists document loss and everyday life<\/p>\n
The works on display reflected different ways of documenting Palestinian life, from the loss of family and home in Gaza to the traditions and everyday experiences artists want to preserve.<\/p>\n
Abusrour said the idea for the competition came from listening to artist friends describe how they could not participate or express themselves freely. He said the aim was to give young Palestinians a platform to show their work at home and abroad \u201cwithout any restriction\u201d.<\/p>\n
The competition was open to artists aged 15 to 30. About 170 applied, nearly 60 percent from Gaza, according to the organisers. A jury split between the West Bank and Gaza selected 120 works across three tracks: memory and place, land and return, and everyday heritage.<\/p>\n
The jury met daily by video, working through power and internet cuts in Gaza.<\/p>\n
\u201cDespite the lack of resources, they decided to take part, and when they decided to take part, they decided to take part with strength,\u201d Abusrour said of the artists in Gaza.<\/p>\n
Among the works shown in Gaza was The Vine Bears Witness, by Arwa Mukhaimer, a 20-year-old university student. It shows the entrance to her family\u2019s home, shaded by a grapevine. It was there, on March 30, 2024, that she received news of her father\u2019s death. He had been unable to get medical treatment during Israel\u2019s war on Gaza, she said. Five months later, she said, the house was destroyed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis painting is a memorial to what we lost, a double loss, of the father and of the place,\u201d she told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n
Two days before he died, he told her: \u201cMy darling, may God be pleased with you.\u201d She wrote those words into the painting.<\/p>\n
When she was displaced as a result of the war, she said, \u201cThe first thing I thought about was my tools.\u201d Art supplies are hard to find in Gaza, she said, and some materials never enter the Strip.<\/p>\n
The challenges facing artists extend beyond access to materials. Gaza\u2019s main art spaces, including the Eltiqa and Shababeek galleries, have been destroyed<\/a> as a result of Israeli attacks in Gaza.<\/p>\n Mukhaimer said her painting \u201chas hope and joy in it, but its meaning is painful and moving\u201d.<\/p>\n In Bethlehem, Hanan Barghouthi, 24, a visual artist from Ramallah, also chose to paint joy, but from a different place. Her painting of a Palestinian wedding is filled with bright colours, traditional symbols, and movement.<\/p>\n \u201cAll the art has become about people expressing sadness, so I want to reflect happiness, because I like to be happy,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Bringing the two exhibitions together required organisers to work around the restrictions that keep Palestinians in the two territories apart. Artists in Gaza and the West Bank live under different conditions of Israeli occupation, but both face barriers to meeting, collaborating and exhibiting together.<\/p>\n Israel has imposed a land, sea and air blockade on the Gaza Strip since June 2007<\/a>. In the occupied West Bank, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) documented 925 obstacles<\/a> restricting the movement of 3.4 million Palestinians, including in East Jerusalem, as of December 2025.<\/p>\n That separation is not accidental, said Rehab Nazzal, an artist and educator on the competition\u2019s advisory committee.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a creation of the settler colonial project,\u201d she said. \u201cBy suffocating the Palestinians with all the restrictions of movement, it intends to push the Palestinians out.\u201d<\/p>\n Abusrour said spaces like the exhibition give young Palestinians a reason to stay and continue creating.<\/p>\n \u201cYou cannot live in a place, and be called steadfast, without having a reason to live as well,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Watching the Gaza artists on screen, Barghouthi said she felt \u201cvery sad\u201d and asked herself, \u201cWhere are we and where are they?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI felt we were close to them, but at the same time far away,\u201d she said. \u201cBut emotionally, I felt they were next to us, because our works are next to each other.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bethlehem, occupied West Bank \u2013 Artists arrived with family and friends at the Bethlehem Peace Center, where a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":307111,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[3971,153,155,154,991,456,27953,5061,22836,20743,139,30228,3766],"class_list":["post-307110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-arts-and-culture","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-features","tag-gaza","tag-human-rights","tag-israel","tag-israel-palestine-conflict","tag-middle-east","tag-news","tag-occupied-west-bank","tag-palestine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307110\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/307111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Hanan](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/IMG_2283-1791928820.jpeg\")
Hanan Barghouthi, 24, a visual artist from Ramallah, looks at her painting of a Palestinian wedding on display at the Anamel Falasteen exhibition at the Bethlehem Peace Center on October 13, 2026 [Leila Warah\/Al Jazeera]Movement restrictions divide Gaza and the West Bank<\/p>\n