Art and war: Israeli and Palestinian artists reflect on Oct.7 and the crisis in Gaza
In Israel's cultural capital of Tel Aviv, a vibrant artistic community leaves its colorful mark with murals and other art painted throughout the narrow streets of the city's ancient Jaffa neighborhood and on the walls of businesses within the financial-centered downtown.
Within this same space is a Palestinian community that has long turned to art as a form of resistance, using it to bring light to the struggles of Palestinians in Tel Aviv, the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza.
Since Oct. 7, much of this work has turned heartbroken, mournful, angry and fearful, as members of these artistic communities confront heavy, unimaginable emotions that are bleeding into their craft.
More than 1,200 people in Israel were killed on that day and hundreds of others were kidnapped by Hamas. In response, Israel launched a now months-old war in Gaza that has killed more than 22,000 Palestinians and displaced nearly two million others.
Artists are processing the crisis in a myriad of ways: through paintings of the horrors of war, through anguished song and in dance. The work has been shared in places like Tel Aviv's Hostages Square, where protesters regularly gather to demand the release of Israeli captives being held by Hamas, and on social media, where a Palestinian diaspora say they can more safely post their work than those still living under the Israeli government.
"I think that if art can function as something, not only for the viewer, but for myself, it's to
