At Italy exhibition, Palestinian artists stand in solidarity with Gaza

Italy's port city of Naples has been home to a vibrant Palestinian community for several decades. It is hosting this month the country's inaugural Palestinian art exhibition, which includes a wide array of works from the community.

The event in southern Italy is uniting both Palestinian and local artists who are standing in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza amid the Israeli onslaught that has killed more than 25,000 people – largely women and children.

Nestled along Naples' mazy crowded streets at the heart of the historical palace in the city is "Falastin Hurra" (or Free Palestine) art exhibition, which underscores the city's solidarity with Palestinians, based on resistance to military aggressors.

The Italians faced the Nazis during World War II and the Palestinians endured ethnic cleansing following the Nakba or catastrophe in 1948 when Zionist militias displaced 750,000 Palestinians and slaughtered another 15,000 to establish the State of Israel.

The deep multi-decade bond developed in 1960 as Naples became a twin city of Palestine’s Bayt Lehm or Bethlehem while a similar deal took place in 2005 with the city of Nablus. It was solidified in 2013 as Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas gained honorary citizenship in Naples.

Early this month, the Falastin Hurra exhibition began amid a barrage of Israeli air strikes, killing prominent Palestinian cultural creators like Hiba Abu Nada and Inas al Saqa and provoking a rebuke from the Palestinian Ministry of Culture.

"The war on culture has always been at the heart of the aggressors' war on our people, as the real war is a war on the narrative to steal the land and its rich treasures of knowledge, history, and civilisation, along with the stories it holds," it said in a statement.

The exhibition takes place as local journalists say legacy media has portrayed Israel's onslaught against Gaza in isolation since early October. A month later they signed a petition with more than 600 signatures calling for a "fairer" media coverage as many in Italy’s art world have rejected such media bias.

"We needed to raise the bar when it comes to the discussion about the conflict since all the media are extremely focused only on what happened on October 7 while this is something that has been going on for more than 70 years," Giansandro Morelli, 51, one of the curators, tells TRT World.

Amid the strife in Gaza, curators insist the Italian legacy media ignores this reality, continuing to dehumanise Palestinians.

The exhibition is being held in one of the most prestigious halls inside the historical palace Complesso di San Domenico Maggiore, where a large fresco from the 18th century on the front wall oversees the 100 images depicting the hardships of the Palestinians.

The display of artworks profiled by Palestinian, French, American, and Italian authors is accompanied by a timeline detailing the complete history of military occupation until October 7. It has been curated by Naples' university students who also joined the pro-Palestine march on January 13 calling for an end to the 'genocide'.

Morelli describes the stark visual nature of the pieces as having an immediate "unvarnished" quality that he says has impacted visitors.

"A lot of friends and colleagues who came to visit the exhibition told me they couldn’t erase those drawings from their minds," he adds.

Palestinians showcasing their work

While Palestinian artwork in the West is often subjected to stringent censorship, the complete opposite appears true in Naples.

For Palestinian artists like Naji Al-Ali – who despite sharing the same family name is not related to the prominent Palestinian cartoonist killed in 1987 – it has been an opportunity to proudly display his detailed craftsmanship.

In his mid 20s, Naji Al-Ali was born in Dubai and grew up as part of the diaspora..

His grandfather was forcibly displaced by the IDF in 1950 and moved to Qatar while his mother's family was forced to leave Jaffa in the early '70s amid the Israeli occupation - shortly after seizing the West Bank from Jordan in 1967.

Despite living in Jordan, Italy has allowed Naji Al-Ali to build a new community while feeling close to his Palestinian roots.

"I have travelled a lot, and I feel most at home in Naples: Jordan is the closest I can get to Palestine, but the people in Naples are like the Palestinians," he added.

Naji Al-Ali, says his earliest memories involve using a pencil and a pad.

"And I would always look through his books and basically learn how to draw by copying his drawings and later progressed," he told TRT World, referencing his namesake's influence on his development as an artist.

Naji Al-Ali’s depiction of the Handala, a prominent national symbol of the community's resistance, "was one of the first things I learned to draw".

His Handala depicts a 10-year-old refugee appearing with his back to the viewer. It symbolises how the world has turned its back on the Palestinian cause – a strong feeling for many Palestinians living in exile today.

Last September, while visiting Italy, he met activists at the Handala Ali Cultural Centre in Naples. It paved the way for their participation at the Falastin Hurra exhibition with two artworks and the creation of a mural for the Centre.

In Naji Al-Ali’s expressive piece, a bird — a poignant symbol of peace — is depicted carrying a key from Vesuvio, the iconic volcano that dominates Naples' landscape, all the way to Palestine.

In a colourful tribute to the city, the Handala is adorned in a shirt paying homage to the beloved Argentine football player Diego Armando Maradona, revered by the citizens of Naples for helping the local club Napoli win the league on two occasions.

As a form of artwork, Naji Al-Ali believes comics are the best way to inform a wide audience about the impact of Israeli aggression.

"Instead of focusing on the problem, I imagine a world where the solution has already come to terms (become reality). All my drawings are usually based in the future where Palestine is free."

As part of the diaspora, Naji Al-Ali says he feels the weight of responsibility to depict Palestine in its full splendour which is free from military occupation.

His signature artwork called Lemonback explores this liberation through a character – a lemon head with reptilian eyes living in an age where Palestinians no longer need to resist against Israeli occupation.

The lemon symbol pays homage to his mother's hometown, Yafa, a Palestinian city known for its citrus.

When October 7 happened, he recalls, he was still in Jordan. As the news rolled in, he was glued to the news for 10 hours straight amid the devastating stories of generations of families being killed.

Witnessing the onslaught, he says, has had a deep impact on him and his artwork.

"It's very draining, but it pushes you to create more artwork that resembles the cause and feeds into the resistance," he says.

'Never surrender'

For other artists, like 45-year-old Mohammad Sabaaneh, defiance of Israeli aggression runs deep.

The prominent intellectual from Palestine has also been working as a cartoonist since 2002 and was in Italy amid Hamas’ incursion into Israel on October 7 that left 1,200 Israelis dead.

As Israel launched its barrage of air strikes, Sabaaneh says those closest to him warned him not to return.

However, two days later he returned to his hometown, Jenin.

"All of my people and my publisher asked me to stay, but I refused. This is our land. This is our right and we will never surrender," he told TRT World.

Sabaaneh recently published his first comic book in Italy and has several of his artworks on display at the exhibition, showing life in a refugee camp.

Today, he is also an active member of the Cartoon Movement, a global online platform for editorial cartoons and comics journalism.

As dozens of visitors have flocked to see the artworks, the exhibition has relied largely on social media and word of mouth.

On January 12, organisers hosted a vigil for the journalists killed during the war and mobilised for an end to hostilities.

While the exhibition is entirely self-financed and admission is free, the curators hope to raise sufficient funding to send voluntary health workers to Gaza or to restore a hospital in Jenin.

After Naples, the exhibition is set to move on to other cities, including Matera, Florence, Bologna, and Palermo, featuring popular Palestinian artists such as Leila Abdelrazaq and Fuad Alymany.

After Italian artist Francesca Ghermandi spread the word, hundreds of illustrators worldwide, including Japan, Brazil, and Italy, have shared their version of Handala, Naji al-Ali's iconic character.

As Palestinians push to share experiences of living with the impact of ethnic cleansing, Naples' art world appears to provide a platform where they can do this free of censorship.

Sabaaneh also believes the cartoon exhibition in Naples helps push back against negative portrayals of Palestinians.

He says, "By participating in all these activities, especially the cartoon, we demolish the Israeli propaganda. We prove that we, as Palestinians, have heritage and culture. We are not barbaric."