“The war will end
The leaders will shake hands
The old woman will keep waiting for her martyred son
The girl will wait for her beloved husband
And those children will wait for their hero father
I don’t know who sold our homeland
But I saw who paid the price”
—The War Will End by Mahmoud Darwish
♒This is an aftermath story of Gaza, following the 2014 50-day war between Israel and Hamas, that claimed the lives of more than 2,150 Palestinians, wounded more than 100,000 and displaced more than 300,000 people. I traveled to Gaza to witness the devastation. I took a series of portraits of people living in the ruins of what used to be their homes. I intentionally shot them at night because my conceptual theme for this story was people who have experienced the darkness of Gaza’s devastation physically and psychologically. This was something I wanted to shed light on. However, such a devastated situation has continued and escalated. People in Gaza are now virtually experiencing ethnic cleansing.
Text & Photographs by Q. Sakamaki
No Place To Go:ᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚ Assan Mohamed Najar (30) with his visually impaired wife Tahreer Adnan Najar (27), who was nine months pregnant during the air strikes. The couple has not moved from here
✅Eman Al-Najar (23) saw her home destroyed and her brother killed by the Israel Defense Forces during the 50-day war. She has been living in a tent with her family not very far from her home.
𝔉Hasna El-Moghani (65), Dina El-Moghani (20) and her son Anas (3) outside their destroyed house. The family hasn’t moved from here.
ꦛAbed Raboo Mussa Abu JamaÕa (67) and his wife Mazuna Abu JamaÕa (65) lost their home that summer. They live in tent where the house once was
(This appeared in the print as 'The Presence Of Absence')
