‘Bulletproof Dreams’: Paintings by Gazan Children Displayed in Turkiye

Turkiye displays paintings by Gazan children. (Photo: via Communications Directorate website)

By Palestine Chronicle Staff  

Türkiye’s Directorate of Communications has opened an art exhibit consisting of paintings and drawings by the children of Gaza.

The exhibition, under the title ‘Bulletproof Dreams: Gaza Child Artists Exhibition’, was opened in Taksim Square in Istanbul on December 29, with the participation of Türkiye’s First Lady Emine Erdogan and Turkish Communications Director Fahrettin Altun.

“The exhibition aims to raise international awareness through the medium of art by conveying the feelings, traumas, pain and distressing conditions endured by children witnesses to the war in Gaza following the Israeli attacks,” Türkiye’s Directorate of Communications wrote on its website.

The exhibit is based on the painting drawn by six-year-old Gaza resident Mona, who witnessed her mother being targeted with a rocket and the subsequent massacre of 26 members of her family during “Operation Cast Lead”, carried out by Israel in Gaza in 2008-09.

“It features a selection of 266 artworks collected by Aytekin and preserved until today, some of which were drawn by Gazan children who lost their lives in the subsequent attacks,” the Directorate explained.

The exhibition will be open to visitors until January 29.

“There is a pressing need to amplify the voices of Palestinian children, whose fundamental right to life has been unjustly stripped away, leaving them in a state of perpetual uncertainty regarding their future and even their very survival and shed light on the immense suffering endured by these children,” the Turkish First Lady said, urging the international community to “act as soon as possible”.

“We longed for a future worthy of human dignity for Palestinian children 14 years ago. Today, Gaza has become the city of unidentified martyred children,” she added.

Presidency’s Director of Communications, Fahrettin Altun, highlighted “the dire condition of the victimized and oppressed children of Gaza, who are left unprotected by the international community”.

“The oppression of Israel is no longer justifiable. Because each line and brush stroke in these paintings distinguishes between good and evil, innocent and cruel, and just and unjust,” Altun added.

According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health,  22,438 Palestinians have been killed, and 57,614 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7.

Palestinian and international estimates say that the majority of those killed and wounded are women and children.

(The Palestine Chronicle)

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