#Majd Arandas

[zegalba]

Majd Arandas: 'My Grandmother' (2022).

"Palestinian women knew where they lived by their embroidered dresses that distinguish each city from the other,"

[kaalbela]

Majd Arandas

Majd Arandas (1994-2023) was a Palestinian photographer and journalist killed by an Israeli airstrike in November, 2023. He was 29. A self-taught photographer, his work aimed to document and celebrate life in the Gaza Strip, excavating pockets of optimism and resistance amidst loss and destruction.

[vincekris]

Majd Arandas

Gaza à travers le regard d’un photographe tué dans une frappe aérienne

Le photographe Majd Arandas tentait de saisir la beauté du quotidien dans la bande de Gaza, avant que les bombardements israéliens ne le tuent le 1er novembre

[edwordsmyth]

Shots of Gaza taken by photographer Majd Arandas. Arandas was killed on 1 November, 2023 in an Israeli airstrike in Nuseirat refugee camp (where he was also born).

[bossymarmalade]

Photographs from Majd Arandas’s series My Grandmother (2022), documenting his grandmother Bahja Arandas, who was displaced from her native Isdud to the Gaza Strip after the Nakba in 1948. “Palestinian women knew where they lived by their embroidered dresses that distinguish each city from the other,” Bahja Arandas told her grandson.

Majd Arandas’s last photograph taken November 1, 2023. According to his brother, he stopped to take a photograph of this car in the aftermath of an explosion before they heard the blast that killed him. 

[ x ]

[kummatty]

His love for Gaza shone through in his photographs, seen in his steadfast portrayals of joy and beauty. Whimsical compositions by the sea depict young boys jumping and playing. In a series of works focused on his grandmother, a survivor of the 1948 Nakba who was displaced from her native village of Isdud, Arandas portrays her as a symbol of strength and perseverance in Gaza, zooming in on her weathered hands harvesting olives against deep fertile earth. Traces of personal and cultural histories can be seen in the crisp light of ripe olives and the details of intricate embroidery adorning her hanging dress.

“Where can I begin talking about Gaza and Palestine, and how can I begin when I know that I am the living dead? Everyone who writes about Palestine has prepared himself to be among the dead, but despite our prior knowledge of our fate when we write and write about this land, we do not stop or for a moment hesitate to inhale her love,” he reflected.

Remembering Gaza Photographer Majd Arandas, Killed by Israeli Airstrikes

[photoarchive]

Majd Arandas, Untitled, 2022

[kaalbela]

Photograph from Palestinian photographer Majd Arandas’s series My Grandmother (2022).

“Palestinian women knew where they lived by their embroidered dresses that distinguish each city from the other” Bahja Arandas told her grandson. Majd was killed by an Israeli airstrike near his home in central Gaza on 1 November, 2024.

[ktdigitalmarketing]

Last year, Palestinian photographer Majd Arandas was forced to sell his camera to make ends meet. 

[iam-the-wild]

Photograph by Majd Arandas from the series My Grandmother (2022), documenting his grandmother Bahja Arandas, who was displaced from her native Isdud to the Gaza Strip after the Nakba in 1948 (photo courtesy Mohamed Somji/Gulf Photo Plus)

Majd Arandas, “Untitled” (2022) (photo courtesy Mohamed Somji/Gulf Photo Plus)

Majd Arandas, “Untitled” (2022) (photo courtesy Mohamed Somji/Gulf Photo Plus)

Photograph from Majd Arandas’s series My Grandmother (2022). “Palestinian women knew where they lived by their embroidered dresses that distinguish each city from the other,” Bahja Arandas told her grandson. (photo courtesy Mohamed Somji/Gulf Photo Plus)

Majd Arandas’s last photograph taken November 1, 2023. According to his brother, he stopped to take a photograph of this car in the aftermath of an explosion before they heard the blast that killed him. (photo courtesy Mou’ayad Arandas)

Photos and captions:

[houseofpurplestars]

I wanted to copy the text from this thread here for anyone who can't use twitter and also as a back-up should we lose the twitter thread. To see the thread with pictures, you can use this link:

Twitter thread text:

[Pictures in this thread are by Majd Arandas (1994-2023), a brave Palestinian photographer who captured everyday life in Gaza, where he was born in the Nuseirat refugee camp. Such gentleness destroyed by this ugly Israeli war]

Vijay Prashad

@vijayprashad

[Thread on the question of Hamas] Two things that require some consideration. 1. The demand by the warmongers that people who call for the ceasefire must condemn Hamas. 2. The strange framework adopted by the media that this is an Israel-Hamas war.

Form of struggle is not the issue for their critics: the real issue is that they struggle. Condemnation of Hamas is not what is demanded. What is demanded is a condemnation of the Palestinian struggle, which is not by itself coterminous with Hamas but in which Hamas is a part. Hamas was formed in 1987. The Naqba (Catastrophe) of the Palestinians took place in 1948. For 39 years, the Palestinians struggled for an end to the Permanent Naqba, for their land & for justice. Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement) is only one flank of the Palestinian resistance.

For 75 years, Palestinians – through a range of means – have struggled to get their voice for justice heard. When they have used armed struggle, they've been criticised; when they've used non-violent struggle, they've been criticised.

The @IDF and the Israeli settlers have been killing and evicting Palestinians in the West Bank, where Hamas has minimal organization: but that violence in the West Bank, the permanent Naqba, is conducted now in the name of fighting ‘Hamas’.

There's simply no condemnation of Hamas that is not at the same time a condemnation of the Palestinian resistance.

It's been convenient for those who are against Palestinian emancipation to reduce the entire tradition of struggle to Hamas, to demonise Hamas, & then to effectively demonise the Palestinian resistance movement.

This is not an Israeli war on Hamas, but it is an Israeli war on the Palestinian resistance and on Palestinians in total. The dead are not Hamas, but they are killed in the name of an Israeli campaign to obliterate ‘Hamas’, which is the obliteration of the Palestinian people.

The bulldozers in northern Gaza are not to dig for the tunnels but to destroy Palestinian homes and make way for their expulsion.

8 years ago, I wrote, ‘Israeli occupation is a failure’ (https://newarab.com/opinion/occupation-cannot-hold-back-palestinians-forever). I meant that it cannot succeed in the completion of the Permanent Naqba. It will always produce Palestinian resistance.

You can yell ‘Hamas, Hamas’ as much as you want, but that scare tactic will no longer work. After the 2014 bombing of Gaza, I wrote this poem, called ‘What You Bomb’ (https://counterpunch.org/2014/07/22/what-you-bomb/).

The poem ends ends with this line:

‘What you bomb is not Hamas. It is Palestine. Not a dream, but a people. Not a refugee camp, but a country alive in its peoples’ hearts’.

Highly recommend this informative thread about Hamas and why zionists want you to condemn them:

"There's simply no condemnation of Hamas that is not at the same time a condemnation of the Palestinian resistance.

It's been convenient for those who are against Palestinian emancipation to reduce the entire tradition of struggle to Hamas, to demonise Hamas, & then to effectively demonise the Palestinian resistance movement."

[kaalbela]

Photograph by Majd Arandas from the series My Grandmother (2022), documenting his grandmother Bahja Arandas, who was displaced from her native Isdud to the Gaza Strip after the Nakba in 1948. Majd was killed by an Israeli airstrike near his home in central Gaza on 1 November, 2024.

[antisisyphus]

I do not speak/read Arabic so I cannot match pictures to names but here is a list of names of journalists killed during the Gazan genocide. Not all the journalists listed here are Palestinian.

Abdullah Darwish, Montaser Al-Sawaf, Adham Hassouna, Mostafa Bakeer, Mohamed Mouin Ayyash, Mohamed Nabil Al-Zaq, Ayat Khadoura, Alaa Taher Al-Hassanat, Bilal Jadallah, Abdelhalim Awad, Sari Mansour, Hassouneh Salim, Mostafa El Sawaf, Amro Salah Abu Hayah, Mossab Ashour, Ahmed Fatima, Farah Omar, Rabih Al Maamari, Yaacoub Al-Barsh, Ahmed Al-Qara, Yahya Abu Manih, Mohamed Abu Hassira, Mohamed Al Jaja, Mohamad Al-Bayyari, Mohammed Abu Hatab, Majd Fadl Arandas, Iyad Matar, Imad Al-Wahidi, Majed Kashko, Nazmi Al-Nadim, Yasser Abu Namous, Duaa Sharaf, Jamal Al-Faqaawi, Saed Al-Halabi, Ahmed Abu Mhadi, Salma Mkhaimer, Mohammed Imad Labad, Roshdi Sarraj, Mohammed Ali, Khalil Abu Aathra, Sameeh Al-Nady, Mohammad Balousha, Issam Bhar, Abdulhadi Habib, Yousef Maher Dawas, Salam Mema, Husam Mubarak, Issam Abdallah, Ahmed Shehab, Mohamed Fayez Abu Matar, Saeed al-Taweel, Mohammed Sobh, Hisham Alnwajha, Shai Regev, Assaad Shamlakh, Mohammad Al-Salhi, Mohammad Jarghoun, and Ibrahim Mohammad Lafi

These are journalists injured

Mohammed El Sawwaf, Montaser El Sawaf, Issam Mawassi, Thaer Al-Sudani, Maher Nazeh, Elie Brakhya, Carmen Joukhadar, Dylan Collins, Ibrahim Qanan, Christina Assi, Firas Lutfi

And these are journalists that are missing (as of December 3rd)

Oded Lifschitz, Nidal Al-Wahidi, Haitham Abdelwahid