Palestinian artist and neighborhood organizer Dorgham Bassam Qreiqea, 28, was killed within the Shuja’iyya neighborhood of Gaza Metropolis amid the onslaught of Israeli airstrikes final Tuesday, March 18. Qreiqea, his spouse Aya Qudra, and over 30 different members of the family died within the ruins of their dwelling because the renewed assaults on Gaza yielded a loss of life toll of over 400 Palestinians in at some point. Along with his artwork observe, Qreiqea is remembered by buddies and advocates for his selflessness and for his devotion to the kids of Gaza by way of native and worldwide help teams.
Born in 1997, Qreiqea was a talented muralist, oil painter, and portrait artist who exhibited in Gaza’s since-destroyed arts areas, together with Shababeek for Up to date Artwork, the place he was meant to have his first solo exhibition in late 2023. He had a studio area at his household dwelling in Shuja’iyya, which was destroyed by the Israeli army within the final 12 months. He and his household had returned to the north through the preliminary weeks of the ceasefire settlement.
Qreiqea had all the time centered on neighborhood empowerment as an artist, working particularly to enhance and enrich the lives of Palestinian youngsters. Early into the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, he collaborated with different artists in Gaza on a masks portray challenge and accompanying public murals to encourage correct COVID-19 precautions and social distancing in marginalized areas of the Gaza Strip. Qreiqea additionally labored as a coordinator for an art-aligned youth group with the Tamer Institute for Group Training, based on a submit from the group. He maintained his artwork and advocacy observe within the aftermath of the October 7 assaults, persevering with to serve Gaza’s youngsters all through displacement, bombings, loss of life, accidents, and hunger.
Dorgham Qreiqea’s surviving work amid the rubble of his artwork studio connected to his household dwelling within the Shuja’iyya neighborhood of Gaza Metropolis (pictures courtesy Jafra Abu Zoulouf)
By collaborations with worldwide organizations akin to Hope and Play (United Kingdom), Médecins du Monde (Switzerland), the Hope Basis (Netherlands), and Associazione di Cooperazione e Solidarietà (Italy), Qreiqea hosted artwork workshops, exercise and sport circles, pool events. Final 12 months, he additionally coordinated movie screenings for youngsters in displacement camps between Deir al-Balah, Khan Younis, and Rafah metropolis by way of the Camps Cinema initiative.
“ There was one time that Dorgham and the other coordinators were screening a film in a designated safe zone in Rafah, and Israel started bombing the safe zone,” Cyprus-based Palestinian artist Jafra Abu Zoulouf, who helmed Qreiqea’s GoFundMe marketing campaign and collaborated with him on a joint artwork challenge, recounted in a cellphone name with Hyperallergic. “He sent me pictures of them watching a movie and seeing all these bombs around him exploding.”
“ In our conversations he was saying that to be surrounded by children and hearing them laugh, excited to see a movie or eat popcorn, to get into a pool with clean water, or to paint for him, was his only goal,” Abu Zoulouf continued. “Most of their days are just sitting in a tent or outside of their tent and starving, looking for water or looking for food, so this is a way to keep them occupied and entertained and to help them forget about everything that’s happening.”
Dorgham Qreiqea and Jafra Abu Zoulouf co-designed posters concerning the weaponization of humanitarian help in Gaza. (photograph courtesy Jafra Abu Zoulouf)
Abu Zoulouf additionally collaborated with Qreiqea on a research-based artwork challenge referred to as “Deadly Aid,” born from Qreiqea’s private observations of the opportunistic capitalization of humanitarian help in determined occasions. Abu Zoulouf and Qreiqea developed a collection of informational posters that have been exhibited in Cyprus and shared on the “Deadly Aid” social media account, every specializing in totally different aid-related incidents during the last 17 months.
“I can honestly say that this is the most tragic loss I’ve experienced, and I only knew Dorgham for a year,” Abu Zoulouf instructed Hyperallergic.
“We had so many plans of things that we needed to do together that I was sure that he was going to survive the genocide,” she continued. “I didn’t even think about the possibility that he might be killed.”
Abu Zoulouf added that the artist and his spouse, Aya Qudra, have been married on February 28 — lower than a month earlier than the airstrike killed them.
Qreiqea’s shut pal Khalid Abu Khater, who was with the artist hours earlier than he was killed, additionally spoke to Hyperallergic through WhatsApp messages translated by Abu Zoulouf. Qreiqea and Abu Khater solely knew one another for eight months, assembly one another whereas displaced to the southern a part of the Gaza Strip. Each working with youngsters, the pair linked and Qreiqea shared his worldwide sources for funding help.Abu Khater, who leads and fundraises for a dabke dance group for displaced and orphaned women referred to as the Rajeen Group, mentioned that Qreiqea took on a father function to lots of them and assisted their households with meals and clothes.
“I once asked him why he gives away all his money and doesn’t take care of himself, and he told me that he lives to make people happy,” Abu Khater wrote to Hyperallergic. “Even though I am older than him, he was like a mentor to me — he truly motivated me to be better.”
Khalid Abu Khater and Dorgham Qreiqea (photograph courtesy Khalid Abu Khater)
Abu Khater mentioned that he and Qreiqea have been discussing initiatives for Eid on March 17, telling Hyperallergic that “it was dangerous to go and meet him, but I missed him and really wanted to talk to him — as if I knew it was our last night together.”
“Dorgham was a brother, a friend, and everything to me during this genocide,” Abu Khater continued. “Despite the suffering, the siege and distraction, he was always calling me to tell me about people that needed help.”
In his remaining Instagram submit on February 28, Qreiqea shared images of himself along with his broken art work amid the rubble of his studio, reflecting on the saying, “Hope is not killed until the soul dies.”
“Art is my soul that will not die,” he concluded.
In accordance with buddies of Qreiqea, the artist is survived by his mom and sister, who made it to Egypt for medical therapy forward of Israel’s seizure of the Rafah Crossing final Could; his older brother Mohammad, who’s at present hospitalized in Gaza after the airstrike; and his four-year-old niece Jenin, who was discovered alive within the rubble of the assault.
