A Gazan artist has managed to have his art smuggled to Europe in the hope that the world remembers his people's pain as Israel prepares to extend its control of the strip.
Ahmed Muhanna has been using discarded aid boxes as canvases to portray the suffering of his people since Israel's military offensive started more than two and half years ago.
“My body is still here, in a place that still wakes up every day to fear, while my paintings have managed to cross borders and to reach you,” Mr Muhanna said, speaking from Gaza via Zoom at the launch of an exhibition of his work at the Arab World Institute in Paris.
The exhibition “is not just an art exhibition”, he added. “It's an attempt to keep the people of Gaza seen and prevent their suffering from becoming just a fleeting statistics in the news”.
A few months into the war, Mr Muhanna ran out of art supplies and started painting on food aid boxes with the dregs of Nescafe coffee and plant-based colours.
When the World Food Programme, one of the few international NGOs operating in Gaza, asked him how they could help, he answered that his paintings should be seen by the world.
“He said if you can bring my pieces of art outside, I'll be able to still be a voice even if I can't go out of Gaza,” Antoine Renard, head of public partnerships at WFP and former Palestine director, told The National.
“We managed to bring them out, otherwise we would have used [photographs],” Mr Renard said. “But to see a live piece of art in front of you, it makes a world of a difference.”
Details of how the art was smuggled out of Gaza remain confidential for security reasons.
Movement in an out of the enclave is heavily restricted by Israeli authorities. More than 72,000 Gazans have been killed since late 2023.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday that he had directed his country's army to increase control of Gaza to 70 per cent, in defiance of a US-brokered ceasefire in October.
More than 900 Gazans have been killed since the ceasefire began and Israeli strikes continue.
In September and October 2025, Mr Muhanna's exhibition travelled to nine European cities: Brussels, Gothenburg, Malmo, Copenhagen, Bremen, Bonn, Maastricht, Leuven and Lille.
A second tour started mid-May in Marseille, before heading to the French capital. Next week, it will travel to Strasbourg, Bilbao, Barcelona, Lyon and Rome.
The exhibition is staged in a portable trailer and admission is free. It is funded by the European Union.
“It's not going into a museum, it's going into public spaces,” Mr Renard said.
“What you see is a simple human being that just wants to have his voice heard. I think there's no stronger message than that.”
France's Minister Delegate for International Partnerships, Eleonore Caroit, told The National that the exhibition trailer was a practical choice that allowed the art to be seen in the same format across Europe.
“When you see those images, those paintings that are beautiful, it's something that tells much more than any figures, any words, any information you can receive as to what is happening in Gaza today,” Ms Caroit said.
“We need empathy in a world where crises come one after the other and multiply.”
Mr Muhanna said there was hope in his paintings, despite the suffering. “These paintings were not created under normal circumstances,” he said.
“They were born amidst the sounds of bombing, darkness, isolation and endless waiting.
“They were painted while we didn't know if we would live to see another day, and yet there was always something inside us that refused to give up, something that said we deserve to live,” he added.
