Drawing the Kafr Qasem Massacre

2017 winner
Drawing the Kafr Qasem Massacre
Publisher: Schilt Publishing
Published Date: January 2017
ISBN-13: 978-9053308745

The 1956 Kafr Qasem massacre was carried out by the Israeli Border Police under cover of the tripartite attack on Egypt by England, France, and Israel. Two other massacres took place during the ensuing days in the cities of Rafah and Khan Younis, where over 400 Palestinian civilians were slaughtered by Israeli troops on their way to Egypt. In Kafr Qasem, an artifice was created to provide a fig-leaf excuse for the killing of innocent people — a curfew announced less than a half an hour before it was implemented. Workers returning home, tired and hungry, unaware of the curfew, were cold-bloodedly shot dead by members of the Israeli Border Police. Based on interviews with survivors, Samia Halaby created a set of documentary drawings on the subject. The emotions of anger and fear leap from every page of this book, enabling the reader to bear witness to the terrible suffering endured by the inhabitants of this small Palestinian village.

Review(s):

Reviewed by: Ramona Wadi

An important contribution to the preservation of Palestinian memory, Drawing the Kafr Qasem Massacre confronts Israel’s efforts to consign it to oblivion through the dimensions of textual narrative and art. Palestinian artist Samia Halaby describes her work in this book as “documentary drawing”; she has produced a work of immense...

Author(s):

Winners of the Palestine Book Awards

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