Palestinian artist Iyad Sabbah has captured the wretched turmoil of Palestinians living in war-torn Gaza with a family of seven clay figures titled ‘Worn Out’. The figures represent a real family who fled Gaza’s Shuja’iyya after the summer 2014 war between Israel and Hamas

The family appears to be fleeing, stumbling through real-life debris and rubble, their clothes stained by pigment representing blood. Depicting multi-generational family members, Sabbah seeks to graphically help humans of conscience around the world connect with the suffering and pain that permeates lives of the Palestinian people every day. 

“Shuja’iyya neighborhood is one of the places that was completely destroyed, and the idea came to my head to do something about the war, to focus on displacement of the Palestinians,” Sabbah told th eCairo Post. “The displacement scene is very influential, so the sculptures were put amid the wreckage of the destroyed houses in Shuja’iyya to show the suffering of the residents,” he said, adding that the sculptures were also placed on the beach to depict refugees immigrating illegally in order to escape from war zones.

Iyad Sabbah himself was forced to flee his house in Gaza’sSudanyya neighborhood during the bombings. The artist is a member of the General Union of Artists and a lecturer at Aqsa University in Gaza. See Iyad Sabbah website. The artist was concerned over hostility from conservative Muslims over his depicting human forms. To date this has not been an issue. 

According to the Cairo Post, at least 2,145 Palestinians were killed and 11,200 divilians injured in the latest fighting. More than 16,800 homes were destroyed according to a donor conference on Oct. 12 on Gaza Reconstruction held in Cairo and co-hosted by Norway. Note that Palestinian officials say the vast majority of the dead were civilians; Israel says half were Hamas and other gunmen. The Times of Israel reports more than 100,000 homes damaged, affecting one-third of Gaza’s population of 1.8 million.

AOC reported yesterday that 2014 Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai will donate her entire $50,000 World Children Prize to rebuilding schools in Gaza.